On Jan. 1, 2024, Blake May, 23, was sitting in his box stand in Caldwell Parish overlooking four shooting lanes when a big buck, one that had been on camera for the four previous years, came out chasing a doe. He shot; he missed.
One year later, almost to the day, on Dec. 31, 2024, May was back on his stand when the buck stepped out, and this time he didn’t miss.
May, who lives in Columbia, is a member of a 3000 acre hunting club near the village of Kelly. Replaying in his mind what happened last season, he was determined to have another chance at the buck.
“We knew the big buck was still around because we were seeing him on our trail cameras,” May said. “I was determined to get him and made up my mind to hunt this stand as often as I could just in case I had another crack at him.”
Sitting on the stand 20 times this season, he had only seen deer twice. He knew they were around because cameras had shown several deer show up after dark, but except for two occasions, he never saw them.
A big-bodied deer
The stand May hunts is situated among mixed pines and hardwoods and next to a clear cut. He is able to watch four lanes from his vantage point.
“I got on my stand around 3:30 that afternoon and, as usual, I wasn’t seeing anything,” he said. “At 5:35, a little doe stepped out of the clear cut onto one of the lanes. I was about to get down when I checked one more time, and at 5:40, four minutes before the end of shooting time, I saw the form of a big-bodied deer walking away from me. I got my gun up – I shoot a .300 Weatherby – and as the deer turned slightly, I could see a big rack and knew it was one we had targeted but didn’t know if it was the big one I had missed a year earlier.”
May took the shot and watched the deer fall but then get up and take off before collapsing 30 yards further.
Taking the buck to Simmons Sporting Goods in Bastrop to enter it in the store’s Big Buck contest, the rack had 14 scoreable points, an inside spread of 16 6/8 inches with main beams being 25 inches. The bases measured 5 inches and three measurements up the rack was still 5 inches. The buck was estimated to be 7 ½ years old and weighed 203 pounds. Simmons scored the rack at 174 4/8 inches.
Blake May’s buck was killed within a mile of the giant Caldwell Parish buck John Holliday took a few weeks earlier and had very similar antler characteristics. It went on to score 190 6/8.
