Brown shot public lands trophy with .300 Short Mag at 50 yards
Thirty feet up a pine tree in his climber well before sunrise, Trey Brown was in what he suspected was a perfect spot to take down a nice buck on the Jackson Bienville Wildlife Management Area last Wednesday.
On his annual end-of-the-year vacation trip to the WMA, which is located south of Ruston, Brown had found an area he was confident in overlooking a natural drain between two ridges.
“Whenever I found that spot, it was so tore up with buck sign and deer sign in general that I told my buddy and my dad I wasn’t going to shoot something in there unless it had a good set of horns on it,” said Brown, 25, of Sulphur. “I’m not a trophy hunter by any means, but when I found this kind of sign, it was some of the best sign I had seen in Louisiana.
“There just hadn’t been anybody back there, and I knew I had the area to myself.”
Brown had positioned his climber so he was facing the tree, to rest his .300 Short Mag against it and get a good shot down a 250-yard lane directly in front of him where timber had been cleared years ago.
At the crack of daylight, he immediately saw a spike, and the action only picked up from there.
“Then I could hear a doe about 100 yards from me bleating,” he said. “It sounded just like a bleat call. I had never heard that in my life. I texted my dad, and told him something was about to happen.”
Only minutes later, Brown heard a buck grunting directly behind him, and suspected it was on its way to the bleating doe. But the buck had other ideas, and because Brown was facing the tree, he was in an awkward spot to react.
“The buck got right on top of me before I saw him,” he said. “Turns out he was grunting at a different doe. He was right on a doe’s tail, just grunting right behind her.
“I got twisted all the way around and finally saw his horns, and knew it was a nice buck and something I wanted to shoot. I picked my gun up and went to turn, and my barrel banged on a limb that was straight above me. I finally got my gun under and got turned around, but he froze, and it took a second for me to find out where he was at again.”
The buck was standing directly behind a tree at about 50 yards, and all Brown could see was its horns and neck.
“After I had banged my barrel on that limb, I freaked out and thought the deer was going to bolt any second, which it probably wouldn’t have. It was on that doe, and would have probably come around in front of me,” he said. “But I wasn’t going to take a chance on that. I put the crosshairs on the deer’s neck and I shot him right in the neck, and he fell right there.”
Since a buddy was hunting about 1,000 yards away, Brown patiently waited in his climber for the better part of an hour, trying to scope the buck’s antlers but not having much luck through the thick brush. Finally, his friend shot, and Brown used that opportunity to head down and take a look at his deer.
“I climbed down and walked over to that deer and about had a stroke. I could see those big horns sticking up, and I just couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I ran over there and grabbed hold of them and texted my dad and my buddy and told them it was a monster, because originally I had told them I had shot just a nice 8-point.”
Brown had brought down a true public lands stud: the big 8-point green-scored 152 ⅝ inches Boone and Crockett, with a 17 ½-inch inside spread and 5-inch bases. The buck’s G2s measured 12 ¾- and 11-inches, and the deer weighed-in at 200 pounds-plus. Its age was estimated at between 4 ½ and 5 ½ years old.
“That body was a tank,” Brown said. “He had just started rutting hard, so he hadn’t been run down yet.
“I couldn’t believe it. I knew it was a good buck, but I had not idea it was as good as it ended up being. Even when I first put my hands on it, I knew it was the biggest I had ever killed but I didn’t know it was going to go 150 as an 8-point. It’s hard for an 8-point to go 150.”
With the monster 8-point down and eventually headed for his wall, Brown said he was really able to relax and enjoy the rest of his vacation time up at the WMA.
“After I killed that buck it made my season,” he said. “I didn’t care to kill another one. I sat a few times after that, and I just watched deer, really.”
Don’t forget to enter photos of your bucks in the Nikon Big Buck Photo Contest to be eligible for monthly giveaways and the random drawing for Nikon optics at the end of the contest.
Read other stories about big bucks killed this season by clicking here.
