On the morning of Nov. 6, Chris Maness from Athens propped his Remington 25-06 on the fence in his back yard and dropped a buck at 200 yards that may vie for a record for Claiborne Parish.
Maness is employed by the glass plant located just east of Simsboro. He hunts on family land where he lives and it has a history of bucks that roam this part of Claiborne Parish.
“I pretty well know these bucks around here,” Maness said. “In 2018, I shot the daddy and the brother of the deer I got on Nov. 6. The main beams on all three had the same bladed configuration. European mounts of these two hang on the wall at my house.”
While most hunters keep up with deer movement on the property they hunt by way of trail cameras, Maness does not use them on his property.
“On places where cameras are kept out, hunters often see lots of deer on camera, deer that never show up during daylight hours,” he said. “I spend my time maintaining food plots, scouting, looking for trails, rubs and scrapes to figure out where the deer are hanging out.”
On a mission
Health problems, including hip replacement surgery, have kept Maness from hunting his place for the past three years, but he decided to get serious about it this year.
“I got up that morning with the idea of heading for my deer stand back in the pasture,” he said. “I have a new puppy and first I had to let him out to take care of his business. I got all my gear and was prepared to drive across the pasture. I was about to head out when the sun broke through around 7:15 and I looked up to see a doe come out of the woods to my food plot. Then, another doe stepped out.”
As he watched the does on the food plot some 200 yards away, something caught his eye to the left. Just above a dip in the pasture he could see antlers. As the deer continued toward the does, he could see the body.
“The does ran back into the woods and the buck walked up and sniffed the ground where the does had been,” Maness said. “I propped my rifle on the fence and squeezed off a shot. The buck dropped on the spot.”
The buck sported a main frame 8-point rack with a split brow tine. The 4 ½-year-old buck carried 230 pounds of weight, had a 21-inch inside spread and was taken to Simmons Sporting Goods in Bastrop to be entered in that store’s big buck contest. The rack measured an even 164 inches.
“I took the rack to Johnny Durrett Taxidermy in Arcadia and he convinced me to have this one mounted instead of doing a European mount, so I agreed,” Maness said.