
When forced to take a shot over 250 yards at a walking buck, chances are not the best that you can connect. Chad Alston, a 47-year-old employee of UTLX, a company that manufactures railroad train tanks, found luck on his side as he tagged a big 10-point buck at that distance.
Alston, who lives in Pollock, is in his first year as a member of the 5000-acre Buckmaster Hunting Club near Robeline in Natchitoches Parish. His first encounter with the big whitetail happened three nights before he was able to have a chance at the buck when it showed up on his trail camera Friday night, Nov. 22.
“My son and I went to the club Thursday night and hunted Friday morning,” Alston said. “My feeder was jammed and not working and I got down and cleared the feeder. While working on the feeder, I found tracks around it of what I believed was a big buck. We hunted that afternoon and only saw a small buck and a yearling.”
Encouraged by the tracks, Alston and his son were back on the stand Saturday morning and he spotted a nice 8-point, but was unable to get a shot.
Alston hunts out of a box stand sitting on a high line right of way. He has a food plot out front about 250 yards long as well as a corn feeder on the line. Hunting that afternoon, no deer showed up, with the same thing taking place Sunday, as nothing was seen neither that morning nor that afternoon. However, he saw something that piqued his interest that night.
“The big buck was on my camera Sunday night around 10 p.m., so I knew he was still in the area,” Alston said.
Taking the shot
On Monday morning, Nov. 25, Alston had his wife, Cortney, with him. She doesn’t hunt but likes to go with him just to see what she can see while he hunts.
“We got in the stand early that morning and hadn’t seen anything for a while,” Alston said. “She took advantage of the quiet time to take a nap. At 8:30, I looked up and saw a deer walking at over 250 yards; it was past my food plot and was walking through tall weeds. I could see it was a buck and then spotted tall tines and knew it was a shooter.”
The buck walked to within 10 yards of the wood line and Alston felt it was now or never. If he had any chance at the buck, he had to shoot before it got in the woods.
“I got his shoulder in my scope – I shoot a Tika .270 bolt action – and when I saw the shoulder in the scope, I fired and the buck bowed up like it had been hit and then disappeared,” Alston said.
Finding the buck
Leaving the stand, he and Cortney walked down to where the buck was walking when he shot, but they didn’t find any evidence of a hit, no blood or anything.
“I called my buddy, Scott Lewis, who has a good blood trailing dog and told him to stand by; I might need him,” Alston said. “I walked in the woods where I thought the buck had gone and found him lying about 10 yards in the woods, but he was still alive. My shot to his shoulder had made it difficult for him to get up so I eased around and got a better shot and finished him off. I didn’t know it was the big one I was after until I saw the split brow tine and then knew it was him.”
The rack was a main frame 9-point with a split brow tine which made it a 10-point. The inside spread was 18 inches. G2 and G3 were each 12 inches long with bases of 5 ½ inches each. The buck weighed 175 pounds and was determined to be 5 ½ years old. The rack measured an even 153 inches and carried mass all the way up the rack.