Archery buck walks to within 15 yards of hunter hiding in ground blind.
There are 1,600 sprawling acres on the Sullivan family farm in Madison Parish, but a special spot is off limits to everyone except Brenda Sullivan. And while sitting in a ground blind in her private hunting grounds on Oct. 20, Sullivan sent an arrow into the vitals of a huge 275-pound 12-point buck that walked up to within 15 yards of her blind.
“We’d seen this buck on our trail cameras when he was in velvet, and I knew he was a good one,” Sullivan said. “I couldn’t really tell just how big but knew his rack was tall and wide.”The deer has been green scored at 160 3/8 inches Pope & Young by Simmons Sporting Goods, and is currently listed as the top buck in the ladies archery division of Simmons’ Big Buck Contest.
Sullivan and her husband had put out corn and rice bran in front of her blind, and everything was in order when she crawled in the blind that afternoon. The first visitor to the feed was a 140-class 8-point buck.
“Our rule is to try and grow some bigger deer, and I knew this 8 point was one we needed to let grow so I just watched him from my blind window,” she said.
Sullivan hunts from an Ameristep ground blind and shuts most of its windows, leaving just enough opening so she can see a deer without it seeing her.
“I only had two small windows open and was watching the 8-point out front when this big one just stepped into my line of sight in one of the windows,” Sullivan said. “When I saw that it was the one I wanted, I just drew and released an arrow.
“The buck took off, but I felt good about my shot.”
Sullivan sat awhile before walking over to where the deer was standing, and she saw her arrow covered with blood, causing her confidence level to spike. However instead of trying to find her deer, she called her husband and they went back to the camp.
“We waited an hour before beginning to search,” Sullivan said. “Since it was now dark, we got lights and went back to look. We had no trouble finding my deer; he’d only traveled about 50 yards.”
Sullivan’s buck was indeed a trophy. The rack on the 12-point buck was massive, featuring long main beams and a 20 3/8-inch spread. The buck was estimated to be 5 ½ years old.
This is not the first time Brenda Sullivan has made the news with big bucks. She finished second last year at the Simmons Sporting Goods contest in archery, as well as placing second in the women’s division with a 161-inch buck she got with her rifle.
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