Beach’s giant stretched the tape to 186 inches
Andrew Beach downed a monster on the Boeuf Wildlife Management Area, but credited his friend Glenn Lee for helping him scout the area where he waylaid the giant 20-pointer on Dec. 10.
“I want to give credit to Glenn who lives near the Boeuf and who took me under his wing and taught me the area,” he said. “I would have never gotten this buck without him being my mentor.”
The Boeuf WMA is bisected by Caldwell and Catahoula Parishes, with its 51,000 acres subject to periodic flooding from the Bouef River and Bayou Lafourche. To reach the Caldwell Parish portion where Lee and Beach scouted is a 45-minute drive from Beach’s home in Wisner.
“I got to the area that morning well before daylight and using my flashlight, I made my way back to where we had scouted,” said Beach, 30. “I found a deer trail, followed it back in the woods to where I found some buck sign and other trails. That is where I decided to hunt that morning.”
Finding a downed tree with vines intertwined, Beach placed his three-legged stool among the branches, which kept him hidden and gave him a somewhat limited view of the thick area he was hunting. Soon after daylight, some hogs filtered though — and since the thought of sausage and ham appealed to him, Beach downed one of the pigs.
“Not long after shooting the hog and scattering the herd, I heard something walking through standing water in the thick brush. Here came a doe, and she was moving leisurely along, occasionally stopping to browse and to pick up acorns that littered the ground,” he said. “I was watching her when I saw another bigger deer following along some 50 yards behind her. He didn’t seem to be too interested in her as he was slowly browsing along himself. At first all I could see was the body, but when he moved through a small opening, I got a glimpse of a big rack.
“My first thought was that I had never seen a deer with a rack like that, so I looked for an opening the way he was heading.”
As the buck moved along at about 75 yards, Beach saw a tiny opening, put the scope there and squeezed the trigger on his Remington Model 700 .308. At the shot, the buck took off.
“He didn’t look like he had been hit; he just took off. I sat back down assuming I’d missed, but when I stood up with the sun at my back, I saw the buck go down on his knees and hit the ground about 60 yards away. When I got to him, I couldn’t believe what I had,” Beach said.
Not wanting to disturb others who may have been hunting in the area, Beach sat for a couple of hours before retrieving his prize.
He found the buck with 20 scoreable points with, as he said, “lots of trash” on the G2s and G3s. The inside spread was 17 ½ inches, with heavy mass throughout. The buck weighed 170 pounds, and when Buckmaster official scorer Cecil Reddick put the tape on it, he measured 186 1/8 inches of bone.
At Simmons’ Sporting Goods in Bastrop, the measurement was 186 6/8, good enough for third place in the men’s division.
