Will Hanna left work on Nov. 8 with the goal of downing a deer in mind, but the odds were stacked against him.
“It was rainy off and on all that day and I started to not go, but two buddies of mine that I work with coaxed me into it. I slipped out of work a little early and got into the deer stand about 3:45,” he said. “It was pouring down raining and I wasn’t sure if I would see anything. The mosquitoes … I was about to get carried away with them. I was about to get out and go to the truck and call it a hunt.”
His persistence paid off.
“At about 4:45 the rain stopped, and a small 8-point walked out and behind him was the one I killed,” Hanna said.
The giant 24-point deer Hanna killed was one he’s had his eyes on.
“I had pics of him last year,” the DeSoto Parish resident said. “He’s trashy … just a lot of small, crazy horns. When I started running my cameras this September, I started getting pics of him. He started getting on a pattern. He was coming out every evening for about 4 days around 5 o’clock in the evening.”
A monster buck
The private family land in Red River Parish that Hanna shot the deer on is equipped with cameras, which meant Hanna has been studying this particular deer for two years.
“I wasn’t very confident,” he said of the day’s hunt. “I was worried that it would get too dark and I wouldn’t be able to see. After I shot it, I called my dad to come down there in case I had to go look for him. I shot and waited about 20 or 30 minutes, but when we walked down there, I had dropped him right in his tracks.”
Hanna, a lifelong hunter, said a buddy of his initially scored the rifle kill at a little over 184. When he brought it in to get it officially scored, it clocked in at 186 and 5/8.
The kill was a family affair, with Hanna’s father in law helping to get the deer dressed.
“I plan to get it mounted,” Hanna said. “It’s the highest scored hunt I’ve had. Around here a score of 140-150 is considered a really good deer. It’s still kind of blurry for me … I was so excited.”