Kasten Furr, 24, of Ruston, who shot a nice 9-point on Oct. 12, was finally able to put his hands on his buck the next day.
Furr, who played baseball at Louisiana Tech, now plays semi-pro baseball with the Frontier League based in Jackson, Miss. When not traveling for games, he teaches private sessions to youngsters at home in Ruston. When he’s not playing or teaching, he’s on the Calhoun Bottom Hunting Club in Jackson Parish.
“Last year, we had the deer on camera but decided he needed another year,” Furr said. “He had a nice 9-point rack but was a young buck and we decided to give him another year. I had him under my stand once last season and my dad saw him twice.”
This year, when the deer showed up on cameras, he had put on more mass and was a really nice 9-point. Furr wanted his dad to have first crack at the buck.
“While I was away playing baseball, dad did all the hard work in preparing the area, putting out protein, trimming limbs and such, so I wanted him to be able to take the buck,” Furr said. “Dad took off five days from work and hunted him hard but never saw him.
“I hunted him several afternoons and once he came out but it was getting late and I couldn’t see my sight pin so I passed up the shot.”
The hunt continues
The area where Furr and his dad hunt features a clearing where they have a feeder, and next to the clearing is a big thicket where deer had been laying up. Climbing into his lock-on stand the afternoon of Oct. 12, the buck stepped out just before the end of legal shooting time.
“He came to the feeder at 16 yards, turned broadside and I released an arrow,” Furr said. “I shoot a Mathews VXR bow and I could tell I hit him too far back. The deer took off. I called a buddy who came to help me look. As he was checking the woods, the deer jumped up and took off again.
“We backed out. I called Stony Stone who has a dog that can find a dead deer but is not trained to follow one that is wounded. After 600 yards with no deer found, we pulled out, went home and I can tell you I didn’t sleep very well that night.”
The next morning, Furr called Brandon LaRue, who has a fine blood trailing dog named Trigger that picked up the trail and found the deer which had run another 800 yards before dying. That’s a total of 1,400 yards the buck traveled before he was found.
The buck carried a heavy rack of 9 points with an 18 ½-inch inside spread, weighed 195 pounds and was determined to be 4 ½ years old. The rough score on the buck came out right at 140 inches of mass.
