When a big buck Colton Frizzell was after suddenly appeared, a bad case of nerves attacked momentarily that for a few seconds caused him to forget how his gun, a Savage .270 bolt action, worked.
“I didn’t pull the trigger strong enough for it to fire and when I ejected the bullet and put it back in, the buck, which was standing only 30 yards away, took off and I made a hurried shot before he disappeared into a thicket. Thankfully,” Frizzell said, “my shot was on target and the deer only ran 20 yards before falling.”
Frizzell, a 31-year-old firefighter and paramedic from Vivian, joined a hunting lease in Caddo Parish two years ago, a lease of some 1000 acres that butts up to Caddo Lake.
“The club has several ‘club’ stands on clearings and this is where most of the hunters have hunted for years,” he said. “I decided to try and find a spot away from the other stands that might give me a better chance at getting a good buck.”
Locating an old abandoned well site sitting in a thick forest of pines, trees that have been replanted after a fire came through several years ago, the young pines create a dense thicket where Frizzell figured any good bucks in the area would be hanging out.
“I cleared a little circle in the pines and planted a small food plot and set up my pop-up ground blind at the edge of the circle,” Frizzell said. “I knew my longest shot would be maybe 35 yards but felt I had the best chance at seeing a big buck, one that had shown up on my trail camera.”
Would the buck be there?
One afternoon when he was hunting he heard a shot and he felt like perhaps another hunter had gotten the buck he was looking for.
“There was another 9-point buck that had been showing up and I decided maybe I’d have a chance at him since I felt the big one had been shot,” he said. “I decided on Saturday, Nov. 19, I would stay in my blind all day just in case the big one showed up or maybe I’d have a chance at the 9-point.”
He watched a couple of does and a spike come out into his little clearing that morning and hang around for awhile and then at 12:05, a buck stepped out at 30 yards.
“I thought at first it was the 9-point but when it turned its head, I could see the kicker on the back of the rack that identified it as the big one,” Frizzell said. “It was then that a case of nerves really got to me and I had trouble getting my mind right on getting off the shot and as I jacked the cartridge out and put it back in and closed the bolt, the buck took off and I just barely had time to shoot before he got into the thicket.”
Recovering the buck
A friend and co-worker, Jeremy Rhodes, lives nearby, heard the shot and came to help. Before he got there, Frizzell had worked his way into the thicket and walked up on the fallen buck that had traveled only 20 yards before falling.
The buck sported 13 points on an unusually narrow rack with only 12 6/8 inches of spread. However, the main beams were tall and came within a couple of inches of touching. Mass carried all the way up the rack from 4 inch bases to over 3 inches at the last measurement. The estimated weight was 175 pounds, age was around 4 1/2 years old and the rack was scored at 154 2/8 inches.