Huge buck had been on Normand’s trail cameras for two years
Late on the afternoon of Dec. 27, 2018, Glendon Normand put his binoculars to his eyes and gazed down the edge of a long shooting lane planted in oats and wheat. When everything came into focus, he saw, then finally recognized, a huge whitetail buck he’d been watching for two years.
Watching on his trail camera.
An hour later, Normand was bending over his trophy, an Avoyelles Parish monster that could wind up ranked in the top 20 in Louisiana’s whitetail record book.
“I didn’t know he had the mass he had until I got to him,” Normand said of his big 10-pointer.”
Normand’s buck, taken at around 5:10 p.m., scored 1755/8 typical Boone & Crockett Club points when officially measured last March at the Louisiana Sportsman Show in Gonzales. That ranks him No. 18 all time, one of four Avoyelles Parish bucks in the top 20.
The hunt
“I had seen him before; I had him for a couple of years on a trail camera,” said Normand, a 43-year-old contractor who controls 1,200 acres with six other hunters. “Last year, he was about 150 or 155 inches. In just one year, he jumped up pretty good.”
Normand was hunting in box stand on the edge of the shooting lane/food plot.
“You typically see a couple of young bucks there in a day’s hunt, but this time, a couple of young ones came out, and a big, wide, old 8-pointer,” he said. “Then, the big buck came out behind the other bucks and slipped in, but he stopped at the edge of the woods
“I could catch him in binoculars just inside the woods. When I finally made out how big he was, he stepped back in and started walking away, through the woods. He was about 175 yards away, and I was going to try that shot. I said, ‘He’s gone; I missed my chance.’”
But 20 minutes ago, he was glassing the lane again when a doe appeared, with the big buck behind her, but still along the edge, 300 yards out.
“I wasn’t going to take a shot that long, but then he started easing along the tree line toward me,” he said. “When he got to the other bucks, about 160 to 165 yards, I had a shot, and I shot him.”
Normand’s .270 Winchester Short Mag took the buck right through the boiler room. Obviously well hit, the buck stumbled off, finally piling up 75 yards back into the woods.
“I waited about 30 minutes, got down and took my time, and I walked right to him,” Normand said.
Getting a closer look
When he got to the buck, he realized that he was experiencing just the opposite of “ground shrinkage.” The buck was even bigger than he had thought. Yes, it weighed 225, but the body size was nothing compared to the rack, which carried five points on each beam, with the longest tines on each side 13 inches long and the next set of tines 12 inches long.
And something was even more impressive: its mass.
“He had 6½-inch bases, and he carried it all the way out,” Normand said. “Just outside of his G4s, they were still 5 inches.”
