Hammond’s Brandon Amar really wasn’t after a big buck when he dropped off his buddy Saturday (Oct. 16) for a hunt on the 6,000-acre hunting club. It’s not that he didn’t want to kill a monster; Amar just decided to break away from the feed trees around which he had been seeing deer to check out what was going on in a thicket.
He came away that morning with a typical 8-point that has green scored 155 inches.
“I shot a 145-inch 8-point last season, and I thought I would never top that,” Amar said. “And now I’ve killed this one.”
The hunter had been seeing nice bucks since opening day while hunting feed trees on the hunting lease, but he had been focusing on putting does on the ground because club rules state that each buck shot must be preceded by a doe.
“I already shot three does because I wanted to get them out of the way,” Amar said.
So on Oct. 16, he dropped off buddy Ryan Wooten at one of the feed trees with the instructions to kill a doe, while Amar moved away from feed trees to a thicket that had a good game trail winding through it.
“I decided, ‘I’m just going to sit on that stand and see what happens,’” Amar said. “I really didn’t think anything was going to happen. It really was more of a rut kind of set up.”
In addition to being where he wasn’t super confident, most of his deer sightings had been in the afternoon.
“(The day before) I saw some deer at 9 (a.m.) and 10 (a.m.),” he said. “So I told Ryan I was going to hunt until about 10.”
And it was looking like he wasn’t going to see a single deer, until at 9:45 a.m. a doe popped out about 50 yards away.
“I wasn’t going to shoot another doe, but I texted Ryan that if she came in I may shoot her,” Amar said.
The hunter eased to his feet and prepared to take a shot if the deer wandered a bit closer – and then he heard something behind him.
“I looked back, and three bucks were 30 yards from my stand,” Amar said. “They were just walking through the thicket, just browsing along.”
At first, he only saw two of the deer. But his heart rate increased, because each of the 8-points was a mature deer that would score out in the 130s.
“I thought, ‘I’m killing one of those when one of them comes in,’” Amar said.
While he eased around to get in position, movement caught his eye and the third deer came into view. His heart was now racing.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s a shooter. I’m shooting it,’” Amar said.
The deer was only an 8-point, but those points looked like skyscrapers mounted on the long, thick main beams.
The three bucks were in line, feeding directly down the trail passing near Amar’s stand and through a hole in the thick foliage.
“My only fear was that the smaller 8s would get to me first, and something would happen and I wouldn’t get a shot at the big deer,” he said.
As if reading his mind, the big buck broke out of the single-file line and looped around in the thicket to take the lead.
“They were in single file, browsing along right to me,” Amar said.
And then the monster stopped about 10 yards from the concealed and anxious hunter.
“He stayed there for what seemed like forever, but was probably three to five minutes,” Amar said. “He was just hanging out there, and there was nothing I could do because it was so thick.”
When the animal began moving once more, Amar breathed a sigh of relief – the buck headed straight for his shooting hole.
At 15 yards, Amar made a mouth grunt to stop the deer and released his arrow.
“The buck ran about 50 yards and stopped and looked back,” the hunter said. “I’m thinking, ‘Please fall; please fall.’”
He also was thinking that he might have hit the deer a tad too far back.
“I knew I was center mass, but I really thought I put it 3 to 4 inches farther back than I wanted,” Amar said.
The deer certainly didn’t look like it was hurt.
“The deer was still just standing there when I heard one of the other deer,” Amar said. “I looked at it, and it was still browsing.
“When I looked back, my deer was gone.”
His knees went weak as his heart sank.
Knowing he had put the arrow through the deer but fearing he might have gut shot the beast, Amar waiting a long 20 minutes before climbing down.
“I walked to where I shot the deer, and I found my arrow coated with blood,” he said. “There was just a slight stench of gut.
“I thought, ‘I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.’”
Not wanting to push a wounded deer up, Amar reluctantly picked up Wooten and headed back to the camp. Buddy Johnny “Mack” Livingston looked at the arrow and proclaimed the deer was probably dead.
“He said, ‘Let’s go get your deer,’” Amar said. “But I told him that I was going to give it until 1 p.m.”
While they sat around waiting, Amar told his friends that the deer was really nice – but he hedged his bet.
“I told them it would probably score 145,” he said. “I didn’t want to look like an idiot if we got to it and it wasn’t as big as I thought it was.
“A 150-inch 8-point is a rarity, so you don’t go around talking about that.”
Finally, the three headed to the woods. They found no blood, so Amar just began walking along the trail down which he believed the deer ran.
“I went about 20 yards and I still saw no blood. Not a drop,” he said.
So he pulled out his binocs and eased a little farther from the stand site.
“I really expected him to get up and run,” Amar said.
He stopped and prepared to glass the woods in hopes of spotting the deer laid up, and a sound caught his attention.
“I’m standing there just brokenhearted, and out of my left ear I hear ‘buzzzzz,’” Amar said. “Before I even turned, I said, ‘God, let it be flies bussing on a dead deer.’”
Sure enough, the deer was lying right next to him.
“I was standing probably 5 feet from him,” Amar said. “He was stone dead.”
Livingston was dumbfounded when he saw the rack on the buck.
“Mack told me, ‘That’s bigger than you thought it was,’” Amar laughed.
The foundation of the rack were main beams stretching 24 ½ inches from base to tip that held great mass all the way out, and topping off the crown were 12 ½-inch G2s and 10 ½-inch G3s.
It’s just as close to perfect as a hunter could ask.
“He only has about an inch, 1 ¼ inches of deductions,” Amar said.
The buck is going to be entered into the big buck contests at Simmons Sporting Goods and Bowie Outfitters in Baton Rouge (255.766.1200).
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