According to the weather diary, temperatures on Oct. 1 reached a sultry 85 degrees. For many bow hunters on stand that day, mosquitoes buzzing and sweat dripping off noses made their opening day experience less than desirable.
For Monroe’s Jordon Morris, however, the weather was just right. It was even balmy enough for the 22-year-old Richland Parish farmer to take a dip in the Boeuf River, and he couldn’t have been happier to hit the drink. Morris swam out to retrieve a monster buck he arrowed earlier in the day.
Here’s what happened:
“I’ve had my eye on this particular buck for two years; we saw him on our trail cam photos two years ago and knew he was a special buck,” Morris said. “I was discouraged when he didn’t show up on the cameras last year, but around July … after setting out the cameras, there he was again and this time he was a real brute
“I set my sights to get a chance at him this season.”
Morris and brothers Logan, Clayton and Brennan knocked off work early Sept. 30 and went to their hunting area to get ready for opening day, pouring rice bran and corn in an effort to see some deer once it got daylight the next day.
Morris headed into the woods early opening day.
“I got in my lock-on stand, and while it was still dark I could hear deer around me,” he said. “Once it got light enough to see, I could see deer but, as hard as I looked, I didn’t see the big one.
“Then I saw something move over near the river, and it was the big buck; he was coming my way.”
The buck circled the stand, easing up to the rice bran and within 15 yards of the adrenaline-filled hunter.
“I was able to draw and release my arrow,” Morris said. “I felt immediately I’d made a bad shot, but I was shaking so hard that putting the pin where I wanted it was not easy.”
Morris called his brothers, and they found a little blood but not enough to track. So they decided it was best to leave the area for awhile, giving the deer time to expire.
“We combed the area where the deer went but there was very little blood to follow so after looking for two to three hours, we took a break for lunch and called a friend who has deer hounds, hoping they’d be able to pick up the trail,” Jordan Morris said. :They didn’t.”
Later that afternoon, the search was still on when a speck of blood was found in an area that indicated the buck had started making a circle headed toward the river.
“My older brother, Logan, was walking along the river when he noticed something that seemed out of place in the water,” Morris explained. “He was able to make out the fletching on my arrow barely sticking out above the surface.
“He yelled for us, we ran down there, and as soon as I saw it I stripped down to my boxers and hit the water.”
Once at the spot, he reached down for the deer, freed it up from the branches that had fortunately kept the buck from sinking and swam back with his trophy in tow – arrow still protruding from the ham where his errant shot had hit.
In retrospect, had the arrow passed through the deer or become dislodged before the buck entered the river, recovery would have been doubtful.
The buck, which had an unusual extra main beam, carried 14 points: six on the right beam and three on the left, with the extra beam sporting five points.
The buck was scored by Buckmasters for a composite score of 186 2/8, and was estimated to be 4 ½ years old.
Amazingly, this was not only a true trophy for Morris – it also was a first.
“I’ve shot a couple of does with my bow before but this was my first archery buck,” he said.
