Husted’s 260-pounder stretches the tape to 150 inches
During the 2008-09 deer season, Monroe’s Vicki Husted earned the No. 11 spot in the state’s big buck record books for non-typical archery when she arrowed a Tensas Parish monster scoring 172 3/8. Two seasons later in 2010, Husted arrowed another unbelievable buck —one that currently resides in first place in the non-typical archery listing with an unreal score of 227 6/8 inches.
But that was then, and this is now.
Husted had her eye on a beautiful typical buck this season, one that had not shown itself in daylight, only teasing and tantalizing her with nighttime trail camera photos.
“This is an impressive buck and one I wanted to try and get a chance at, but with the deer not showing up during daylight, chances were iffy at best,” she said.
But on the afternoon of Oct. 21, Vicki’s husband Billy dropped her off at a ground blind she likes to hunt.
“This particular blind is situated next to a food plot where we had forage planted, along with putting out some soybeans to attract deer. I was sitting in my blind that afternoon and to avoid being too visible, I had closed three of the four openings on the blind — leaving only the one facing the food plot open,” she said. “My plan was to try and arrow a doe for venison at the camp.”
As the afternoon wore one, things were relatively quiet until she saw movement to one side. She took a peek out one of the closed windows and saw four bucks: Three were small to average, but one of the bucks was a big one — obviously the dominant of the four.
“As I watched them, the big one kept threatening and running at the others to keep them away. He slowly began to work his way feeding along toward the area where we had soybeans out and as I watched him, I realized he looked an awful lot like nighttime photos of the big one I had seen on camera,” she said. “The closer he got, the more nervous I got and when he finally worked his way to in front of my blind at 20 steps, I put the pin on his vitals and released the arrow.
“I shoot a Hoyt bow with an a Shuttle T-lock broadhead. I heard a loud thump when it hit the deer and I was afraid I had missed where I was aiming and hit a shoulder blade instead.”
Sitting for a while as the afternoon wore on, Husted finally exited the blind and looked for evidence of a hit. Finding none, she walked to the last spot she saw the buck next to a dense briar patch. She did find a spot of blood there, and texted her husband with the news: He told her to wait until he came to help her search.
“When Billy got there and saw that the deer had run into this impenetrable briar thicket, he called a member of our group who has a blood-trailing dog. He arrived with the dog and walked around the thicket to find the deer lying dead just on the other side. I had hit him just right where I was aiming,” Husted said.
The body of the buck was huge, estimated to weigh in the 260-pound range. The mainframe 10-point typical rack carried a small sticker, giving it 11 total points. The inside spread was 20 inches wide ,and the rack measurements came to 150 inches.
“It may not be another state record,” said Husted, “but this is the heaviest buck I have ever killed.”