Wilkins’ date night leads to 160-inch buck
Lance Wilkins is a 16-year-old sophomore at Union Parish High School, where he plays defensive end for the Farmers football team.
And he has a certain young lady to thank for inadvertently giving him a crack at a 160 inch 13-point buck.
“We have a hunting camp over in Spearsville, and my Uncle Mike called and invited me to go with him to the camp,” Wilkins said. “However, I had plans for a date that night so I decided I’d hunt closer to home and have time for my date after a hunt.”
In addition to hunting the Spearsville club, Wilkins has access to some 20 acres of family land owned by his grandparents near his home in Farmerville in Union Parish.
“This was land my granddad always hunted,” he said. “He passed away in 2006, and it has become sort of my special place to hunt since then.”
Heading out to his grandmother’s property, Wilkins liked his chances because any time Bayou DeLoutre (which runs near the property) reaches flood stage, some good bucks have been seen coming out of the flooded bottom onto the family land.
“I had crawled into my stand on that afternoon of Nov. 27 and before long, I saw two does come out into a clearing. I got my rifle up to my shoulder and was watching the does through my scope when all of a sudden, this big buck just stepped out at about 70 yards,” Wilkins said. “It was hard to stay calm, so I took my eyes off the big rack and put the crosshairs on my Remington .30-06 on his shoulder and pulled the trigger.”
At the shot, the buck only ran about 35 yards before collapsing. Walking to the fallen deer, Wilkins was amazed at how impressive the buck was as he approached.
“Man, I was just in awe when I got my hands on him. Nobody had ever reported seeing this deer on the place, and I couldn’t believe I had the chance to get a buck like that,” Wilkins said. “The first thing I did was call my brother and told him about the deer, and he came and helped me load the deer on my 4-wheeler.”
The buck weighed about 200 pounds, and sported 13 points with long tines, with heavy mass throughout the rack. The deer green-scored 160 ⅛ at Simmons’ Sporting Goods in Bastrop, good enough to put Wilkins in third place in the contest’s youth division.
So thanks to his date, Wilkins hunted close to home and was rewarded with a trophy buck.
Don’t forget to enter photos of your bucks in the Nikon Big Buck Photo Contest to be eligible for monthly giveaways and the random drawing for Nikon optics at the end of the contest.
Read other stories about big bucks killed this season by clicking here.
