Callais makes 80-yard shot on big 10-pointer
Noah Callais’ favorite subject is science, but he probably needs to focus more on math — just to keep track of the scores of all the big bucks he’s already taken down at the early age of 13.
The seventh grader at Holy Rosary Catholic School in Larose recently shot his biggest buck ever on Oct. 19 on family land in Catahoula Parish: A heavy-horned 10-pointer that green-scored 162 inches and tipped the scales at 245 pounds with 23-inch main beams.
Callais and Jude Alleman, who helps oversee the 4,000-acre property for the family, were in a box stand overlooking a road and a food plot when the big buck appeared about 8:30 that Sunday morning.
“He came from my right out of the woods,” Callais said. “The road was on the right, and he came out on the road.”
The big deer may have simply chosen the wrong time to pass through – Callais said trail cam pictures on the property show no other sign of the 10-pointer.
“We have pictures, but none of him,” he said.
Callais had been hunting since Saturday, the opening day of youth season in Area 2, and had only seen a handful of does, a fawn and one coyote, so he didn’t waste any time setting the crosshairs of his Remington Model 7 right behind the buck’s shoulder.
“He came out and I shot him right when he came out,” said Callais, who brought the big buck down with a .300 Winchester short mag. “He ran about 20 yards into the woods. We could see him right when we got to where he was.”
Callais texted his mom, Monica Gisclair, who was back at the family home in Cut Off anxiously awaiting hunting news from North Louisiana that weekend.
“He texted and said, ‘I shot a big buck, Mom.’ So I said, ‘Is he down?’ And he put, ‘No,’ so of course I waited for what felt like hours,” Gisclair said. “But I think within a half hour, he texted me back and said, ‘We found it.’”
Callais said he wasn’t nervous during the 80-yard shot, but was excited afterwards when he walked up on the big buck in the woods.
“I kept on high-fiving Mr. Jude,” he said.
Also a member of Holy Rosary’s cross country team, Callais has a pretty impressive list of big deer taken down at a pretty young age: six other bucks, including a smaller 10-pointer taken in Mississippi in 2012, a nice 7-point cull and a great 9-point when he was only 10 years old. He’s also shot four does.
But the big Catahoula Parish 10-pointer will join the Mississippi buck in a special spot, he said.
“We have him at the taxidermist, and he had it on the wall already,” Callais said. “He just has to finish it.”
Noah has set the bar pretty high, but Gisclair said his twin-brother, Isaac, will be gunning for an even bigger deer this season. Isaac’s no stranger to big deer, either, having taken a 136-inch, 8-pointer in 2012.
“Isaac said it’s his turn next,” she said. “The game is on to get a bigger one.”
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 Monarch binoculars at the end of the contest.
Read other stories about big bucks killed this season by clicking here.
