MS Long Bow Buck
By Patrick Dunning
There aren’t many teenagers in the world that can say they harvested their target buck with the long bow they custom built from start to finish, but 17-year-old Case Chacon isn’t like most kids his age.
Case is a junior at Bayou Academy in Boliver County, Mississippi, and plays centerfield for the high school baseball team. Two summers ago his head coach taught himself how to build long bows and Case expressed interest in learning the craft as a fellow bow hunter himself.
“He taught me how he did his first one and I built one. We learned what not to do, picked up some unique tips and made another bow in the fall of 2022,” Case told Buckmasters. “We learned different forms and styles you can use. I love a flat bow but learned to make a reflex, deflex which is a hybrid long bow with a different handle. You can’t get any more long bow than this.”
His bow is crafted from hickory, 68 inches long and its string is made from otter fur. Case knew to kill a deer with the ole’ stick and string he had to hunt with it.
“My father and all his buddies bow hunt, so I’ve naturally been bow hunting since I was about 10 years old. They told me that any deer with a long bow is good, but if I wanted to harvest a big buck with my bow, I had to hunt with it. So, I did the entire year,” Case said.
The Chacon family owns a farm in the northeastern portion of the state inside a levy along the Mississippi River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had to make borrow pits, or borrow dirt, when they rebuilt the levy after it broke in 1927. Case says the borrow pit and adjacent drainage ditch usually holds 2 ft. of water but the river was down after an extremely dry year in the state, and deer were using this ditch as a highway to access acorn trees.
Case identified this 9-pointer on camera last year and accepted the challenge to harvest the buck with traditional gear in 2023.
“I started hunting him and saw him my first sit of the year coming down the ditch. It was a north wind and he was directly south of me; I had all these deer running around under me,” Case recalled. “He goes into the woods on a hot doe’s trail, was reading the script and got to about 30 yards then stopped. He knew something wasn’t right but didn’t know where or what, he just didn’t like it and walked out”
The next day Case had the deer within 30 yards again but wasn’t quite comfortable making that shot with a long bow.
Two days later the 4x5 walked through a canebrake thicket south of Case’s lock-on stand, and he considered moving trees but decided to stay put and wait for the buck to make a mistake.
“The next afternoon, December 22nd, I get in there early and deer are moving everywhere. Here comes my target buck but he got hung up and started doing figure 8s and ended up chasing a doe off. The 9 slipped back through following a trail and I dropped my grunt call,” Case said. “He was already on high alert and jumped but didn’t know what happened. He works his way toward me and I drew back on him, got to my anchor and released an arrow at 16 yards quartering to me. Long bows make a soft sound upon impact so I was unsure but felt good about the shot. Then I heard what I thought was him crashing.”
Case climbed down from his stand and walked to the top of the borrow pit and shined his flashlight into the bottom. He identified his yellow arrow fletching and a still white belly.
“This was my first deer, ever, with a long bow. For three weeks leading up to this, I was shooting 200 arrows a day in between exams and studying. Study for two hours and then shoot 25 arrows. It built confidence and kept me in shooting shape,” Case said. “I just tried to stay confident. Now I want to kill a deer with a flint rock, that’s my goal.”
The kid measured his Tunica County stud 124 6/8 inches, unofficially. If and when Case decides to have his deer officially scored for placement in our record book, it will be the largest whitetail harvested with a long bow in Mississippi, by default, because no other long bow entries currently exist.