2015 buck is proof Louisiana’s best public land still has what it takes to grow head-turners.
Garry Ward couldn’t believe it. From the vantage point of his climbing stand, he was surrounded by scrapes and rubs. The deer poop on the ground was so plentiful in places that it also could be seen from up high.
So where were the deer? He’d been there since before dawn, and it was now 10 a.m.
“I texted my son, Josh, and told him the pin oak acorns were raining down around me,” Garry said. “He wasn’t seeing anything either.”
Just a few minutes later, however, Garry saw several deer, all moving at warp speed.
“A 7-pointer came running in, grunting loudly and looking around. I remember thinking it was a pretty buck,” he said. “But that deer was on me so quickly, and then gone, that I couldn’t get a shot.
“Then another buck came, a 5-pointer, and did the exact same thing; took the same route, then gone. And then a 4-pointer took the route: same thing, grunting and running,” he added. “They were trailing a doe, or trying to trail one, and they had lost her.”
About 10 minutes later, a doe — THE doe? — popped out of thick cover and began eating acorns. Then, for no apparent reason, she also took off running.
“I just sat there, bummed,” Garry said. “I would have shot that 7-pointer, and now, after waiting all morning, in just a few minutes it was done. I felt I’d missed my chance.”
Oh, he of little faith.
Garry and his son were hunting in Louisiana’s Tensas National Wildlife Refuge. Their family had been hunting in the same area of the tract since about 1981.
“I used to go to Kansas and Illinois, but started to realize that a lot of big deer are coming from Louisiana,” Garry said. “In the Tensas (Madison Parish), the palmettos are dense; the reforested areas are so thick you can hardly walk through them.
“The deer can hide in those places very well, and it makes for hard hunting,” he added. “My son and I had scouted and found a place full of acorns.
“I think that back in the ’80s, they didn’t clear all the woods. We found an area with pin and striped acorns,” he said. “After seeing all the old rubs and scrapes, we marked it on a GPS and noted that we’d need a north wind to hunt it.”
On Dec. 18, Garry and Josh headed to the area and set up about 400 yards apart. After the three bucks had zipped past Garry, they seemed to be heading toward Josh, but he never saw them. The doe didn’t come past Josh’s stand either.
At midday, the two met at a large fallen tree between their stands. They had lunch together, then resumed their separate vigils.
“Nothin’,” Garry said. “Almost five hours, and I didn’t see a deer.”
That’s when he looked up, sending a plea heavenward.
“You know, Lord, we need to get this done. Soon,” he said.
“I swear: I looked straight to the north and saw a big buck walking directly toward a pin oak about 75 yards away,” he continued. “I could tell that rack was 20-plus-inches wide.
“That’s a big ol’ deer, I thought, even though I couldn’t see all the points. I knew it was huge,” Garry said. “I said to myself, I’m gonna shoot it. And when it was close enough and broadside, I took the textbook shot.”
The buck went down within sight of Garry’s treestand.
“I could see the big white belly, and I got down,” he said.
But after a long day of waiting to get a shot at a deer, Garry found himself wanting to stretch out the rest of the hunting day.
“I didn’t go over to my deer right away. It was like I wanted to stall, to enjoy it. I knew it was a good buck.”
Garry gathered his gear and pulled out a headlamp. He looked for his crossbow bolt and spent some time working the blood trail, even though he knew right where the buck had fallen and that it was dead.
He fooled around and used the green light on his headlamp, noting how that helped make the blood stand out from the leaves. He made himself keep his head down on the blood trail until the buck was practically underfoot.
“I knew it was big, but I still didn’t know it was a freakin’ movie star,” Garry smiled. “I got about 5 yards from it before I raised my head to take a good look.
“Oh. My. Lord. I know I said that out loud: Oh. My. Lord. And I clicked from green to white with the light,” he said. “Josh had let me know earlier that his phone battery was going dead, so I dialed my wife.
“Slow down, slow down. I can’t understand you,” his wife responded to Garry’s auctioneer-like account of the hunt.
He kept counting points, checking and rechecking the total: 21 at one point, and 22 another. He heard Josh approaching and owl-hooted at him. Josh couldn’t believe the size of the buck either. The two celebrated and started the work of getting the buck out of the woods.
The Wards returned to the spot Dec. 26, and Garry shot a 9-pointer that scored 124. Its rack had some of the same characteristics of the Freakin’ Movie Star he had put an arrow through about a week earlier.
“That buck was as fat as a town dog,” he said. “He was about 50 pounds heavier than the first buck.”
Garry said some of his friends, family members and coworkers have been telling him that it’ll be hard to muster up excitement for deer season now that he’s killed the buck of a lifetime. He says that’s far from the truth.
“I’m not a trophy hunter by any means, but knowing bucks like that are out there adds another element to waiting in a stand,” he said. “I am so excited to go hunting. I can’t wait to start again!”
This article was published in the June 2017 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.
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