Susie Stauts’ climate-controlled deer stand has all the comforts of home: kitchen, bathroom, upholstered furniture and even a TV. The former casino table boss-turned homemaker practically lives in it.
She actually does live in it; has lived in it for 38 years with her husband, Robbie.
The 61-year-old began deer hunting only four years ago. While she often accompanies her husband to his Mississippi club, she had plenty of incentive to stay home in 2024.
While sitting on her sofa on July 6 of that year, she glanced out of her living room window and saw a buck a cut above all the others she’d seen pass through the Stauts’ 2-acre lot near Vicksburg.
“I see deer all the time, but this one had a funky-looking rack. It was going to be something special,” she said. “I photographed it with my phone from the couch. I have a lot of pictures of it, all from my phone, not from a trail camera.
“I watched it grow over the summer, getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” she added. “Our lot is next to 15 acres of open land that isn’t hunted. Deer feel safe here; they live here. I normally just watch them, but I had to take that one.”
Susie became obsessed with the buck. She even bought the state’s new special permit for a first-ever “velvet season,” which was scheduled for Sept. 13-15. The regular bow season opens Oct. 1.
The first day, Friday the 13th, Susie asked Robbie to cock her crossbow before leaving for work. She doesn’t have the strength.
She watched for the buck she’d begun calling Big Boy all day, but it never came.
The next day, Sept. 14, Robbie went to work at his hunting club. He invited Susie to join him, but she refused. She wanted a shot at Big Boy. Even when he called her at lunchtime to see if she’d like to join in the communal lunch, she declined.
Robbie returned home around 4 p.m. and fell asleep in his recliner. She touched his toes to wake him at 6:15 when Big Boy entered their yard. When Robbie’s eyes opened, she asked him to keep their dog, Bella, quiet while she eased out the front door with her crossbow.
“I’d originally planned to lean against the door facing, to steady myself before making the shot,” she said. “I forgot about the rocking chair that would be in the way, so I just went out onto the walkway. I’d have to shoot it freehand.
“When I got out there, the deer looked at me and I froze. My husband was watching. He said, ‘What is wrong with you? Shoot the deer!’
“Finally, Big Boy put his head down, and I shot,” she said. “I thought I’d missed, but Robbie said he saw blood running down the deer’s side.
“We couldn’t find any drops on the ground, so we decided not to push it. There’s a big ravine next to us. I mean real deep. And we didn’t want it to go down there,” she said.
The next morning, Robbie found the deer behind their storage shed, 50 yards behind their home.
Big Boy is the second deer ever taken on their lot near Vicksburg, the southernmost point in the famed Mississippi Delta, where whitetails are often enormous. Both were Susie’s, two of the six whitetails she’s taken since she began hunting.
“He died pretty close to where he sometimes bedded,” she said.
Even with its front legs sawed off, the 7 1/2-year-old Warren County buck bottomed out a set of 300-pound scales.
They had trouble finding someone willing to score the velvet-clad 15-pointer, so they turned to Cecil Reddick in Rayville, Louisiana, who came up with 196 7/8 inches for Buckmasters. Nearly 48 inches of that is mass.
The deer took third place in the non-typical division at Simmons’ Sporting Goods big buck contest in Bastrop, Louisiana, for which Susie was awarded a Browning A-bolt rifle and scope. It also took both first place in her category and best of show at the Jackson (Mississippi) Extravaganza.
