Dustin Anders, of Deville, shot this awesome 8-pointer on Oct. 26 in Winn Parish on the Kisatchie National Forest. It took three shots, but the big buck green-scored 161 inches and sits atop both the 8-Point and Primitive Firearms divisions at Simmons. The Story: “I started really shaking when I saw the antlers on the biggest buck I had ever seen in my life, and it was making a rub on a big tree just out in front of me,” he said. “I got my gun up and the deer started walking away, but then turned broadside.” Anders said he was so nervous he had trouble keeping the crosshairs of his scope on the deer, but squeezed off a shot as the deer took off. “Instead of running away, the buck ran right toward me and stopped probably 90 yards away. When I’m hunting with the .444, I always put two bullets into the padding on my stand so I reached, got a bullet out, reloaded, cocked my gun and fired again,” he said. “The deer took off again toward me and stopped maybe 30 yards away. “I could hear the buck breathing hard like it was wheezing.” Reaching for another bullet, he realized he had only put one bullet in the padding that morning, so he had to stand, dig beneath his overalls and get to the side pocket of his cargo pants to retrieve another bullet. As he inserted the third bullet, he called on a little divine intervention for the next shot. “I was praying, ‘Dear Lord, don’t let this buck get away.’ I’d never seen anything that big,” he said. “When I reloaded and cocked the gun, the buck looked directly at me and I thought it was all over.” Fortunately, the deer turned to look the other way, Anders managed to get the crosshairs on the buck’s shoulder and this time, his aim was true. The buck ran only 20 yards before collapsing. “I called my dad who was wondering what all the shooting was about,” Anders said. “I told him I’d just shot a wallhanger.” And a wallhanger it is: The big buck had more than 18 inches of air between its antlers on a massive, symmetrical 8-point rack. “We found out the reason the deer was breathing so hard was my second shot hit him in the neck and severed his windpipe,” he said. The buck scored 161 inches at Simmons Sporting Goods in Bastrop, good enough to lead both the 8-Point and Primitive Firearms divisions as of this writing.
my nephew did this same exact thing with his first deer(which was a buck) missed it clean first shot, nicked it the 2nd, and dropped it the 3rd.... told him he was a fair hunter because he gives out warning shots before the kill shot haha
