“I was preparing to load my clip when I realized something else -- my bullets were in the bag I’d left on the ground at the foot of the tree! So I climbed back down, got my bullets and got back up the tree, my confidence all but shot. With all the noise I’d made climbing up and down the tree, I felt my chances at seeing a deer were just about zero. Nevertheless, the rut was on, so I decided to hang with it since I was already there.

“I waited awhile to let things settle down,” Talley continued, “and then I picked up the rattling horns I had with me and struck them together. When I did, I heard something behind me and turned in time to see a big buck get up out of his bed and look in my direction. He’d apparently been there the whole time, and either saw or heard me going up and down the tree. Why he didn’t sneak out of there, I don’t know. I dropped him, unable to believe just how lucky I was.”

Lucky or not, Jones’ buck was the highest-scoring 8-point buck in the Simmons contest with a green score of 161 3/8. Determined to be 5 1/2 years old, the buck weighed in excess of 200 pounds.

THE “CANYON” BUCK
Larry Rogers, 70, is a retired state employee who lives on Turkey Creek Lake. He downed an impressive buck that scored over 155 -- especially impressive since the buck only sported 7 points, winning the “Best Seven Point” buck award at Simmons Sporting Goods.

From what Rogers has been able to determine, his buck may be the highest scoring 7-point buck ever measured in Louisiana. Deer hunters know that any buck scoring in excess of 150 points is a trophy; Rogers’ scored 157 5/8.

Rogers was afield amid Catahoula Parish’s beautiful hills and hollows -- unusual terrain for Louisiana -- when he bagged the buck. “I was hunting 300 acres of private land that joins the Sicily Island Hills Wildlife Management Area,” he began. “I had my climbing stand 25 feet high on a big pine and situated on a point between two of those deep gullies -- I call ‘em ‘canyons’ -- so I could see down into both gullies. There was a big cane thicket down near where the gullies were, and I was in a good position to see anything that moved down there.

“I began to hear a racket down in the cane, and I realized that what I was hearing was a buck chasing a doe. Finally just before dark, the doe darted out on a sandy stretch with the buck hot on her heels. I shot him with my 7mm Mag, and it was something like watching one of those hunting shows out West where the animal falls into a canyon. My buck tumbled down to the bottom of a deep gully and it took several of us two hours to winch him up out of there; that was the only way we could get him out.”

THE “EXCUSE ME WHILE I POWDER MY NOSE” BUCK
Joe Hazlip, an octogenarian who lives in the village of Goldman near Waterproof in Tensas Parish, hunts from a rather unique stand, but the 80-year-old hunter says that his set-up is just right for waylaying a buck and bringing it down by means of his crossbow.

“I had one of those Tree Lounge stands I used to climb a tree with, but the squirrels ate up the material and left only the frame,” he said, chuckling. “I put some boards where the seat was, and I just prop the old stand up against a tree where I’m comfortable and can watch a trail the deer like to use.