Deer hunters share stories after bagging big bucks
Another Texas deer season got under way Saturday, and with it came picture-perfect conditions. My guess is every hunter who was not fortunate enough to be in the woods at first light on opening morning was wishing they were perched in a rickety box blind somewhere.
Clear skies, light winds and chilly temperatures blanketed the state as thousands of hunters awoke from a restless night in a uncomfortable bed, just so they could bump and bang their way in the dark to a promising deer stand they'd been dreaming about for a few short hours.
For many, opening morning probably didn't get much more eventful than that. For a lucky few, however, the first few hours of daylight hatched some magical moments that ended in hunting tales sure to be told and retold around campfires for years to come.
I enjoy deer hunting, but I probably enjoy talking to hunters and hearing their success stories even more. Deer hunters often find themselves in some peculiar situations at times, mainly because whitetail deer put them there.
One of the best hunting tales I've ever heard dates back to the early 1990s. I interviewed a Houston hunter who struck gold on opening morning in the Sam Houston National Forest in East Texas.
I don't recall the hunter's name, but I remember the story like it was told to me yesterday.
It was still dark outside when the hunter arrived and parked his car at the edge of a narrow forest road. Unfamiliar with the area, he grabbed is rifle and a flashlight and started walking. Deep in the woods, he came across a creek that he didn't want to cross, so he found a hardwood tree he could climb to wait out the last few minutes of darkness.
Situated on a limb some 10-15 feet above ground, the hunter fumbled through his pockets and accidentally dropped his billfold. He didn't worry about it much until the woods came alive with crackling twigs, rustling leaves and other sounds that ushered in the new dawn.
"The main thing I was worried about was that a deer might smell the billfold and spook," the hunter said. "It was really bothering me."
Rather than retrieving his billfold, the hunter reached for the bottle of Tink's Doe-In-Heat scent in his pocket and went to work. Drop by drop, he doused the billfold until he was satisfied the job was done.
"I used the whole bottle," he said. "I was only hitting it every now and then. Most of it went on the ground."
Then something bizarre happened.
"It hadn't been long when this huge buck came charging in from behind me," the hunter said. "He trotted right up to my billfold with his nose to the ground and started sniffing around."
The hunter shot the buck. Days later, he had the enormous nontypical rack scored at better than 180 Boone and Crockett points. It turned out to be the best nontypical buck taken in the Pineywoods that season.
Not every hunter is gifted with such karma. Most do it the hard way and make their own luck.
Nacogdoches County archer Randy McLemore made some when he decided to head to the woods on the afternoon of Oct. 28, even though he was running late.
"I was working on my Ranger that afternoon and ended up having to go to town to get parts," McLemore said. "It was 4:30 p.m. before I got finished up, and I almost didn't go. Then I decided to heck with it and left."
McLemore had good reason for the snap decision. Earlier this fall, he positioned a stand and game camera in an area of his lease where another hunter had missed a big buck last season. In mid-October, the buck started showing up in front of the camera lens, most often at night.
"It was easy to tell from the pictures that he had grown a good bit since last year," McClemore said. "He had more mass. Plus, he had grown a G4."
McLemore said he made it to the stand at 5:30 p.m. He noticed movement along a nearby pine thicket about an hour later. The buck emerged from the thicket and began working a scrape line about 40 yards away. Moments later, the buck was joined by a doe that began leading it towards his stand.
"I got the shakes pretty bad when I first saw him, because I knew what I was looking at," he said. "Luckily, I managed to get settled down pretty quick. In no time she lead him right behind my stand."
McLemore drilled the buck with a perfect pass-through shot at 15 yards. The deer piled up about 70 yards away.
Nacogdoches taxidermist Lee Richards taped the big 11-pointer as a nontypical for the Texas Big Game Awards Program. Gross score was 168 3/8 with 161 6/8 net. It is sure to rank among the top bucks taken in the Pineywoods this season.
McLemore says he couldn't be more satisfied, regardless of where the buck ranks.
"I've been bowhunting for 20 years, hunted all over the country and taken several bull elk over 300 inches," he said. "To think that I went out and spent an hour in the stand on a day when I almost didn't go and killed the biggest buck of my life -- man, that's something."
Twenty-year-old Dillon Chevalier of Gilmer hasn't been bowhunting near as long as McLemore, but he has gotten pretty salty at making his own luck.
Chevalier was hunting on open range near Lake Fork on Halloween morning when he brought down what is likely the highest scoring buck ever taken in Wood County by an archer.
A main frame nine-pointer with five abnormal points, the 14-pointer grosses 191 6/8 B&C points. Its G2s measure greater than 13 inches and its G3s are longer than 12 inches. It also has 8-inch brow tines, one of them split. The gross score on the nine-point typical frame is 172.
"I'm still having a hard time believing it," said Chevalier, who is currently a school teacher in Garland. "I've never seen anything like this."
Neither has Derek Spitzer, a Wood County Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden. Spitzer scored the rack for TBGA. He said the Chevalier buck is sure to rank among the top Wood County bucks of all time.
"I've never heard of anything like this around here," Spitzer said.
Chevalier said he was hunting a travel corridor along a wood line when he first saw the deer 20 feet below his lock-on stand. Unfortunately, it was still too dark for him to tell what he was looking at for sure.
"I could make out the outlines of several deer, but one was much bigger than the rest," he said. "I could tell it had antlers, but that's about it. The does eventually led him out into this meadow, and that's when I got a good look at him for the first time. The light was still pretty dim, but I could tell he was a great deer."
Chevalier said he toyed with the idea of taking the long shot but elected to wait instead. It's a good thing he did. Moments later, the army of does headed straight back towards his stand with buck in tow. He shot the deer at 16 yards.
"After I made the shot is when it really hit me," Chevalier said. "I texted my dad to tell him I'd shot a giant, but it took me about 5 minutes to type the message because I was so rattled. I was speechless. I'm still not sure how to react. You see guys shooting bucks like this on hunting videos and think, 'That'll never happen to me.'"
That's the allure of Texas deer hunting. Just when you think nothing is going to happen, it does. Sometimes the results seem magical.
Matt Williams' e-mail address is mattwilliams@netdot.com.
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