Now that deer season is here, I am once again enjoying the privilege of interviewing successful hunters of big bucks taken in the state. Here’s one from last week that had a couple of interesting twists.
Waylon Shackleford, a 19-year-old who lives in Alexandria and is a pre-engineering student at LSU-Alexandria, encountered a couple of strange and interesting things that occurred before he could lay claim to the big 10-point Rapides Parish buck he shot on October 2.
Shackleford hunts on private land where he has permission, land that lies adjacent to the Red River.
“My buddy, Hunter Vaughn who attends college at UL Lafayette, and I motored across the river, parked the boat and I headed to my stand about 50 yards from the river while Hunter headed for his stand a couple hundred yards away. Hunter had shot a nice buck the day before, one that measured in the 120s,” Shackleford began.
Getting into his climbing stand at 5:45, he locked it in at about 25 feet up a big willow, a spot that allowed him to see a draw that makes into sort of a bowl. He had corn scattered out front of the stand.
“Just after 7 o’clock, something came out to the corn, but it wasn’t a deer; it was two big hogs, a boar and sow. I knew it wasn’t good to have hogs feeding on the corn that could spook the buck I had been seeing on camera. I did what I thought I should do, and I shot the boar, which ran off into the woods. The sow was still there so I shot her and she died in the middle of my corn.
“I knew it wouldn’t be good to just leave a dead hog lying in the corn so I got down, dragged the sow to the edge of the river, and climbed back into my stand around 8,” he said.
Half an hour later, Shackleford was moving about to get situated in the stand when he heard something walking. It was a big buck that probably had heard him moving around but stopped at 25 yards and was looking in his direction.
“Then the buck started easing off down the ridge. I shoot left-handed and he was moving to the left so I had to reposition myself to be able to shoot at that angle. I saw a small opening and even though the buck was quartering toward me, I shot when he stepped into the opening at 18 yards. The buck took off,” Shackleford continued.
He texted his friend, Hunter, to come help him look for the deer. They found the arrow and some dark blood, indicating his shot had hit the liver so it would likely take the deer longer to expire.
Here’s where another wrinkle comes into play for Shackleford. He had to leave the woods, rush back to school to take a math test. Before heading back to the woods, he contacted Brandy Lewis, who has Gator, a good blood trailing dog.
“Brandy met us around 3:30 and Gator found the deer that had traveled some 250 yards before it died,” he said.
The buck sported an impressive rack of 10 points with an inside spread of 20 ½ inches. The deer was judged to be 4 ½ years old and weighed 225 pounds. The rack was scored at 151 5/8 inches.
Before finally laying his hands on his buck, Shackleford had two things that stood in the way, two hogs and a math test. Fortunately, he took care of the hogs. You have to wonder, with his mind on the big buck, how he did on his math test. Hopefully he was on target there, too.
Contact Glynn at glynnharris37@gmail.com
