It occurred round 25 years in the past. However Roy Withers, of Columbia, Louisiana, remembers his tussle with a wounded, 180-pound (8-point) buck prefer it occurred solely yesterday. It was throughout Louisiana’s primitive firearms season, and Withers was utilizing a single shot rifle chambered in .35 Whelan.
“I used to be in Russell Sage WMA close to Monroe, searching alone within the afternoon in late November,” Withers tells Out of doors Life. “I used to be in a stand and noticed a pair of dollars chasing a doe. I yelled and one buck stopped. I shot at him however missed.”
Withers says a couple of minutes later, one of many bucks returned chasing the doe. Withers yelled once more to cease the buck at 125 yards, and when the deer halted, he fired his .35 Whelan. He heard the 200-grain bullet hit the deer, however the buck ran out of sight.
“When it acquired darkish, I went on the lookout for the buck and when I discovered him, he was bedded down 150 yards away from the place I shot him,” says Withers, a 47-year-old gear operator and truck driver. “I spooked him, he jumped up and ran. That’s after I backed out to name my buddy Brad Rogers who has a monitoring canine.”
Withers and Rogers returned with the monitoring canine three hours later they usually headed to the spot the place the buck was final seen. Withers’ younger daughter, Madlyn, additionally got here to assist.
“We trailed the buck about 200 yards to the place he was bedded – the canine barking the entire time,” Withers says. “We discovered the buck and he’s us, and he’s hit low within the entrance shoulder from my Whalen.”
In response to Louisiana regulation, Withers explains, you possibly can’t carry a gun at evening whereas utilizing a monitoring canine on a WMA.
“So all I needed to end the deer off was my Kershaw folding pocketknife. I knew fashionable gun season was opening the subsequent morning. Coming again to the WMA the next day, it will have been not possible for me to get my 8-pointer.”
So, Withers pulled out his pocketknife, grabbed the buck and minimize its throat. That’s when the deer went wild and charged him.
“His antlers minimize me within the face about an inch from my eye, and in addition on the highest of my head,” he says. “I’m stabbing him the entire time within the neck with my knife whereas I’m wrestling him, and I’m beneath the buck getting gored.”
Withers pushed the buck off him together with his ft, and the deer took off once more. Withers adopted the buck to the place it bedded down once more, and this time taking it was taking its final breaths as blood poured out the knife wounds.
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Roy’s daughter Madlyn referred to as her mother Marsha when the one-on-one battle between Roy and the buck began. Marsha, who’s a nurse, drove to the WMA to provide some much-needed first assist to Roy.
“I didn’t go in for stitches. Marsha patched me up fairly good,” says Withers. “The deer was lifeless by then, and we dragged it out and processed it.”
Roy says the 8-poiner scored over 140 inches and weighed round 180 kilos.
“I’ve completed off plenty of deer with that outdated Kershaw pocketknife, together with one simply final week. However none fairly like that 8-pointer.”
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