This monster buck was a city dweller.
Hunting seasons haven’t been open very long in most parts of the country, but there’s a true monster already on the ground in Louisiana.
The early belief is this 18-point monster may be a potential state-record, non-typical deer taken with archery equipment. Louisiana Sportsman reports the lucky hunter is St. Francisville dentist Frank Sullivan, and he bagged the monster in the city limits right behind his office!
This was one tough deer. Sullivan and another hunter were both after the buck last season when the other hunter managed to make a non-fatal hit on the buck. But as if that wasn’t enough, the monster deer also survived a car collision.
“During the rut, he got hit by the sheriff’s granddaughter crossing the road,” Sullivan told Louisiana Sportsman. “I was watching him 30 minutes before he got hit. I was watching him from the office with some binoculars.”
The buck ran off when approached by a sheriff’s deputy after the accident, so people feared he was dead. But then, he turned up again behind Sullivan’s office three weeks later before promptly pulling another big-buck disappearing act.
As it often seems to go with big-buck stories, the big deer stayed a ghost before showing up again completely out of the blue six weeks ago. Thanks to trail cameras, Sullivan quickly had the buck’s movements down pat. If the deer stayed on his property after 5 a.m., it meant he would bed down on the property.
After checking his cameras Thursday morning, he realized the big buck was probably bedded down behind the office. Sullivan had self-imposed rules about not entering the property to hunt after 3 p.m., but after a day of treating patients, he decided to break them for once.
At first, it looked like things may backfire after he spooked some deer and watched coyotes chase off some others. But fortunately, a mixture of Sullivan’s bait and fresh acorns on the ground soon drew some more deer out.
He was busy watching three smaller bucks when the big non-typical finally stepped out 25 yards away.
“It’s the first time I saw him from a stand,” Sullivan told Louisiana Sportsman. “I was about to let (the arrow) go and something spooked him, and he ran off to the right. I had to let the bow back down; all I can see is his legs.”
In many instances, that might be a depressing end to the hunt, but Sullivan lucked out when an 8-pointer entered the scene and grabbed the big buck’s attention. The 8-point pulled the 18-pointer back into position where Sullivan was able to take a 25-yard shot.
As for the rest of the hunt, well, you can see the recovery in the video below.
Sullivan’s awesome buck grossed somewhere between 220 and 230 inches. If it’s not a state record, the it’s likely to place high in the Louisiana record books. The current archery record is a 227 6/8 buck shot in 2010.
Last year was a good season for Louisiana with several monster bucks falling.
Coincidentally Sullivan is friends with Travis Links, a chiropractor who also bagged an 18-point, 190-inch, non-typical monster last season. Clearly it’s a good time to be a hunter and doctor in the Bayou State!
NEXT: 673 POUND BLACK BEAR MAY BE A NEW GEORGIA STATE RECORD
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