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Posted on 12/06/2020 7:32:08 AM PST by texas booster
... With the meat of the rut still ahead in some regions and lots of holiday hunting traffic sure to come, it’s a safe bet plenty more will surface before the season’s end.
Virginia Luce’s 11-pointer isn’t the biggest buck reported from eastern Texas this season, but the story behind her Houston County whopper is arguably one of the most refreshing to come down the pike in quite a while.
The veteran hunter from Kennard is a four-time cancer survivor who retired just two months ago after working for 25 years as a registered nurse. Luce hasn’t missed a season opener in years, many spent on the 80-acre spread where she and her husband, Myrl, built their home back in the 1980s.
The property is conveniently located adjacent to the Davy Crockett National Forest. The big woods gobble up more than 160,000 acres of real estate in Houston and Trinity counties. Family members are the only ones who get the green light to hunt on the couple’s little slice of heaven.
“It’s a pretty good spot,” she said. “My husband and I have hunted and fished together for our entire married life — 63 years. “I usually kill a buck every year, but we don’t allow anyone to shoot the momma deer. The way I see it, if you leave the girls alone, the boys will come.”
Luce turned 80 on her last birthday; her husband is 83. While neither gets around as well they used to, she can still shoot a rifle as well as she ever did.
The couple keeps corn feeders going on the property each fall, and they rely on game cameras to watch them. Luce has logged countless hours in hunting blinds over the years, but physical limitations have forced a change in strategy ...
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Luce didn’t waste any time tending to business. She poked her rifle barrel through the window, found the buck in her scope and touched the trigger as he slipped into a narrow lane near the edge of their property.
Her husband, who was kicked back in a living room recliner watching television at the time, said he had no idea his wife was even looking at a deer until the rifle barked.
“She watches them all time when she’s in the kitchen,” he said. “Right after the shot she hollered, ‘Well, that was the big one, Daddy.’ That’s when I put my boots on, got on the tractor and went to load him up. He didn’t go far. She doesn’t miss very often.”
Of all the bucks she has shot in her lifetime, Luce claims this one is by far the biggest.
“When I saw all those horns I thought was I seeing things — I’d never seen anything like it,” she said. “I got so excited about that deer that I can’t even remember what I was fixing for lunch.”
There was plenty to get excited about. Sporting 11 scorable points, including a split brow tine, the buck has been taped at 1602/8 gross as a non-typical by Jacob Carter at McCarty Taxidermy.
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A little something different and non-political.
The writer, Matt Williams, is noted for writing about wildlife sports.
Great story.
The link won’t let me see the picture without subscribing - would you be so kind as to post it?
Oops! You already did. Thanks!
She is better than I am. I have deer walk right up to the bird feeders in the back yard but too lazy to butcher anymore so I just watch them eat.
Out front my chihuahua tried to tackle one but he was too fast.
My dream is to retire somewhere that I can shoot a buck off my front porch. Of course I’d rather it be a big muley 👍
At any rate, good shot grandma, and glad to hear buck fever lives on even when your older haha.
Pinging to the Texas ping list.
A surprisingly fair story from one of the major metro papers.
So she baits the boys with girls and probably a salt block or two. Good plan. If he is anything like the bucks that hang around our house all of whom have lost their fear of people... he was probably hoping for a handout from Grandma. Hey! Grandma where is my treat? Then blamo! Another trophy on the wall, venecin and deer soup for everyone, or as my grandmother used to call it... chili.
One shot, one kill.
They do have deer feeders out but otherwise just let the deer wander onto their property from the Davey Crockett National Forest.
She shoots better than I do ...
Seriously, we had a little lumber mill, and my grandmother used to invite my uncle and I over for lunch almost every day for “chili”. She was a product of the depression. It was never the same. We never knew what kind of meat or vegetables we were eating. If she trapped or shot something it was sure to be in there. I used to get in trouble for drinking so much kool-aid to help wash the pepper and chili spices down. At that time I could eat just about anything without getting an upset stomache.
Sr. Militia ;)
And a Nurse as well.
I wasn't actually joking... my grandmother had very a very steady hand as well. She was a little thing who could have worked as a double for granny on The Beverly Hillbillies. Growing up we usually knew the names of the cattle we were eating and sometimes spoke fondly of them as we were chewing them up. "Man that Herbie is good tasting little steer." But she didn't usually put beef in her chili. Grandma died from intestinal cancer... I suspect all the spices that she used to cover the flavor of gamey tasting meats in her chili might have contributed.
This is one Grandma who won’t get run over by a reindeer.
Nice buck & interesting antlers, too. Grandma ought to leave the discussion about taking female deer to the wildlife biologists, though. If she ever had some meat from a fat doe that hasn’t gone gamey like a buck will from hormones & chasing does in heat, she’d change her mind about shooting them.
A good ice water brine for a couple three days takes the ‘buck’ out of the buck. Keep the ice and salt up, but let the water out and refill until the water stays clear.
The salt pulls out all the adrenalines and testosterone.
YOU WIN today’s posts !!!!
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