Big 11-point killed on Homochitto National Forest deer drive.
All Johnnie Dupont could see of the big buck slipping along the ridge was the front shoulders and rear end.
But after seeing a few deer easing through the woods ahead of the hounds released for a Dec. 27 dog drive in the Homochitto National Forest, Dupont kept his eyes on this one that had stopped to look and listen.
“He was running with two does,” said Dupont, who lives near Roxie. “I was on the backside of a bedding area. There were some dogs running in the area, and the deer were slipping out.”
He finally glimpsed the antlers, and couldn’t wait to get a shot.
“He ran on a ridge, and I saw he was a good buck.” Dupont said. “I could see his palmetto horn and knew he was a buck, and then he stopped behind a tree to look at the does.
“All I could see was his tail end and front shoulder. When he came out, I shot him and he ran about 40 yards and laid down.”
Dupont’s trusty Remington 742 .30-06 did its job, and when he got to his deer, he was impressed and thrilled.
The buck, aged at 4 1/2 years old, green scored 154 5/8 Boone & Crockett. It could have been a smidge more if not for a smaller point and drop tine that were broken. The racke featured 23 1.2-inch main beams and a 16-inch inside spread, with good mass carried through the main beams from the stout bases.
“I’ve talked with some folks at the ranger station and Forest Service agents, and everyone’s said it’s the best one they know of that’s come out of open public land in many years,” Dupont said. “Even people who have hunted here for years said they haven’t seen anything like that in at least 15 to 20 years.”
Dupont and his hunting pals had turned loose about a dozen dogs for a drive. They enjoy the thrill of the hunt, listening to the hounds and involving youngsters to help bring up the next generation of hunters.
“We don’t turn a whole bunch of dogs loose,” he said. “There probably are 10 or 11 of us who hunt together, and we might turn 10 or 15 dogs out in big blocks of land.
“The majority of the group is kids; my sons are 15 and 17, and enjoy hunting. We want to bring the kids up into the hunting. They like to stay excited about it, and they do when they hear the dogs. We don’t kill everything and stay by the guidelines, and everything works out.”
Dupont said he’s hunted for years and, despite his experience, his big buck “kind of surprised me, too” once he got a good look at it.
“It was killed dog-hunting on open, public land, which some people don’t believe is possible or whatever,” he said. “They’ve been hunting dogs there (in the forest) for over 30 years, and lot of people say there’s no caliber of bucks around because of the dogs.
“But this goes to show that’s incorrect.”
Dupont’s taxidermist scored the buck for him. Later this year, he said he’ll have it officially scored for the Magnolia Records.
“Where I harvested him, a friend of mine has 40 (private) acres, and he saw the deer that morning,” Dupont said. “He made a loop through there and several other people put eyes on him, but he didn’t get that big by being stupid.
“I was in the right place at the right time.”
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