Lamar County hunter sneaks up on Christmas present

Jerry Tassin was sitting in an oak bottom on the 40-acre family piece of Lamar County property when his phone rang Christmas afternoon.

“My dad said, ‘There is a big deer right here, and he won’t come out. So see if you can get him,’” Tassin said.

So the hunter eased out of his stand and stalked through the rain-soaked woods as the day’s light quickly faded. Soon, Tassin was near the pipeline his father Joseph was watching.

And there, at the edge of the woods, stood a big buck that later taped out at 150 inches.

Jerry Tassin was sitting in an oak bottom on the 40-acre family piece of property when his phone rang Christmas afternoon.

“My dad said, ‘There is a big deer right here, and he won’t come out. So see if you can get him,’” Tassin said.

So the hunter eased out of his stand and stalked through the rain-soaked woods as the day’s light quickly faded. Soon, Tassin was near the pipeline his father Joseph was watching.

And there, at the edge of the woods, stood a big buck.

“I got within 30 yards of him,” the younger Tassin said. “The only thing I seen was horns.

“He looked at me broadside, and I said, ‘I cannot miss this deer.’”

Tassin self-motivational talk wasn’t just because he was looking at a monster.

“I done missed three (deer) this year, and my buddies had been giving me a hard time,” he laughed.

So while the buck looked at him in the growing darkness, Tassin brought his .30-06 to bear and placed the cross hairs on the shoulder.

When his rifle barked, the deer disappeared.

And that was last the Tassins saw of the animal until the next morning.

“Aw, we looked for it, but couldn’t find any blood,” Jerry Tassin said, explaining that they looked until 9 p.m. before calling it off for the night.

The next morning, however, Tassin enlisted brother-in-law Jim French to continue looking.

“We were fixing to give up on him because they thought I had missed him,” Tassin said.

And then the pair of trackers found one drop of blood near a fence line. That gave Tassin renewed vigor, and within a few minutes they saw the deer piled up in some weeds.

“Man, I didn’t walk up to him; I ran up to him,” Tassin said. “My brother-in-law said I covered 40 yards in three steps.”

The animal’s 215-pound body was matched with a towering set of antlers that included 13 points around a 16-inch-wide frame.

“The G2s were 9 and 10 inches,” Tassin said. “I counted (the points) and then I throwed him down and went and tackled my brother-in-law.”

The buck was later green scored at 150 inches Boone & Crocket, with a net settling in the lower 140s.

He said this kill only proved an age-old adage among hunters.

“You never know until you go,” Tassin said.

The kill not only silenced Tassin’s buddies, it significantly upped his deer-hunting stats.

“I went from a 4-point (as a personal best) to this,” he laughed. “This has been awesome. I’d like to thank God, and I’d like to thank my dad.

“We have a little girl, and now she wants to come hunting with me.”