It happened around 25 years ago. But Roy Withers, of Columbia, Louisiana, remembers his tussle with a wounded, 180-pound (8-point) buck like it happened only yesterday. It was during Louisiana’s primitive firearms season, and Withers was using a single shot rifle chambered in .35 Whelan.
“I was in Russell Sage WMA near Monroe, hunting alone in the afternoon in late November,” Withers tells Outdoor Life. “I was in a stand and saw a pair of bucks chasing a doe. I yelled and one buck stopped. I shot at him but missed.”
Withers says a few minutes later, one of the bucks returned chasing the doe. Withers yelled again to stop the buck at 125 yards, and when the deer halted, he fired his .35 Whelan. He heard the 200-grain bullet hit the deer, but the buck ran out of sight.
“When it got dark, I went looking for the buck and when I found him, he was bedded down 150 yards away from where I shot him,” says Withers, a 47-year-old equipment operator and truck driver. “I spooked him, he jumped up and ran. That’s when I backed out to call my buddy Brad Rogers who has a tracking dog.”
Withers and Rogers returned with the tracking dog three hours later and they headed to the spot where the buck was last seen. Withers’ young daughter, Madlyn, also came to help.
“We trailed the buck about 200 yards to where he was bedded – the dog barking the whole time,” Withers says. “We found the buck and he’s looking at us, and he’s hit low in the front shoulder from my Whalen.”
According to Louisiana law, Withers explains, you can’t carry a gun at night while using a tracking dog on a WMA.
“So all I had to finish the deer off was my Kershaw folding pocketknife. I knew modern gun season was opening the next morning. Coming back to the WMA the following day, it would have been impossible for me to get my 8-pointer.”
So, Withers pulled out his pocketknife, grabbed the buck and cut its throat. That’s when the deer went wild and charged him.
“His antlers cut me in the face about an inch from my eye, and also on the top of my head,” he says. “I’m stabbing him the whole time in the neck with my knife while I’m wrestling him, and I’m underneath the buck getting gored.”
Withers pushed the buck off him with his feet, and the deer took off again. Withers followed the buck to where it bedded down again, and this time taking it was taking its last breaths as blood poured out the knife wounds.
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Roy’s daughter Madlyn called her mom Marsha when the one-on-one fight between Roy and the buck started. Marsha, who’s a nurse, drove to the WMA to give some much-needed first aid to Roy.
“I didn’t go in for stitches. Marsha patched me up pretty good,” says Withers. “The deer was dead by then, and we dragged it out and processed it.”
Roy says the 8-poiner scored over 140 inches and weighed around 180 pounds.
“I’ve finished off a lot of deer with that old Kershaw pocketknife, including one just last week. But none quite like that 8-pointer.”
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