11-point buck had crab claw on right side
Wayne Louya of Carthage, N.C. hits the woods during deer season every chance he gets from opening day until the season ends. He typically takes at least one good scoring deer per year in North Carolina’s piedmont, and this year was no exception, scoring his biggest trophy yet on Nov. 25 with a 153-inch brute he killed in Randolph County.
Louya was tipped off by a Randolph County farmer who had seen some big bucks in the area, and after several fruitless weeks chasing them, Louya’s buddy came through again after spotting a big buck while cutting soybeans.
“The farmer called me up and told me there was a good group of bachelor bucks using the fields this year and they were much bigger than anything I had on camera from before,” Louya said. “I put up five cameras and I got two good bucks on camera. I got one single picture of the big 10-point buck and then a 125-class 8-pointer that showed up regularly.”
“I hunted hard all bow season and barely saw anything but a few does here and there. I decided to pull all of my stands and start hunting another property in Montgomery County,” he said.
But, shortly afterwards, the farmer called him again and told him he saw a massive buck while cutting the soybeans. Louya wasn’t excited about heading back anytime soon. He had spent most of his season on that property and barely saw anything at all in the stand. But, his curiosity was stoked.
“I stopped by there afterwards and the farmer had a cow out. While I was helping him herd the cow back into the pasture, I walked up on a ¼-acre briar thicket covered in buck rubs and beds that was right near the bean fields that are now planted in winter wheat. I had been walking past these deer bedded all bow season long,” he said.
Louya finally decided that he would go back for one last hunt on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. With all of his stands gone, he knew exactly where he would sit — on the ground near a main trail leading from the briar thicket to the wheat field.
“If anything was going to come out that afternoon, they would have to use this trail and I would be ready,” he said. “With all these bucks I keep hearing about up here, one is bound to mess up and I had a good feeling that 125-inch 8-pointer was going to show.”
That afternoon, Louya sat down at 1 p.m. and decided to wait them out until dark. Then, at 5:20, he heard something coming.
“I saw movement through the trees and immediately saw horns. I realized it must be that big 8-point. Finally, I am going to get a shot at him,” he said.
Louya shouldered his Remington .264 Win Mag and shot the deer at 18 steps. The deer ran off just out of sight. He was happy finally to have killed a good deer on this property and was going to be happy with his 125-inch 8-pointer. Or so he thought. He found the deer a few minutes later and realized he’d shot the monster 10-pointer instead!
“When I saw him, I literally almost crapped in my pants. I just killed the biggest deer of my life,” he exclaimed.
While Louya’s buck is a mainframe 10, he had a crab claw on his right side making him an 11-pointer. With over 40 inches of mass measurements, 15 ½-inch inside spread, and points measuring between five and 10 inches, his lifetime trophy ended up with a total green-gross score of 153 ¾ inches.
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