In a matter of minutes -- though it seemed like hours -- David found himself at the edge of the sendero just a few yards past the white stake. This was after he had walked, stalked and belly-crawled through cactus, thorns, grass and briars.

"I came out almost exactly where I expected to," he said. "The buck was still there, and I had closed the distance to about 225 yards."

A HORSE OF A BUCK
David set up his shooting sticks, steadied himself for a shot, took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. His gun, a Remington Model 700 chambered in .264 Winchester Magnum, was armed with handloads courtesy of his dad -- 140-grain bullets sitting atop Hodgdon 4831 smokeless powder ignited by Federal Magnum primers.

"I heard the big 'whop' of my bullet hitting him," David said. "And it seemed like only a second passed before Adam was sitting next to me in the truck, on the sendero, telling me he'd gotten the whole thing on video!"

David and his guide first saw this amazing buck at 4:45 p.m. David pulled the trigger at 5 o'clock. "It turned out that nobody had ever seen this buck before on the ranch," he said.

"When we first saw it, Adam and I guessed him to be in the 170- to 175-class range." A few minutes after 5 p.m. on the afternoon of Dec. 14, 2006, David and Adam found themselves in the presence of true South Texas royalty.

"'Oh my,' I remember saying," David recalled. "'He's a little bigger than what we thought.'" Talk about an understatement. . . .

"I counted 31 points the first time," David said. "But I kept counting over and over, and I got a different number every time. I was a little nervous, I guess."

In truth, David's south Texas "muy grande" from el Rucio had 23 measurable points and officially scored 227 7/8 non-typical B&C points. David and Adam got on the radio and contacted David's hunting buddies on the other side of the ranch.

"I told them, 'Y'all might want to ride over here -- this is a 200-plus-class buck,'" David said. "Of course, they immediately hollered back that it probably wasn't even a 195, giving me lots of grief. However, Adam convinced them that this was indeed a buck they needed to come take a look at."

A LOS CAZADORES WINNER
The buck, probably weighing less than 200 pounds on the hoof, was thought to be 6 1/2 years old. It was later green-scored in the mid-220s. "We started sending photos out on our cell phones, and before you know it, this deer was all over the place!" David noted.

Ultimately, it ended up in one of the most sought-after places in Texas deer hunting -- the Los Cazadores contest in Pearsall. Having hunted in Texas for many years, David always entered this well-known contest. Now it proved very worthwhile, as the buck took second place overall in the prestigious event. What's more, it was the largest free-ranging whitetail (no high fence) taken in Texas last season.

"During the 1994-1995 season, I killed a buck in Mississippi that was my biggest deer ever before this guy," David said. "That buck, a 16-pointer scoring 181 3/8 non-typical, was second only to the Tony Fulton buck that season in Mississippi." (The Fulton buck scored 295 6/8 non-typical points and is one of only a handful of 300-class bucks ever taken by a hunter.)

David's hunting partners also scored on the trip. Dr. Jones tagged a 147-inch 9-pointer "literally at the last minute," David said. "Dustin took a 131-inch management buck -- an 11-pointer with a really pretty rack."

As you might imagine, David and his buddies quickly booked a 2007 trip to the McAllen Ranch. "We're definitely going back," he said, "but we're going a week later because we believe it will be even better."

Yeah . . . right!

Editor's Note: The ever-popular Los Cazadores ("the hunters" in Spanish) Deer Contest in Pearsall, Texas, was established in 1986. The 2006-2007 season marked the contest's 21st year. Since south Texas and northern Mexico have long been annual big-buck destinations for whitetail hunters from all parts of the country, many non-residents like David Coleman enter this popular contest every season.

page: 1 | 2 | 3