"We had a hard time locating a blood trail, and I decided to call Joe Caskey, a good friend, to come help us out," Billy related. "Amazingly, Joe found a blood trail within a few minutes of the time he arrived. Then, after a short search, we found the buck about 125 yards away. The buck had traveled a total of about 150 yards from where he'd been shot.

"I knew he was big, but it seemed that his rack kept growing the closer I got to it," Billy remembered. "To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement."

A NEW STATE RECORD
The monster buck, weighing 255 pounds, sported 18 points on a massive and beautiful non-typical rack that was still in full velvet. Needless to say, scoring a velvet rack of this magnitude after the 60-day drying period was no easy chore. The rack was scored as a main-frame 4x4 with 10 additional abnormal points that added up to 75 7/8 inches in abnormal growth. Most of the abnormals grew in a large cluster on the left side, two of which were over 17 inches in length and one of which was over 15 inches in length.

Despite heavy side-to-side deductions amounting to 14 4/8 inches, Billy's "Bayou Bruiser" tallied up a gross non-typical score of 233 inches and a net score of 219 1/8. This was good enough to make it a new Louisiana state record by bow! Although no specific records are kept on velvet whitetails taken across North America by bow, Billy's buck also ranks high in that category as well, probably within the top three or four velvet whitetails ever killed.

SURPRISING DISCOVERY
Amazingly, the taxidermist who mounted Billy's velvet buck discovered a large hollow area at the base of the cluster of non-typical points on the left side of the rack. Had Billy's buck started rubbing his velvet, or had the buck engaged in normal sparring with another buck, he likely would have broken off a larger section of that very weak cluster. Apparently, Billy put an arrow into the record whitetail just in time!

It was no real point of concern to area wildlife biologists that the buck was still in velvet in early October.

"In this part of Louisiana, the rut occurs later than it does in some other parts of the state," said John Leslie, a wildlife biologist with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. John works out of the Ferriday district office, which is located in the region where the buck was killed.

"While most of north Louisiana sees the rut occurring from mid to late November, deer here in the Delta parishes usually reach the peak of the rut in late December," John continued. "Having a late rut means that all deer fawns are born later in the year, and they carry this characteristic of running a few weeks behind on everything throughout their lives."

Billy Husted is still thanking his lucky stars that he was sitting where he was when his chance at such a trophy buck came along.

"It was just a case of me being in the right place at the right time. I didn't do anything special, and when you consider that this was only my second bowhunt in 30 years, I guess I really was lucky!"

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