Turning Heads: Huge Buck is Quebec's New No. 2

For most deer hunters, our decision to hunt began with the encouragement of family or friends. Most people who have grown up in a family of non-hunters will likely be non-hunters themselves. It is rather unusual to find a first-year hunter over 30 years of age who has taken up hunting without the encouragement of family or friends. Quebec hunter Olivier Coiteux is one of the hunters who has broken that mold.

“I didn’t start hunting until 2020,” said the 34-year-old Insurance Broker from Quebec City, Quebec. “Nobody in my family was a hunter, but deer hunting caught my attention several years ago; it looked fun and exciting. At the time, I had learned all I knew about deer hunting from watching YouTube videos. The more I watched, the more I knew that one day I would try deer hunting,” explains Olivier.

In the fall of 2020, Olivier had access to a small property with hunting permission. Although the property could have been better for deer, there were a few around, and Olivier was able to take his first deer (a spike buck) with a crossbow while hunting over a small bait that he had maintained.

All the excitement Olivier thought could be experienced while deer hunting culminated with that spike buck in 2020. His adrenaline rush after taking the shot, his shaky hands, and his rapid heartbeat and breathing were precisely what he had hoped a successful hunt would provide.

After the 2020 hunting season concluded, Olivier began his work for the 2021 season. Focusing on zone eight, he found a different, much larger property he could hunt. Although the land was an hour and a half one-way drive from home, Olivier was excited about the new property. It was hard to access, and despite the presence of other hunters in the general area, nobody else had access to the property Olivier had permission to hunt on. Another reason for Olivier’s excitement was that this property was big enough for him to scout, something he missed out on while hunting the small woodlot in 2020. It didn’t take long before Olivier located what he thought were several good stand and ground blind locations.

“I installed a few non-cellular cameras, sprayed scents in a few places and left everything alone for a month. I went back in January of 2021 and looked at the hundreds of photos I had captured over the last month. After looking at the photos, I concluded the area held a lot of promise,” Olivier says.

The 2021 season would be Olivier’s first year hunting the new location. The first thing he did on the property was to create a food plot in one of the small, natural forest meadows. Not owning an ATV machine, Olivier walked a mile to the meadow and back while carrying a rake, shovel, saw, fertilizer and a couple of cameras. He installed the two trail cameras directly in the small food plot.

On July 1, 2021, one of Olivier’s trail cameras snapped a picture of a large antlered buck. “He was in full velvet, parading in my food plot and having fun posing in front of my cameras. He was simply magnificent; he was the king of the spot! My friend Kevin often spoke to me about giving a name to a special deer. So, I told myself I would call him ‘Kicker’ because of his abnormal points, which seemed to be growing everywhere,” Olivier says. The 2021 season was the hunter’s first entire season of hunting, and it ended with an unfilled tag.

“In 2022, I decided to change strategies and try to figure out his movements. As my friend Bruno suggested, I set up cameras in new locations and installed a new stand deeper in the woods. Eventually, I started getting pictures of the buck, and several of those pictures were snapped during legal hunting hours. My mistake in 2022 was baiting where I was hunting,” explains Olivier.

You can imagine the rest; Olivier hunted his pile of carrots, and Kicker never showed up. However, he was regularly seen via trail camera photos while moving through a nearby funnel. But in three years, the buck was never photographed on the bait. Despite learning some of the buck’s travel patterns, Olivier decided to stick to his original plan and hunt over his bait of carrots. Once again, he finished the 2022 season with his deer tag in his pocket.

“I kept telling myself I would get my chance at the buck in ‘23. I spent a lot of time talking with Bruno, and he suggested I hunt even deeper into the woods than I already was. During one of our scouting trips, we noticed a lot of buck sign in a couple of new places, so I decided to move my cameras again. On June 8, I received a trail camera photo of six bucks together, but one stood out far above the others,” Olivier recounts. “It was Kicker!”

The buck was photographed only a couple more times before disappearing at the beginning of July. For three months, Olivier searched for the buck; in time, he began to think the buck was dead, having succumbed to a predator attack or a vehicle collision. Olivier moved his cameras around, hoping to pick up the buck in a new area. He reopened mock scrapes and added scent to existing scrapes, but it was all done without success. Despite Olivier’s efforts, Kicker was nowhere to be found.

It was Friday, the last day before the opening day of firearms season, and Olivier decided to visit his hunting area one last time. While there, he refreshed his mock scrapes and set up a tent blind in the field in case of a possible wind change the next day.

On Nov. 11, 2023, Olivier Coiteux’s alarm clock went off at 4:30 a.m. He had not slept well. Once he rolled out of bed, he checked his cell phone for any trail camera photos taken overnight. There were photos of several does and two bucks that had passed, including a nice 7-pointer, but there was no sign of Kicker.

“I was dejected after seeing the trail camera pictures but went hunting anyway. I decided to hunt from the ground blind I had placed near a picked cornfield; it was the best spot to hunt for the current wind direction. I took my time walking and made a few grunt calls as I went, trying not to frighten any deer in the cornfield. I could hear deer running away in the dark, but I continued to my blind and grunted as I went. Arriving at my blind, I settled in and was silent for 15 minutes while I let the area rest. Then, I started throwing a few grunts and bleats and did a light rattling sequence,” says Olivier. “Then I waited.”

As the day dawned, Olivier began to make out his surroundings. Grabbing his binoculars, he swept the area around the blind. As he pointed the binoculars out his right-side window, he immediately spotted a large antlered buck standing in the field of corn stubble.

“I saw a buck with an imposing rack, but I did not recognize him yet. I even thought I was still sleeping and that it was a hallucination! Then I looked closely again, and it took me a moment to realize it was him! Kicker was in my cornfield,” Olivier recounts.

Picking up his rifle, Olivier looked at the buck through his scope. Because of how the buck was standing, he couldn’t administer a clean shot, so Olivier sat his rifle down and again picked up his binoculars.

The buck had his head close to the ground and was following a doe through the corn stubble. Olivier told himself to be patient; the buck was getting closer to the blind with every step he took. It wouldn’t be long before the buck stood in the shooting lane directly before the blind.

Olivier remembers: “I soon realized I may never have a chance to harvest him again. He could disappear at any second. So, I again picked up my rifle and positioned myself in my right window. Knowing I was going to shoot the buck, my heart immediately started pounding uncontrollably! When I finally got the buck centered within the scope, I thought my heart was going to explode!”

Olivier’s shot dropped the buck in its tracks, but the deer immediately started to regain its footing, so the hunter hurried to chamber another round and took a finishing shot, which missed! “I was shocked by what was happening. For the third shot, I took my time and focused on my aim. This time, I hit him directly in the heart, and he was down for good. It was done; the buck of my lifetime was dead, and I was experiencing so many emotions,” Olivier says.

Olivier immediately called his dad and told him he had just killed Kicker and needed his help. As soon as he ended the phone call, he began his walk to the fallen prize. “The closer I got, the bigger he seemed to get. I did not realize what had just happened, and it took me a couple of minutes to get my hands on him. He was there, lying on the ground in front of me, and I looked at him from all angles and told myself that this was really happening! The mix of emotions was very intense,” Olivier explains.

I immediately texted my friend Kevin and asked for advice. He recommended that I first call a good taxidermist and then call André Beaudry, the founder of Quebec’s official big game record-keeping organization. Beaudry is also an official Boone & Crockett measurer, the first person from that province to gain that status.

André Beaudry’s mastery with a tape measure found the antlers to have an impressive typical gross score of 190 7/8 inches! The side-to-side differences of 3 1/8 inches, plus three abnormal points totaling 7 6/8 inches, give the Olivier Coiteux buck an official net score of 180 inches.

The giant, mainframe 10-point is world-class in every way imaginable. The beams are 30 2/8 inches long, and the inside spread is 20 inches. The longest tines on each side are the G-3s at 11 2/8 inches. And the mass is ridiculous, with a total mass measurement of 45 5/8 inches! Olivier’s buck becomes Quebec’s new number two typical, measuring just shy of Eric Chicoine’s 2018 provincial record of 180 3/8 inches net typical.

Here’s an interesting tidbit concerning the Coiteux antlers; if we add the antler lengths of each main beam, the inside spread and the mass measurements, we get 126 1/8 inches. Again, this number doesn’t include any point measurements. It takes 120 inches to qualify a typical set of antlers into the Quebec record book. The Coiteux antlers would qualify for the Provincial record book without using any of its points within the score!

Instead of resting on his laurels, Olivier Coiteux has become a steady voice for Quebec deer hunting. “It’s hard to describe my feelings about all the attention this deer has gotten. I post a lot on social media about Kicker, and big bucks in general, and I participate in many hunting shows because of this deer. I’m happy and proud to show everyone that we also can have great deer hunting here in Quebec.”

“Nov. 11, 2023 — the day I harvested my buck of a lifetime! The buck who made me dream and who had given me nightmares for four years. Even better was having my father there to celebrate the most incredible day of my hunting life,” Olivier says. “It’s a day I will remember for the rest of my life!”

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