When word of a large deer being killed gets out, the area that it was taken in usually becomes infested with hunters from all over the country. Michael McMurray of Winnsboro, LA knows firsthand how word-of-mouth can bring flocks of hunters in. You see, Michael is the cousin of James McMurray, whose deer killed in January of 1994 still holds the Louisiana State Record for non-typical whitetails. “When James killed that deer, people from all over swarmed Big Lake WMA. You couldn’t hunt anywhere without being on top of someone,” Michael said. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake James did, so when I asked him where he killed the deer, he simply replied, “Franklin Parish.”
I asked him, “Private land? Leased land?”
Again he said, “Franklin Parish.”
That’s when I realized that he wasn’t going to tell me anything about his “honey hole” or anything else other than the parish it was killed in. I can’t hold that against him!
Michael McMurray poses with his Franklin Parish goliath harvested on Nov 28, 2009.
Michael and another one of his friends went in early on the morning of November 28 to a spot they had scouted earlier in the week and took their stands. “We found lots of sign,” McMurray stated. “Hooked bushes, paws, and tracks were everywhere. They were so thick in there we could literally smell them,” he added. At close to 9:30 AM that morning, he had grown tired of sitting in the cold and was about to leave, when he saw a head moving through the brush. McMurray raised his gun and watched a doe appear, but she didn’t hold his attention very long. “I could see movement in the palmettos, so I put my scope over where it was and that’s when I saw all the horns,” he recalled. Finally after following the doe some distance, the buck gave him a shot, but after pulling the trigger he knew it wasn’t as good as he had hoped. “I could tell it was a gut shot and knew I’d better try to get another shot in him,” he said. McMurray finally found another opening, and when the deer entered his scope, a fatal shot from his Remington Model 742 .280 put the deer on the ground.
“I tried to sit there as long as I could but I had to get down after about 15 minutes,” McMurray exclaimed. As he walked up to the deer, he saw that rack was enormous, but it wasn’t until his friend arrived immediately thereafter and they actually picked it up off the ground until they saw all of the characteristics it had. The deer toted a hefty 203″ BTR of antlers according to Simmons Sporting Goods in Bastrop, LA, and it currently ranks second in its class.
This 203" crown of bone is sure to get any hunter's blood flowing.
“You have to hunt hard to kill deer like this. You have to put time in scouting and using scent control,” McMurray shared. “When I go into the woods, I try not to touch anything with my bare hands. The first thing I do when I get out of my truck is run my hands in a pile of dirt to try and rid them of most of the oil that’s on them in case I do have to touch something and don’t have gloves.” Being a smart woodsman is what enabled Micheal to take this giant of a buck—woodmanship and a lot of luck! Congrats on an outstanding animal, and we look forward to seeing another McMurray added to the top of the Bayou State’s record books.
