There’s nothing like a good hunting buddy when you’re in a bind.  They’ll help you blood trail a deer, drag a deer, and clean a deer with ease and all you have to do is return the favor.  Most hunting buddies have all the above covered, but Charles Moore of Leesville La. has a special hunting buddy and on October 14, 2011, his buddy, Cleveland Borders, proved to be the deciding factor in whether or not Charles would kill the deer of a lifetime.

The day before, the duo was doing some scouting when they walked up on some good deer sign and right there it was determined that this was the spot they were going to hunt.  “We’d never hunted this particular spot before.  We walked in on Thursday afternoon and Cleveland thought it was a good spot and I agreed,” explained Moore.  The next morning found the hunters in the new area and ready to kill. At 8:30 AM, after a slow start to the morning, Charles pulled out his grunt call and gave it a whirl. It didn’t take long for his call to be answered by a monster buck. “After I grunted, this deer came up, but he was in some thick stuff and I couldn’t shoot.  All he would do is walk back and forth in the thick and I couldn’t find an open place at all to shoot,” said Moore.  That’s when an idea came to him. “I sent Cleveland a text and asked him to pull out his Can, because I knew I was too close to use mine,” Moore went on to say.  This method works well in turkey hunting and elk hunting, because it causes the animal to look past the hunter.  Moore knew that as close as the deer was to him, he’d be pegged in a second if he called, but his friend, who was 200 yards away, could bleat, and the deer would never suspect that Moore was in the area. “So Cleveland worked his Can three times and as soon as he did, the buck stepped out of the thick and right where I could shoot. As soon as I shot, the deer dropped in his tracks, which surprised me, but what was a larger surprise was the deer’s size. When I got up to him, I just dropped my gun on the ground and walked off.  I couldn’t believe that I just killed this buck,” laughed Moore. The .444 brought the buck down with one shot at 40 yards and after a two hour trek out of the woods, it also brought a barrage of calls to the Moore household. “Man, it all went down hill after I found him. We had a blow out on the truck because we backed over a stob and it took us two hours to get him home. We had a lot trouble getting him out. I received all kinds of calls that night from people I don’t even know. All they wanted to do was talk about this deer!” exclaimed Moore.

Moore had good reason to drop his gun. The deer had 14 points, a 19 3/4″ spread, and is a good way for a hunter to start off his season. “I thought he was just a big 8 point, until I got him on the ground. I tell everybody that calls, that if it wasn’t for Cleveland, I’d have never killed this deer,” said Moore.  I like to think it was that, combined with quick thinking on Moore’s part, that brought down this Louisiana giant whitetail.

Charles Moore show just what caused him to drop his .444 on the ground.