Everyone loves to try to kill a big deer.  It’s probably one of the main reason why we as hunters do what we do. Some hunters even go that extra mile and painstakingly try to kill the best, most mature deer possible on their land, insuring that when a trigger is pulled on their place, it’s going to be a monster buck.  Scott Roszell of Effie, La. is “Long Shot” on Bayou Bucks and is one such person.  He and his cousin, Robby, hunt a piece of property in Avoyelles Parish that hold deer that most of us only dream of killing.  But there’s a double edged sword in deer management like Scott and Robby do and that’s sometimes it can leave you high an dry on the killing end.

We were first introduced to Scott in January of 2010 when he killed a 183” whopper on their place, but after that, Scott hit a dry spell.  After not pulling the trigger the whole 2010-2011 hunting season, he was more than ready to begin the 2011-2012 season, especially when they started checking their trail camera’s in late summer.

“We’d got some really good pictures of this buck early in velvet when we started setting up for our bow season hunts, but after that he kind of disappeared until after he’d lost his velvet,” said Roszell.  After getting the deer on camera a few more times, Scott decided to pull the camera out of that area, so that the deer wouldn’t be scared away or feel pressured.

Finally it was time to hunt and the boys tried their best to get a shot at the behemoth, but the wind would never quite work in their favor.  Then, on December 16, 2011, the dominoes started to fall into place for the Avoyells Parish hunter.

As he settled into his stand that afternoon at 2:30 PM, he was very optimistic about his chances at killing a deer.  “A cold front had just came in and it’d rained about two inches,” said Roszell.

Scott "Long Shot" Roszell and his long awaited trophy

It was early in the hunt when deer began to start showing up.  Scott watched as two does made their way through the CRP and into his food plot.  He noticed how jumpy and on alert the does were.  He could tell by their actions that a big buck had been in the area and was hopefully still there.  “I watched as one of the big does started getting really nervous and then she ran back into the wooded area and took the five other deer there with her,” Roszell said.

It took 45 minutes for more deer to ease their way into his food plot and when they did, they acted the same way as the deer before them did.  “That second group of deer did the same thing as the first group did.  They all looked on high alert in the same direction, so I had a feeling something was out there,” laughed Roszell.

Once again, Scott watched as the second group bounded off into the woods, but eventually they made their way back to the far end of the food plot.  As time wore on, a small 8 point showed up, but he wasn’t as social as the other deer.  The small buck stayed in the weeds, away from the open areas and for good reason.  “I was watching the small buck when he stopped and threw his head up and backed up.  I looked towards where he was looking and I saw the big deer standing near the edge of a slough,” Rozsell explained.

As the big buck started coming across Scotts food plot, he knew that his dry spell was about to come to a quick end.  At five minutes to 5, a lone shot from Scott’s 7MM Magnum dropped the big buck in his tracks.  The deer was a great buck and had 13 points, weighed 240 pounds, and scored 164 1/8 inches.

“This is our ninth year to be on this property and we’ve been passing on some nice deer every year since then, trying to get better one’s.  You let deer go this long and you’re going to have some nice deer.  I didn’t kill anything last year, but I did have an encounter with a really good 10 point in the same stand that I killed this buck from.  About the time I decided he was good enough to shoot, he decided that he didn’t want to be out there anymore and left,” laughed Roszell.