After shooting a large deer just steps away, a Mississippi hunter spent an exhausting day questioning himself and wondering if he would ever get his hands on the deer.
But with patience and the help of sniffer dogs, he walked away with a class 160 monster captured on public land.
“I came out of the woods and went back to camp,” said Chase Borries of Biloxi. “I felt sick.
“I thought maybe there was a 10% chance of finding it. I hit myself. I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t even have taken that picture.”
It was October 1, the opening day of the Mississippi archery regular season. Borries was hunting on public land in the Delta. Borries said he wasn’t as organized as he should be and that he got off to a late start.
“I think I got to the woods at dawn,” Borries said. “I got to my place around 6:45.
“I didn’t even take my position. I searched the ground. I had a little skin on some palmettos.”
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Hunting from the ground is not uncharted territory for Borries. He said it’s something he does frequently. Like the challenge of hunting on public land, he said he enjoys the challenge of hunting from the ground.
Borries said he removed the leaves where he wanted to sit so he could move around without making too much noise. The palmettos provided good concealment. In fact, almost too good. Borries said that he had to stand up to get a clear view of the surroundings, and that’s what he was doing when something made a sound.
“I just heard something,” Borries said. “She was standing looking in the opposite direction.
“I turned around and he was six or eight paces away from me. All I could see was his body. His head was behind a tree. I didn’t even have my bow in my hand.”
From the size of the body, Borries knew it was a male, and a large one. He dropped to his knees, picked up the bow from him and began to pull on the string while the deer couldn’t see him.
It almost worked, almost. Borries was halfway through drawing when the deer’s head went over the tree.
“He checks me out right away,” Borries said. “I just froze.”
The stallion took another step and Borries went to draw completely. The male wasn’t scared, but he seemed unsure of what he had seen.
“He checks me out a second time,” Borries said. “She looks Me straight in the eye.”
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Hunter takes the shot
A squirrel on top of Borries began to make noise. That distracted the male. The stallion started to walk away, but looked at Borries for the third time.
Borries knew his luck was running out. He had to shoot. The stallion was charging away and Borries released the arrow.
The male was 10 meters away. He doubled, turned and ran. Borries knew that he had hit the deer, but he wasn’t sure where.
“I had a bad feeling,” Borries said. “I sat there for a while and started shaking.”
Borries calmed down after a while and went to look for a trail of blood. He found very little. After following the deer about 150 yards, she left so as not to startle the deer and make it run further.
Because the encounter was so sudden and poignant, he wasn’t sure how big the deer’s antlers were. All he knew was that the antlers were heavy and appeared to be an 8 point main frame, possibly with some abnormal points.
He called a dog handler. As it turned out, the one he wanted, Pass Christian’s Ben Moore, was available and in the area.
“Your dogs are stuck,” Borries said. “He tracks deer all over the state. The guy is an absolute surgeon at what he does.”
They decided to wait until late at night to bring the dogs.
Still, Borries had little confidence that he would ever see the deer again, and he had a long day ahead of him.
“I had to sit there all day thinking about it,” Borries said. “I was crushed.”
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A big dollar on the ground
Moore arrived with his dogs. As he predicted, the dogs sniffed and classified the odors. They then began to follow the scent trail. They crossed a couple of mud holes, but stayed on the trail and came to an area with thick vegetation.
Dead or alive, Borries sensed that the deer was in the thick undergrowth and he was right. Moore was ahead of him and told him that the dogs found the male.
Borries’ reaction was immediate.
“Even before I saw it I was emotional,” Borries said. “Sure enough, he was lying there.
“He was everything I was thinking about, and more. I broke down. I was yelling and screaming and hugging everyone.”
As a non-typical, the male unofficially has a raw score of 161 5/8. He has 14 points. The main beams measure 25 2/8 inches and 24 7/8 inches with an inside extension of 19 2/8 inches. The bases measure 5 4/8 inches and 5 2/8 inches and the mass reaches the main beams well.
It was the end of a day of ups and downs and a hunt he will never forget.
“It was just meant to be,” Borries said. “Being able to see that deer and get my hands on it was incredible. I never would have thought in a million years that I would have killed a deer like that from the ground on October 1 on public land.”
Contact Brian Broom at 601-961-7225 or [email protected].