Archery opener comes with likely B&C bruiser

By Scott Bestul

Contributing Writer

Lanes­boro, Minn. — It’s one thing to get a trail cam­era image or two of a mature buck, but it’s quite anoth­er to have the buck’s sheds, assem­ble a library of pho­tos of the deer, and then have that buck walk into bow range on the open­ing day of the archery season.

Yet that’s just what hap­pened to Rochester’s LeRoy Purri­er on Sept. 16 when he tagged a giant 6‑by‑5 that stands an excel­lent chance of mak­ing the Boone & Crock­ett record book as a typical.

Purri­er became aware of the buck in Jan­u­ary, when he pur­chased a 90-acre prop­er­ty in the Lanes­boro area of Fill­more County.

“The pre­vi­ous own­er had a his­to­ry with the buck and had hunt­ed it in 2022, but couldn’t con­nect,” Purri­er said. “I bought the farm in Jan­u­ary from Chad Gartes­ki (own­er of Weiss Real­ty) and was pret­ty excit­ed right away. That excite­ment only amped up when I found both of the buck’s sheds that win­ter. Pret­ty much every­thing I did on the prop­er­ty from that point on was designed to help me shoot that buck.”

The par­cel is large­ly wood­ed, with just enough room for some nice food plots, accord­ing to Purrier.

“It’s about 85% tim­bered, and there are 14 till­able acres that allowed me to estab­lish a cou­ple of nice food plots, as well as some native grass­es,” he said. “One of my biggest joys in deer hunt­ing is improv­ing habi­tat and work­ing on my prop­er­ty to make it bet­ter for deer. I have a great group of friends who help me with those projects, and they’re anoth­er rea­son I love this lifestyle so much. It was fun to see things com­ing togeth­er as we worked on the property.”

One rea­son for Purrier’s excite­ment was the big typ­i­cal buck, which became a reg­u­lar on trail cam­eras. At the begin­ning of sum­mer, Purri­er said the buck seemed faith­ful to one end of the farm where there was some thick bed­ding cover.

“But the clos­er we got to the bow open­er, the buck switched to the oth­er end of the farm, where I have a food plot plant­ed to turnips, rape, chico­ry, and radish­es,” he said. “With the sea­son only days away, (the buck) was in that plot in day­light for sev­en days in a row. Need­less to say, I was pret­ty excit­ed, but also a bit wor­ried, as each day­light vis­it was get­ting lat­er and later.”

Open­ing day found Purri­er in an ele­vat­ed box blind on the food plot, cross­bow in hand.

“I fell from a tree­stand a few years ago and spent six weeks in the hos­pi­tal with a spinal cord injury,” he said. “It was quite the jour­ney to get back into deer hunt­ing, and while I can’t draw a
bow any­more, I nev­er take it for granted.”

As the after­noon wore on, deer began to fil­ter into the field, includ­ing anoth­er mature buck that Purri­er would have been hap­py to shoot had he not known about the tall-racked typ­i­cal that
haunt­ed his dreams.

“That big buck was feed­ing at about 35 yards, and there were at least a dozen oth­er deer in the food plot when they all stopped feed­ing and looked back in the woods,” Purri­er said. “When I fol­lowed their stares I could see that tall rack com­ing toward the food plot. I’d lit­er­al­ly spent hours look­ing at pic­tures, videos, and the sheds from that buck, and I still wasn’t pre­pared to see him
walk­ing toward me. I knew which deer it was imme­di­ate­ly and slow­ly opened a win­dow of the blind, hop­ing he’d walk into range.”

Though area deer had long ago accept­ed Purrier’s blind as part of their world, crack­ing the win­dow sud­den­ly had their attention.

“I don’t know if it made a lit­tle noise, or a doe sud­den­ly saw an open­ing that wasn’t there before or what, but all of a sud­den almost every deer was look­ing right at me,” he said. “For­tu­nate­ly, the big one was not one of them. He walked into the food plot and when he got close to the oth­er mature buck, he stopped to feed.

“He was only 35 yards away, but I couldn’t shoot because the oth­er buck was in the way. It felt like an eter­ni­ty, espe­cial­ly since sev­er­al of the deer were still act­ing ner­vous. I was wor­ried a doe would spook and clear the plot,” he said.

Even­tu­al­ly, the small­er buck shift­ed posi­tions and Purri­er had a clear shot.

“He was well with­in range at 35 yards, but it looked to me like the shot was a lit­tle back,” he said. “He tore off the field and I wait­ed for 45 min­utes before I even got out of the blind. I found my arrow in the field and it had good blood on it, but I wasn’t tak­ing any chances with a deer like that. One of my bud­dies was hunt­ing with me that night, and when we met after dark, we agreed we’d take up the blood trail in the morning.”

Purri­er, with three oth­er friends to help him track, took up the blood trail short­ly after day­break the next day.

“As it turned out, I’d hit the buck per­fect­ly and he bare­ly made it off the food plot,” he said. “We found him after a short track, and it was some­thing else walk­ing up on a deer I’d dreamed about for so long. And, of course, it was even more spe­cial because I had my friends with me.”

Crack­ing the B&C net typ­i­cal mark is one of white­tail hunting’s hard­er bar­ri­ers, but Purrier’s buck stands an excel­lent chance. The tall-tine 6‑by‑5 sport­ed a 20-inch inside spread, 25-inch main
beams, and 5 1⁄2‑inch bases.

“His G2s and G3s were each 11 1⁄2 inch­es, and his G4s were 8 inch­es each,” he said. “We mea­sured him at 179 gross green.”

While Purri­er will have to wait for the 60-day dry­ing peri­od to know if the buck tops the 170-inch min­i­mum for a B&C net typ­i­cal, the final score real­ly doesn’t mat­ter to the vet­er­an whitetailer.

“Tag­ging him was tru­ly a bit­ter­sweet moment,” Purri­er said. “I’d spent the past sev­er­al months think­ing of that deer pret­ty much non-stop, and now it was over. But I love the entire process, which is just a lifestyle more than any­thing. Now it’s time to take my daugh­ters down to the prop­er­ty and help them enjoy hunt­ing it, too. And, of course, spend time with my wife, Cindy, who tol­er­ates my pas­sion and sup­ports me more than any­one I know. I couldn’t enjoy suc­cess like this with­out her.”