Center Feature:  

Larry Benoit
Still strong at 83

When you sit down with Larry Benoit, one thing becomes immediately clear. The years have had little effect on the legendary deer hunter. His passion for deer hunting and the outdoors still burns as strongly in him now, at 83 years of age, as it did 76 years ago when he shot his first buck.

“I never loose that urge, that desire… I shot my first buck when I was seven and after that it [deer hunting] has always been the strongest thing in me, except for my married life and family,” he said. “I always started thinking about the next season the day after the last season ended. All through the year it was the first thing I thought about,” he said.

Compared to many others his age, those years have been relatively kind to Benoit. He is still hunting as hard as ever, and he is still knocking down big bucks with regularity. When asked if time has affected his shooting, Benoit gets a little smile on his face. “I fired one shot last year, two the year before that, and one the year before that.” Four shots… three dead 200-pound-plus bucks. Not bad for a hunter in his prime… absolutely remarkable for one in his 80s.

Setting An Example

Today, the biggest thing Larry Benoit hopes to teach other hunters is that they don’t have to give up hunting because of their age. While he doesn’t say it, his getting out in the woods every day during the season serves as an example for others his age that they can do it as well, and do it successfully.

“A while ago I was visiting at a camp with Lanny and there was a son there with his father. The son was in his late 50s or 60s and the father was a lot older. After we left, I told Lanny I didn’t appreciate how the son was treating his dad. His father just wanted to get out and hunt, but the son wanted him to stay in camp, cook, tend the fire… I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just drop his father off on a logging road or find him a good runway and let him sit on it,” said Benoit.

“I know there are a lot of [older] guys out there who would love to hunt but there is no one to take them. If I was a rich man I would love to find a way to try to take them all out, and find runways to set them on and let them hunt,” he said.

The Affects Of Age

According to Benoit, getting older really hasn’t change the way he hunts that much. “I move a little slower, but as you get older you also have to get smarter, by now I know more,” he said.

“I have to be a little more careful. I have a little trouble with one knee. I was a fool not to get it taken care of ten years ago—it was just something I neglected.”

“I still walk like I was trained to, and still see well. I never had trouble seeing. When you are in the woods you have to look at things differently, you have to tear them apart with your eyes,” he said.

“Once on bare ground I saw just the white of a deer’s throat. It became a matter of who was going to blink first, him or me,” said Benoit. “That buck was a 10-pointer,” he said. This begged the question, has age made him a more patient hunter?

“No,” replied Benoit. “I was never impatient. If I was I wouldn’t have been as successful. You have to know what kind of animal you are tracking…” at this point Benoit lets his words trail off leaving much more to the statement than is spoken.

As mentioned earlier, Larry can still shoot as well as he ever has. “The boys know that if they hear one shot that was me,” he said.

This was something he learned from his father. As a boy, Larry would be given three shells for his little .22, and have to account for all three shots with “three rabbits, or three squirrels, or three woodchucks…whatever it happened to be,” he said. “One shot—one kill” was the philosophy which shaped his hunting career.

After speaking to Larry, you begin to realize how much time he, and his sons Lanny, Shane, and Lane all spent shooting when they were growing up.

“I used to buy .22 shells by the case. I would keep a brick and the boys would take the rest. It was open out here then,” he says gesturing out the window down the hill behind the house. “I would hang Skill-saw blades on the toughest fishing line I could get. When you hit the blade it would ping…but that wasn’t the challenge. You wanted to shoot through the hole in the center of the blade so it didn’t make any noise at all,” he said.

“We would hang nails on a piece of thread from a tree branch and see how many times you could hit the nail and spin it over the branch. We would throw up quarters and nickels and shoot them out of the air, or go down to the golf course and pick up golf balls and toss them up and watch them explode. I remember once Lanny shot an old rotten can of corn out of the air and it exploded all over my truck,” he said with a chuckle. “If anybody went and took a metal detector out on our lawn today it would probably blow up from all the brass in the ground,” said Benoit.

“Of course when I was a kid I didn’t have a radio, all I spent my money on was cartridges,” he said. “Sometimes when my great-granddaughter comes to visit she asks me why I don’t like to play games…cards or checkers, things like that. The truth is I have never liked games, as long as I can remember my mind was always in the woods,” he said.

One small adaptation that has come in recent years is that Larry doesn’t carve his initials in trees as often as he used to. This was a practice he always enjoyed as did others, who might find the marks years later and know they were standing on ground he had hunted.

“A lot of people found them over the years,” said Benoit. “I know in Maine a lot of times loggers would find them and they wouldn’t cut the tree, because they knew me,” he said.

Recently though, in Ontario, Benoit’s favored beech trees aren’t that plentiful, so he has taken to leaving a quarter underneath a rock, which satisfies his desire to leave a part of himself behind. On one occasion, after comparing notes, Benoit’s friend, Roman Norman, couldn’t believe Larry had been out as far on a ridge as he claimed. After searching for the better part of three days, he found the quarter Larry had left there. Today, it is one of Norman’s most prized possessions.

Looking Back

Mostly though, these days Larry is enjoying hunting with his sons. “I used to go out a lot without anyone else around, but it is not the same type of hunting…not without your sons,” he said.

“It means a lot to me. The boys are no longer boys—they grew so quick—not just the boys, but my daughters, too,” he said.

When asked if there were any things he might have done differently in his life if he had the chance to do it again, Larry Benoit is quick with his answer. “I would have taken more time deer hunting,” he said. The statement was not meant to be a joke. “I never regretted any of it,” he said.

Likewise there is not one particular buck that stands out in his mind as a favorite.

“I have documented every buck. Every one of them had a history and you can’t compare them. Each one was different,” he said. “Like the 13 Day-Hunt. I should have gotten that deer the first day. I saw him three times. Twice the first day and the third time 13 days later. Of course, he was an exceptional animal,” said Benoit. The legendary buck he is referring to had a 24-inch inside spread and weighed over 230 pounds. Benoit killed it after tracking it for 13 days straight. He estimated it would have weighed 260 if he had shot it on the first day.

“To be a good hunter you have got to have desire and knowledge. I don’t think the desire will ever die in me, it is the most important part of my life… chasing down whitetails,” he said.