80-year-old Huntress is 4x Cancer Survivor, Retired RN

(Image: Virginia Luce, grandma deer huntress)

Virginia Luce is 80 years old, a four-time cancer survivor, retired two months ago after serving 25 years as a registered nurse, and she’s also a fine huntress who reportedly shot one heck of a nice buck from her kitchen window last month. Naturally, she lives in Texas — Houston County, to be exact.

It’s far from the first one she’s killed from there, according to Matt Williams of The Dallas Morning News:

“I do all my hunting from the house now,” she chuckled. “My kitchen is my deer stand. We take the screen off one of the windows every fall. I can see a pretty good ways from there.”

Luce always keeps her trusty rifle close by during deer season, and the window sill makes a good rest…

Well there she was, fixing lunch in the kitchen — I mean, deer stand — when she spotted a bucky-looking deer 175 yards away. Once she checked him out with her binocs, her heart skipped a beat as she saw just how big he was. Even though she had seen game camera photos of the big buck, seeing it in person was something else. She was also surprised to see such a big mature buck near the house.

“When I saw all those horns I thought was I seeing things — I’d never seen anything like it.”

She quickly grabbed her 243, poked it through the window, and fired just as the buck crossed a narrow shooting lane. The rifle’s report got the attention of her husband, who was relaxing in the living room at the time. Knowing her reputation for accuracy, he got up and went to work to retrieve his honey’s buck.

“She watches them all time when she’s in the kitchen,” he said. “Right after the shot she hollered, ‘Well, that was the big one, Daddy.’ That’s when I put my boots on, got on the tractor, and went to load him up. He didn’t go far. She doesn’t miss very often.”

The article says it has 11 points, but I count 12; the sticker on the right antler base looks likely to be at least an inch long. No matter how many points you count, the score was super impressive, adding up to more than 160 inches of antler. That’s amazing for any hunter or huntress, especially out the kitchen window.

Congrats, Virginia! Great shooting, happy hunting, and keep up the great work.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.