“I’ve hunted this stand probably 15 times and I’ve never seen a deer there before,” was the first words that Jeremy White of Calhoun, Louisiana told me about his hunt and to be honest, I thought he was crazy.  With the high water that seemed to be state wide during the 2009-2010 hunting season, White’s chances of seeing a deer on his Union Parish stand actually got better and better every time the water rose, but when he got up early on October, 30, 2009 he still didn’t have much confidence in the stand he was planning on hunting.  It must have been either divine intervention or lady luck that made him want to go that certain stand opening morning, but whichever it was, Jeremy is glad it happened to him.  

After a few hours of sitting in his box stand, he thought it was going to be the 16th hunt with no deer, when all of the sudden at 8:30 a.m., he saw a deer slipping through the 3 year old clear-cut he was watching. “The deer was running, tail up and mouth open through the cut-over.  I don’t know what spooked him, but I knew I had better try to get a shot pretty quickly.  He finally stopped and gave me a quartering away shot and I took it.  The shot hit him in the hind quarter and dropped him right there.” White knew if he got down and tried to ease up to the deer, he would bolt and might not find him so he did the best thing a hunter can do on a poor shot; he waited.  After about 15 minutes of waiting and watching the deer struggle to get up, the buck finally reached his feet long enough to present Jeremy with a good shot.  “I could see him in the goat weed but I only had three bullets that day.  I forgot to bring the butt stock shell holster and all I had were the bullets in the gun.  I knew I better make a good shot so I waited and when he was finally still enough for a shot, I took it.  He went down again and I could see his head up n the weeds so I knew he was still alive.  After another 20 minutes, he struggled and got up again.”  That’s when White’s 300 short mag delivered the knock out punch that brought the big buck home.  Simmons Sporting Goods scored the deer at 143 4/8″ and it was good enough for the lead in the Men’s Rifle for the first week. 

Sometimes taking a good deer is nothing more than being in the right spot at the right time.  Jeremy White proved that if you trust your hunting skills, and lay with a stand long enough, it will eventually pay off.  BayouBucks.com wants to congratulate Jeremy White on a great Louisiana whitetail.