Fourty six years ago, Union Parish was a much different place than it is today.  Gone are the virgin pine forest, endless hardwoods that encompassed the Bayou De’Loutre bottoms, and ability to hunt pretty much anywhere you wanted to.  Today, pine plantations structured to grow trees ready for harvest in fifteen years adorn most of the country side, the Bayou De’loutre bottoms have been diminished to a narrow strip of what once was, and hunting clubs are the norm.  But there is one thing in Farmerville that was the same in 1965 as it is in 2011, and that is John Preaus’ monster buck that he killed on November 27th of that year.

“Everybody back then ran dogs.  That was the only way we knew how to hunt deer was in front of a pack of hounds.  You didn’t still hunt at all really,” said Preaus.  “Daddy had gotten us in the Cherry Ridge Hunting Club that year.  Mr. D.R. Mullins put us, me and my brother Joe, on a stand early that morning near a pipeline up on the Loutre.  I honestly had no idea where I was.  Mr. Mullins took us back there and said ‘stand here’, so we did.  When the dogs jumped, I sort of looked over to where Joe was standing.  I saw him act like he saw something.  He took his gun off his shoulder, went to one knee, and took aim.  I knew he saw something coming.  I was probably 150 yards from him, so I stared to get ready too.  All of the sudden I see this doe and this buck coming at me, together.  He was just sort of loping through the woods,” explained Preaus.  As the buck made his way towards the young hunter, the deer made what would be his final mistake.  “He was running along with that pipeline, but when he came to a road, he turned and came right towards me.  Well, when came to a brush top that was right where I was, he leaped over it.  When he did that, I had my gun up and on him and had a scope full of deer so I shot,” Preaus recalled.  The deer immediately hit the ground 25 yards from John, but clamored to his feet and ran off.  The devastated hunter thought he had missed, but knowing his rifle, a Model 100 Winchester .308 that his father had given him, if he had hit the deer, it wouldn’t be far.  “As I walked into the woods where the deer had gone, I found sign that told me I had indeed hit him.  I looked up and there he laid; 75 yards away and trying to get up.  I shot three more times and that deer and you know I never hit him!” laughed Preaus.  The first shot was as true as a shot can be and ended the big bucks life, right there at the feet of a 16 year old boy.