His heart beat with the rhythm of a warpath Indians drum.  His eyes darted from left to right like the swinging pendulum of a grandfather clock.  He could hear the grunting buck pacing back and fourth, but he couldn’t see him.  The adrenalin pumped so hard through Moonie Chelette veins, that time seemed to stop.  Finally there he was, right under Moonie’s ladder stand.

The Washington La. native loves to hunt during drizzling, cold rain, because he firmly believes that’s when the deer move the most, so when bad weather was filling the sky on December 16, 2011, Moonie knew right where he wanted to be; in the woods.

“That day was just one of those rainy, dreary days and I figured the deer were going to move,” said Chelette.  Having already seen on good buck in that area, Moonnie’s experience told him to go to the ladder stand that he had close to a field in St Landry Parish for the afternoon hunt.

As time slipped by, the weather didn’t ease up any at all, and Moonie’s instincts were on high alert.  “At about 4:30 PM I could hear something moving but with the wind, I couldn’t tell if it was a limb or what, but I finally realized that it was deer,” explained Chelette.  As soon as he realized that it was deer moving, Moonie saw a doe run through some grass, loop around, and finally end up right underneath his stand.  As he watched the doe under him, Moonie could hear a buck grunting and what sounded like a second deer walking.  As he laid eyes on the next animal that appeared, he could tell that it it wasn’t the vocal buck he could hear, but another doe.  “I could still hear him in there grunting and walking around.  He finally comes out, but he’s right under my stand,” Chelette said.

Moonie immediately shouldered his rifle and looked through his scope but there’s a problem.  In his haste, he’d forgotten that his scope was on the highest power it could be set at, and when he looked through the lens at the deer, it was nothing but a blur.

Moonie Chelette and his St Landry Parish buck.

“I was 8, maybe 10 feet off the ground in this ladder stand, and heres this buck right under me.  I couldn’t see him at all though the scope, so I just gave a shot in the dark and I missed,” laughed Chelette.

The buck instantly exploded into the field but this time when he aimed, Moonie could see the buck clearly through his Nikon scope.  The second shot brought the buck down, but he immediately tried to get back up, and when he did, Moonie’s 7mm Magnum put the monster down at 50 yards for good at 5:10 PM.

The bucks size was larger then the veteran hunter had ever taken before.  The rack is a basic 10 point with 7 “kickers”, was 18 inches wide, had 23 1/2 inch main beams, and bases in the neighborhood of 7 inches in diameter.  Chelette expects the rack to score in the mid-high 160’s.  “We had a regular guy score it, but I’m going to take it the the wildlife and fisheries and let them score it Monday morning. This was one of the most excitable hunts I’ve ever had.  I owe my father-in-law, Wayne Guillory, and my nephew Dakota Morain a lot of thanks because they always help me out when I need it.  If it hadn’t been for those two I’d have never gotten that big monster out!,” laughed Chelette.