New Iberian Gordy Romero never will forget his granddaughter’s first deer, a doe she shot and killed with a .243-caliber rifle on a hunting lease in St. Mary Parish near the Cypremort Point Bridge.

Faith Christian Comeaux of New Iberia still has the memory firmly planted in her mind, too, from that deer hunt when she was 10. Five years later, Romero and Comeaux can share another memorable occasion after a deer hunt together on Sept. 24.

Comeaux, 15, a freshman at New Iberia Senior High, shot the third deer of her life, a 120-pound buck carrying her grandfather called a “perfect” rack.

“Six points, perfect on each side, perfectly formed out,” Romero said last week.

He has seen plenty of deer while hunting most of his 74 years, much of the time in the Howard Buteaux Hunting Club in St. Mary Parish, just past the huge span over the Intracoastal Waterway that carries traffic to Cypremort Point. This deer was special, he said, as special as the doe Faith killed at age 10.

“To me it was. To me it’s a beautiful deer. It’s one of the prettiest I’ve seen in a long while. To me, she made a great shot,” Romero said.

“I’m happy. It’s really fun and exciting. I was really proud. It’s the biggest deer I ever shot, plus I got to shoot it with a bigger gun. I’m proud I got to do both in one day, so it was a good experience,” Faith said. “The gun’s a lot different than mine. It’s loud and has a bigger kick.”

Romero, a machinist at Tomahawk Downhole LLC in Broussard, and his granddaughter hunted the Saturday and Sunday of the youth weekend hunt Sept. 23-24. They believe they saw the buck she killed Sunday morning on Saturday just before sunrise, walking on one of three trails but it was too dark to shoot at the time, according to Romero.

“I’m pretty sure it was,” he said about the deer.

On Sunday, they set up in an open deer stand. Faith was in a box deer stand the day she downed her first deer, the doe in 2012.

The sun hadn’t shed its full light on the grassy marsh terrain when she saw something.

“We were in the stand and it was still kind of dark outside. At first, I wasn’t sure if it was bushes moving (in the breeze) or a deer that moved. It was too dark to scope,” Faith said.

Apparently, it was the buck.

“She’s the one who spotted it that morning. Papa’s eyes are getting kind of bad, you know,” Romero said with a chuckle.

“He stayed in that area for a good 35, 40 minutes, but we couldn’t see it in the tall grass,” he said.

Soon, though, the deer moved onto a trail where the “grass was knocked down” that provided an open view. It was bright enough to see it.

“I had a clear shot,” Faith said.

Then there was a slight mixup in the open deer stand that had rewarding results.

“Normally, she shoots a .243, which we got for her and she killed the first one with,” Romero said. 

“My .35 Welen rifle and that .243 were side by side. I picked up the wrong gun. She said, ‘Papa, I don’t use that one.’ I said if that one comes out, she would have to graduate. Them little rifles have a pretty good kick,” he said.

“The shot was about 40 yards. One shot. The deer laid down and that was it. She hit it in the left front shoulder,” he said.

“She was so excited. I had to reload the gun and hand it to her. I knew she’d have to shoot if it got back up. It picked up its head a couple of times and that was it,” he said.

“We waited approximately 30 minutes and saw it wasn’t moving any more. I walked to it. When I arrived, it was dead. I called her down and she walked to the deer. I went and got the four-wheeler and we went and retrieved it.

“I was very excited for her, yes I was. When you can see the horns, there’s always excitement.”

Faith’s mother, Melissa Romero Derouen, who is married to Jack Derouen, said the deer’s size amazed her.

“Oh, I was shocked. I wasn’t expecting it to be so big. He was a very nice boy. This is definitely one for the books for her,” Derouen said. “This one here is definitely a step-up deer and it’s pretty symmetrical in the antlers.”

Derouen said she “lived up north for a while” and grew accustomed to seeing those mammoth mule deer that deer hunters harvest regularly in that region of the country. 

Her daughter is following in her footsteps as an outdoorswoman, she said.

“I’m tickled to death about her hunting. She’s good at it,” Derouen said. “I hope she carries it on. It makes her Papa proud. That’s his little counterpart.”

Romero, who hunts and fishes a lot with his buddy, Stanley Norris of Coteau, said his granddaughter has proved herself as a young outdoorswoman. 

Faith said, “I enjoy it. It’s really fun. I like going out and being outdoors. I started (deer hunting) when I was 8.”

And, she said, she does look forward to the day she goes by herself on a deer hunt.