The big buck Alexis Norman of New Iberia killed Dec. 1 in Winn Parish was an 8-pointer with a 17-inch inside spread and 21-inch main beam length.

Frustrated by the lack of deer hunting success in the past with a rifle, Alexis Norman gave it “one more try” and got the desired results, a big buck, while on a trip with her father on Dec. 1.

The New Iberia Senior High senior, who recently finished her varsity career there, had opportunities earlier in her deer hunting career to harvest a deer with her rifle but missed each time, which bugged her so much she took up bowhunting because she feels more confident with a bow, she said.

The 18-year-old hunter took her dad up on his offer to hunt with a rifle again and she got another opportunity. This one didn’t get away.

The 195-pound buck’s 8-point rack featured a 17-inch inside spread and a 21-inch main beam length, what her father, Joshua Norman, called “a really nice deer for the area we hunt, Winn Parish.”

“It was from a whole different area. The whole face is black. They’re doing some clear-cutting in the back of the lease. It ran to the wrong spot,” Norman said.

They were hunting on a 5,000-acre plus lease approximately 15 miles north of Winnfield. Norman has been a member of the hunting club that hunts on it since 2015.

The Saturday morning of the unforgettable deer hunt dawned unseasonably warm and muggy, they both said.

“Well, we got up that morning and left out about quarter-till-six. All I remember is it was hot, like 70 degrees,” he said, adding that to thwart the mosquitoes he brought a Thermacell. After all, they were wearing light clothing because of the temperature.

The father-daughter hunting team got into the deer stand without high expectations.

“I really wasn’t expecting to see anything,” he said.

“I was bored. Usually there’s nothing there. I played on my phone,” she said.

Then her father broke the silence.

“My dad said, ‘Deer. Deer,’ ” she said.

Alexis picked up the .243-caliber Savage rifle, stuck the barrel out of the window and put the scope on the head that her father saw.

“She said, ‘It’s a buck!’ ” he recalled.

“I told her to just aim for the spot, control her breathing and squeeze the trigger. The deer was about 50 yards away. It was was a perfect broadside view and she fired. Yeah, one shot,” he said.

“At first I thought she had missed. The deer just raised its tail and hopped calmly into the woods.”

The specter of another miss hung like a pall over her.

“She was really upset,” he said.

“I thought I missed him, so I was aggravated at myself,” Alexis said.

Her father said, “But we got down out of the stand, walked to where she shot, where the deer was, and there was no hair, no blood, no indication he got hit at all. I searched about an hour back and forth, looking for anything I could find.”

Norman’s instinct and years of deer hunting experience dictated his decision to keep searching for the deer. It wasn’t easy because there were multiple trails around the deer stand.

He wouldn’t give up. After an hour or so, he asked his daughter to get back up in the deer stand and show him exactly where the buck was when she shot.

“My gut was telling me to not stop, to keep looking. I went in one last time on a trail and ended up walking on to the deer about 35 feet into the woods. It was dead, laying in the woods. She made a perfect heart shot,” he said, adding the .243-caliber slug is a “really, really small  bullet” that has a tendency to go through a deer without any sign. That’s what happened that morning.

The deer was bigger than he thought it was.

“I went to grab the deer to drag out of the woods and fell right on my butt. I didn’t realize it was so heavy,” he said.

Norman said he “manned up,” grabbed it again by its back legs and started dragging, declaring “this time he was coming with me.”

His daughter saw him emerge from the woods dragging the big buck. 

“It was a swing of emotion after thinking she missed. She said, ‘Did I do that? Did I do that?’ I said, ‘Yeah, baby, you did,’ ” he said.

Alexis remembers the emotional moment well.

“That deer was beautiful. I cried,” she said.

There were tears of joy after so many years hunting with her father.

“My dad introduced me to hunting when I was very little. I just loved it. I only hunt with my dad. I always have him at my side,” she said.

“Believe it or not, she’s been walking in the woods with me since she was about 6 years old. She started hunting with her own rifle when, I think, she was 12. That’s when she got her first rifle,” he said.

That “first rifle” means a lot to her. 

“I’ve been hunting with the same gun all these years,” she said about the .243-caliber Savage.

Norman’s recent volleyball season was her fourth in high school and third at NISH after playing her freshman season at Highland Baptist Christian School. She hopes to continue her volleyball career at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette while studying American history with a goal to become an American history teacher.

First, her father said, she wants to continue hunting and get her first deer with a bow.