PATTERSON — That velvet covering the wide horns and nine points of a big buck was the crowning touch of a great hunt Sept. 16 in western Mississippi near Fayette.

Melvin Brown Jr. of Patterson cherished the sight soon after he and his wife, Felicia Harris Brown, followed a short blood trail to the deer he arrowed soon after sunrise that Thursday. They had waited three hours before making a move to find the wounded deer.

The Browns high-fived and celebrated the moment as they admired the 215-pound buck with antlers at 140 3/8 inches. It was his first deer of the season.

“I couldn’t believe it, seeing a deer of that caliber. I’ve never killed a deer that big,” Brown said a few months later, still proud of the kill.

Brown, a 42-year-old subsea robotics supervisor for Houston-based Oceaneering International Inc., where he has worked nine years, climbed into his 30-foot high tree stand with his Mathews Vertix compound bow and Carbon Express Maxima Red arrows.

“I went in the woods around 6 o’clock. Around 7:12 I started seeing does. I was filming the does with my phone. That’s when I noticed the big buck letting does go first to make sure everything was OK,” he said.

“Then he came behind them, came within 10 yards. I had drew back and held for eternity but it was 30 to 45 seconds. I was just waiting for a perfect shot. He was quartered to me. I shot him right behind the right shoulder.”

The veteran deer hunter, who started hunting squirrels, rabbits and deer as a boy with his father, Melvin Brown Sr., and an uncle, Eddie “Jaja” Brown Sr., climbed down from the tree stand and looked around the area the deer was hit. He saw very little blood, so waited three hours.

The wounded deer ran approximately 200 yards and was unable to continue.

“When I got to him, he was still alive. He was wounded bad, couldn’t stand up. I was able to put another arrow in him,” he said.

Melvin and Felicia, an avid deer hunter who hunts with a crossbow, hauled the buck back to camp on a lease he has been in since high school. Then he field dressed it.

The next order of business, he said, was to take the deer to a nearby Mississippi taxidermist to test it for Chronic Waste Disease. He was scheduled to pick it up the weekend of Nov. 5-6 and bring it to a taxidermist in Patterson.

When Brown saw the deer on trail cam last season it was a 7-pointer, he said.

The all-around outdoorsman credited his deer hunting success over the years to the height of his tree stand. The higher, the better, he said.

“Everybody says, ‘Why do you climb so high?’ I always climb high so the deer doesn’t spook and doesn’t see you,” he said, adding he doesn’t want deer to be startled by something they don’t usually see.

It’s been a heckuva year for Brown, who also fishes for catfish, redfish and, even, yellowfin tuna. He hooked and landed a 105-pound yellowfin tuna while fishing recently off the drillship (which has a charter boat permit) where he works in the Gulf of Mexico.

Brown said the huge fish hit a topwater popping bait.

“When you talk about explode, coming out of the water, ah, man, that’s a nice feeling there,” he said.

That was his yellowfin tuna PB. He’s proud to add the velveted buck as his deer hunting PB.