One buck never exhibited the modus operandi of other male deer hoofing it around its neck of the woods in southwest Mississippi.

The 4 ½-year-old buck showed itself repeatedly on a trail cam over a food plot planted approximately two years ago close to where deer like to bed. If it was cautious last month it may have avoided becoming an Acadiana youngster’s first-ever buck.

Big buck showed often

Trey Hodges, the boy’s father, kept an eye on that big animal starting four weeks before Thanksgiving. The Lafayette outdoorsman saw the buck several times during the last minutes of daylight.

Thanksgiving Week was a golden opportunity to capitalize on the deer’s boldness, according to Hodges, a former LSU pitcher and the 2020 Most Outstanding Player of the College World Series. Hodges was in Mississippi for the holiday week with his two sons, Luke, 10, and Hank, 7, and other family members, including his father-in-law, Jimmy Shea of New Iberia.

“This year, for whatever reason, this buck kept showing himself. I’ve been watching him about a month or so. Our bucks don’t do that on our property,” Hodges said. “I remember bowhunting a few weeks prior and that deer came out about 15 minutes before sundown. It was overcast and windy.”

Hodges, 44, saw does in the area two days before Thanksgiving. He took his youngest son, who has yet to shoot a deer, out the next day with hopes of the boy getting a good shot at a doe.

On Thanksgiving Day, Luke decided to play with his cousins, so stayed at the camp. A trail cam image that day showed a scene that quickens the pulse of any red-blooded deer hunter.

“Lo and behold, two bucks were fighting near the food plot,” said Hodges, a financial advisor the past 12 years for Northwestern Mutual.

Hodges’ son wants a shot

Later Thursday, he showed his oldest son a fresh picture of the big buck and told him what he knew about it. Luke’s demeanor changed.

“He seemed to have a different look about him,” the boy’s father said, proudly.

The Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School student with three does to his credit as a deer hunter wanted to go hunting, to get a chance at his first buck. Father and son hunted Friday and “saw a nice 4-point buck” but that wasn’t the one.

After a heavy rain overnight and into the morning of Nov. 26, Hodges and Luke opted for a late afternoon deer hunt, one that just might coincide with the big deer’s movements.

“So we sat there. I kept him occupied with video games,” Hodges said.

About 30 minutes before legal shooting time ended at 5 p.m., he turned off the games. It was time to get serious.

“We sat there about 10 minutes. Like “Field of Dreams,” a deer came out … I said, ‘There’s a deer.’ He said, ‘It’s a buck.’ I got my binoculars and saw it was the one. I almost lost my breath,” Hodges said.

He has worked with his son the past two years for that moment … gun safety, how to shoot, hunting ethics, target practice, etc. Nothing could prepare the boy for the seemingly endless wait for the buck to turn broadside for a clean shot. Time passed. Five minutes before quitting time, so to speak, the deer turned.

Deep breath, slowly exhale

There was one more tell-tale moment in store for Hodges, a longtime deer hunter who admittedly already was breathless.

“Before he squeezed, I heard him breathe in and out. That was kind of cool for me,” he said, noting his son remembered the time-honored practice to take a deep breath, slowly exhale and gently squeeze the trigger of the youth model .308-caliber rifle with little recoil.

“He pulled the trigger. The buck ran off like every one that’s been shot. Luke was ecstatic in the stand. We celebrated a little bit,” he said. ”I said, ‘I’m going to go look.’ I could see the hoof print where it exited. I didn’t see a drop of blood, which concerned me. It was a real concern. I assumed he had hit it,” he said, noting he even looked at the legs of the deer feeder to see if the bullet missed its target.

Luke’s exuberance waned when the initial search failed to yield a carcass.

Shea, retired vice-president of operations for The Bayou Companies, was hunting in the vicinity with his daughter, Ryhan, and her husband, Kirby Wheeler. They heard the shot, then got the call to help track down the buck from Hodges.

The hunting party tracked the deer as far as it could on the back end of the 850-acre property.

“We looked around and ended the search where the property drops,” he said.

Two dogs help locate buck

Shea said the edge of the bluff prevented them from looking farther in the dark.

“I called a buddy of mine with dogs. We found him (the buck) down that bluff,” he said, adding the deer was 75 yards from where it’d been shot.

Two dogs, each with a handler, located the buck, which had been hit with a “perfect shot,” Hodges said. The bullet pierced both lungs.

Getting the buck up the steep incline, which he likened to a water slide, was a challenge. Shea’s son, Charlie Shea of Houston, managed – by the hardest, as they say — to get a 4-wheeler to the edge of the dropoff, where the hunters used a winch to pull the deer and themselves up the slippery embankment.

Then Luke’s emotions poured out.

Shea chuckled and said, “I don’t think he could even talk about it. He was so excited. We tried to get him to smile.”

The boy’s grandpa, an all-around outdoorsman, was as proud or prouder as Hodges and Luke. He praised the former for getting the youngsters outside.

“It’s a great thing. His dad’s a great hunter. He loves to hunt,” Shea said about Hodges, who is married to his daughter, Brie. “Trey’s two boys want to be by his side all the time outdoors whether he’s working or hunting. As long as they get in the woods, those boys are excited.”

Making a skull mount

Luke’s accomplishment fired up the other six grandchildren, he said. They all want to go deer hunting.

Shea said his son-in-law plans to make a skull mount of the buck and do the taxidermy work himself.

“He does woodwork. He’s built all the tree stands over there,” he said, noting his other son-in-law, Wheeler, is just as handy.