Catahoula outdoorsman Jason Courville, still grieving over the death of his father on Jan. 18, was overwhelmed on a solo deer hunt that yielded a buck with a 10-point rack one week later on Jan. 25.

Courville believes it was more than a date with destiny considering the events leading up to it. The deer hunt he’ll “cherish forever” also confirmed his belief in angels, signs from heaven, he said, calling it “the most amazing experience of my life.”

His dad, Calvin Courville, was 82 when he succumbed to a lengthy illness, dementia, the debilitating condition that challenges the patient and loved ones. The father of five had beaucoup support for the duration, Courville said.

After the long and unnerving illness and months-long stay at Landmark of Acadiana Nursing Home, it was an easy decision to hunt the day after his dad was buried, he said.

“Why, yes, because I felt he wanted me in the woods. The last couple of months we’d always talk about deer hunting,” he said.

His dad would ask repeatedly if he’d killed a 10-point. He’d always reply, “ ‘No, dad, not yet.’ I always told him, ‘Dad, I’m going to get him,’ and I did.”

And, he said, his father would talk about a 12- or 14-point he once killed but the claim came during the very late stages of dementia. That never happened.

Courville, 50, is one of five children born to the late Calvin and Jenny Courville, who preceded her husband in death.

His father was there to mentor him from childhood – passing on the strong Cajun traditions of hunting and fishing, teaching right and wrong and the ways of life – to adulthood and beyond. The greatest times, naturally, happened on fishing and hunting trips, whether good or bad.

The night family and friends put his father to rest, he said, “I’m going hunting in the morning.”

Nonplussed by an uneventful a.m. hunt, he went home, then went out again at midday.

Courville settled into a ladder stand around 1:30 p.m. in an area approximately 1,000 yards from where he usually hunts on the Basin Management hunting club lease east of Catahoula across the West Atchafalaya Basin Basin Protection Levee.

Fifteen minutes later, four does ambled toward the tree he was in. He watched them for two hours.

“About 4:30 they all walked off. About a half hour later I heard something in back of me and turned around. It was the four does coming back. I kept looking back. One time I saw one bigger than the others,” he said, adding he picked up his binoculars to discover it was a buck. “He was just hanging around the four does, checking out his girlfriends to see if one was ready.”

When the buck moved to within 50 yards, Courville aimed his .35 Wheelen, a type of muzzleloader single shot rifle. It was time to answer his father’s question.

“I shot him (10-point deer). He fell right there. I had a sigh of relief. I talked to him (his father). I said my prayers. I cried,” he said about those emotional minutes as he thought about his father for the umpteenth time. “I actually felt close to him. I said, ‘Man, I am blessed. I know the angels are over me.’ ”

And it occurred to him his dad wanted to watch him harvest the 10-point deer rather than hear him talk about it

Courville believes his father stayed with him every step of the way on that afternoon hunt the day after the funeral services. So does his wife, Tricia Theriot Courville, a loving daughter-in-law who spent as much or more time being with the elder Courville in the nursing home, he said, noting she’d often be there till he got off work as a contract welder at GOM Energy Services LLC. She was aware of the bond between father and son, particularly in the outdoors.

During the 9-month-plus long illness, which the son has called a “horrible sickness,” they had daily talks.

Courville’s first cell phone call after shooting the buck went out to his wife.

He said, “The first thing I did was call my wife. I said, ‘Hey, baby.’ She said, ‘Are you all right?’ ”

He told her about shooting the 10-point buck.

Her instantaneous response, he said, “ ‘Oh my God. Your dad was with you!’ ”

It wasn’t the first time. On Jan. 20, while he and a good friend, Dave Louviere of Catahoula, were sighting in rifles along the levee, Courville was awestruck when he saw a white dove on the hood of a red pickup truck.

“I walked over to the target to see if I was ‘on’. I walked back. Dave said, ‘Look at the bird on the truck.’ I went to the truck. He didn’t leave.”

He said the white dove made eye contact with him as it stood on the edge of the hood near the windshield. He was able to walk up to it and touch the feathers for a few moments.

Eventually, the bird fluttered off the hood, then soared over the levee.

“Dave said, ‘Man, that was Pops!’ ”

Courville finished the 2024-2025 season with two Louisiana deer, plus one 8-point, 240-pound buck he killed in Missouri while deer hunting with, among others, Roy Savoy, Lane Savoy and Hoyt Louviere.

Courville outlined his philosophy for bagging a big buck in a quick video as soon as he got to the downed 10-pointer. On Facebook, he wrote, “Sometimes you gotta go to where they live. If you want a big buck, can’t stay on the main road. Go where they live.”

The 10-point buck’s taxidermy mount is destined for the best spot in the house. Right now there are 13 deer mounts but an even more meaningful mount has priority, which means the focus will be on the 10-point buck.

“In fact, he’s going in the middle of the room because I know this is the most special hunt of my life,” he said.