Gary’s son, Aiden, uses dad’s first shotgun to down first deer recently

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Young Aiden Gary had a special shotgun in his hands if and when he got the opportunity to shoot his first-ever deer the last weekend of September.

The 12-year-old Erath outdoorsman, who likes to fish a coulee behind his home in Erath when he isn’t playing video games, held a shotgun given to him by his father, Wilfred “Tuppy” Gary of New Iberia, when they took a boat ride to a tree stand on the Four Bayou Hunting Club lease in St. Mary Parish.

“He used my very first shotgun. I had got a little 20-gauge crack barrel with a 3-inch slug. That’s the gun I got for Christmas when I was 12, 30 years ago,” the elder Gary said recently.

Email newsletter signup

Aiden wanted to start hunting this year, he said, and the youngster got his wish the weekend of Sept. 28-29 with his father on the hunting club’s mostly marsh terrain.

The father and his son went out Saturday afternoon and “didn’t see a thing,” according to Gary.

“So we went back Sunday morning. Two came by but he couldn’t get a shot at either. He wanted to go back Sunday (afternoon). I told him by 7 o’clock we’re going back because he had school (Monday morning).”

Approximately 10 minutes before his predetermined departure time, a spike buck showed itself. The Garys, perched in a tree stand about 20 feet high, saw the deer walking into view about 20 yards from their location from behind, on the side of his son, he said.

Buck fever wound up getting a slight hold on the youngster. Some nerves jangled for sure, as he raised the shotgun, aimed and squeezed the trigger, then was surprised somewhat by the recoil.

“He actually hit it a little high and a little to the back. It jumped and ran about 10, 15 yards behind some bushes and stopped. It didn’t go far,” the young hunter’s father said.

When the father and son got to the fallen deer, a big-bodied spike buck estimated at 130 pounds, the nerves really started jangling.

“Oh, he was getting nervous. He was shaking. He was excited. You could tell the adrenalin was pumping. I tried to calm him down,” Gary said.

Like Aiden, Gary also began hunting at a young age. However, he harvested his first deer, a well-built doe weighing about 140 pounds, in Mississippi when he was in his early 20s. He killed others, all out-of-state, before getting into duck hunting seriously with his buddies on Lake Dauterive-Fausse Pointe, mostly in Sandy Cove.

The quality control specialist at PPI decided to go back to deer hunting for 2024-25 and joined the Four Bayou Hunting Club. He jumped at the chance to take his son.

When Aiden’s shotgun blast killed the deer, Gary was as proud or prouder than Aiden.

“Oh, yeah. I might have been more excited than he was, honestly. I haven’t killed a deer in Louisiana. I told him he killed a deer in Louisiana before me,” he said.

The Erath Middle School student who lives with his mother, Janine Richardson, in Erath, was pumped up and proud, too. Since downing that deer and receiving the traditional blood swipes on his cheeks, his ears perk up whenever he hears his dad talking about future hunting trips.

Gary said he has enjoyed that newfound zeal but decided to have a little fun.

“I was messin’ with him the other day. I told him that’s it for the rest of the season. He got one,” Gary said with a laugh, emphasizing the fact he was kidding.

Aiden definitely will get more opportunities.

“He has five deer tags left,” Gary said.

His first shotgun inevitably will bark some more this season.

Aiden Gary shows blood on his cheek from his freshly killed deer following a late afternoon hunt Sept. 29 on Four Bayou Hunting Club property in St. Mary Parish. Gary and his father, Wilfred “Tuppy” Gary, were hunting together that weekend when he shot and downed the first deer of his life. Smearing blood on the cheek(s) is a time-honored tradition that began in the 1st century A.D. It honors the patron saint of hunters, St. Hubert.
SUBMITTED