Lisa Luke Fitzgerald’s many years of watching deer, many years of watching her husband, Dicky Fitzgerald, and their two daughters hunt deer, came to an end Oct. 22.

All eyes were on her that day. The schoolteacher from Charenton used a daughter’s rifle to kill the first deer of her life, a 6-point buck, while hunting in the marsh with the younger of her two daughters, Casey Fitzgerald.

It was time, Fitzgerald said.

“Well, can you believe it? I’ve been hunting with them my whole life. I finally did it. I’m pretty proud,” the Charenton resident said.

“I usually go hunting with Dicky and my girls. I usually sit in the stand and watch. This time I decided I was 52 years old and it was time to shoot a buck.”

The 26-year veteran pre-K teacher, including the past four years at St. John Elementary School in Franklin, grew up in in the country around Bayou Sale. She was raised in a sugar cane family that watched deer but didn’t hunt them.

Her mother, Margie Luke, the wife of the late Antoine “Bozo” Luke, became the state’s first female alligator hunter when she got her license in the 1980s. The reptiles were considered a nuisance at the time and a season was opened for them.

Fitzgerald and her sister assisted in getting the ’gators ready for market after they were skinned.

“I was never really around deer hunting till I started dating Dicky in high school. I always wanted eventually to get a deer. I guess Dicky and the girls got me interested,” she said.

Her daughters, Casey, 22, and Carley, 26, both have multiple deer harvests to their credit via the bowhunting route. Both take after their father when it comes to deer hunting.

In others words, she said, “They love it.”

Casey and her father saw the old, 6-point buck the day before it walked into Fitzgerald’s view, she said. It wasn’t a morning deer hunt.

Fitzgerald set up in the deer stand later the next day with Casey, a University of Louisiana-Lafayette graduate.

“Actually, it was in the afternoon. I’m not a big morning hunter. We watched several does come out and a couple yearlings with them,” she said. “That buck came out, I got my gun ready and did what I had to do.”

Her daughter helped ease any degree of jangling nerves.

“I was a little nervous. (But) I stayed pretty calm. She helped me get a good shot,” Fitzgerald said.

Well, she admitted, the first shot from Casey’s Browning .270-caliber rifle did fail to connect with the target. She made the correct adjustments.

“My second shot hit right behind the shoulder. The first shot, he heard the gunshot and never moved,” Fitzgerald said.

Pure joy pervaded the deer stand in the marsh.

“We had a little celebration. We gave a big thumbs up for each other. We might have clapped a little bit,” Fitzgerald said.

Her husband, who owns a State Farm Agency in Morgan City, also was hunting that day on their lease near Point Marone in the southwestern region of coastal St. Mary Parish. She called him.

The reaction was expected when he got to the deer stand.

“Oh, he congratulated me. He gave me a hug and a kiss. He was excited and just as happy,” she said.

Her husband carried the deer out of the marsh. He and Vincent Borne, her brother-in-law, field dressed the deer.

And, per tradition among deer hunters, deer blood was swiped on her cheeks. She called it “stinky.”

“It’s all good. I know it’s what you have to do,” she said.

What’s in her future as a deer huntress? Was that the first and last deer harvest of her life?

“I think I’m ready for another … Maybe one bigger, hopefully,” she said.