“During the final few days of rifle season in Area 4, I was presented with an opportunity I’ll likely never get again. On the morning of Jan. 14, I settled into my Summit climber before daybreak on what I expected to be a long sit. Shortly after legal light, a doe entered the road I was watching. She took her time feeding and never once looked back to signal something else was with her. After what seemed to be an eternity of watching this doe and nothing else, she began to make her way to the timber line. With rifle season coming to an end, I was debating if I should take her or not. I got my rifle in position, pushed record on my phone and was on the scope watching her as I used my left hand to push the phone mount over to keep her in frame. Not knowing that she wasn’t alone after all, the video would catch him walking out about the time I’m looking through the scope at her. I fired a single shot dropping the doe in her tracks. The echo of the 30 06 seemed to last forever breaking the morning calm. I bolted the rifle and pushed stop on the recording, and that’s when I noticed something move. In the edge of the old logging road, 20 yards behind her stood a buck. The movement I saw was his rack as he moved his head slightly back and forth, eyes locked onto the doe I just shot seconds before. I shouldered my rifle and placed it on the boiler room and fired. He reared up and spun around and leaped all in one motion. The trees and pile of logging debris kept me from seeing how far he went, but I was positive I made a good shot. As the reality starts to hit me of what just occurred, my phone lights up with a message from a friend of mine who was in the WMA with me saying that the shots scared the crap out of him. The time, 06:54, my reply, 2 deer down. I climbed down and made my way over to where the doe laid, not sure how far the buck may have ran, and preparing for the potential of a blood track. As I made it to where she fell, I looked across the road and there he was, behind the pile of limbs and row of trees that blocked my view from the stand. When he spun and leapt, that was all he had, he crashed right there. The adrenaline rush started to come down and the reality started to sink in. I was over a mile deep on public land, with not one, but two deer to get out. I started texting and calling people that had bikes for help, and it didn’t take long before someone was headed to me. Never thought I would ever get an opportunity like that, especially on a Louisiana WMA, but it sure was an awesome way to end the 25/26 rifle season.”