Father and son team up to down nice 9-pointer
For 59-year-old Larry Louviere, the 3 ½ hour drive from his home in Breaux Bridge to Bienville Parish is like a trip around the block. He’s made it for the past 29 years as a member of the Cypress Creek Hunting club, and on Dec. 15 all that windshield time paid off in spades when he downed a big 9-point buck.
Louviere is purchasing agent for a shipyard in South Louisiana, and makes the drive to his hunting camp most weekends when the season is open. He drove up on Friday, Dec. 14 for a weekend of hunting his box stand, which is situated on a pipeline on the 2,700-acre club’s lease.
“My hunt didn’t start out the way I wanted it to,” Louviere said. “While driving to my stand, I had to drive across a creek and the drive shaft broke, burying my truck and I had to get winched out. I didn’t get on my stand until after daylight.”
After that ordeal, Louviere said he got on stand and settled down to enjoy the hunt, not having any idea of what was about to happen. He and other members of the club have trail cameras out, which feature pics of quite a few deer — from does to spikes to bigger bucks, including a good 10-point.
“I can see a long way; 400 yards in one direction and about 350 the other. I have wildlife mix planted on the pipeline, and while I was sitting and watching at around 7:15, I saw something move about 165 yards down the line. It was a good buck, one I had never seen nor had on camera. The only problem was he was facing away and would never give me a broadside look,” Louviere said. “The buck was walking, then stopped and looked across the line. When he turned and started walking off the line, I found a crease just in back of his ribs, put the scope of my Remington 7 Mag on it and hit the trigger.
“He hit the ground, but them got up and took off.”
Calling his son Nick who was hunting nearby, they arrived at the spot where the deer was standing and found some hair and a small bit of blood. Louviere is color blind and can’t see red, so Nick led the charge through the woods to find the deer.
“As we walked along, the deer which had laid down jumped up and took off. Nick had his shotgun loaded with buck shot but couldn’t get a shot. We decided to back out and give him some time. After an hour, we resumed the search,” he said.
Finding where the buck jumped a thicket, the blood trail became more visible. When Nick reached a small creek, he looked up and the deer had crossed the creek and was standing there looking at him. He downed him with his shotgun.
“Because of the angle I had to shoot, I only clipped one lung so the deer was hard to bring down; he traveled over 700 yards after I shot,” Louviere said. “Thankfully, Nick was able to finish the job with his shotgun.”
The buck was a mainframe 8-point with a split G2, giving the rack 9 scoreable points. The heavy-bodied deer weighed 223 pounds and carried an inside antler spread of 18 5/8 inches. Bases were more than 5 ½ inches each, with 23 inch main beams. The buck, estimated to be 4 ½ years old, stretched the tape to 150 5/8 inches of antler mass.