Chase Sonier and his father, Ronald Sonier, were chomping at the bit to get on their property to go deer hunting. The father and son duo had leased the small 70-acre parcel for three or four years, when the elder Sonier decided to purchase the land this past year.
A predicament
The problem was, the Louisiana State Police had barred them from accessing the 300-yard wide by mile long strip of ground due to a recent marsh fire in Lafourche Parish. What’s more, they had been seeing a lot of good bucks on the property and one big one that stood out more than the others that they decided to focus on and hunt.
“He first showed up on Dec. 7, and it was like, Man! That seems like a big deer,” said the younger Sonier. “We were in quite a bit of a predicament. They wouldn’t let us go in the property even though it was only a quarter of a mile from the exit. So, we couldn’t hunt. We had numerous 8 and 10 points on camera. I’d say we’ve probably had 10 to 15 different 8 points and 3 or 4 different 10 points, and this guy shows up.”
Both Soniers use cell cameras. Chase Sonier uses Tactacam brand, and his father uses Moltrie.
The fire started on Dec. 9, and it would be over a week before the two Soniers would get a chance to finally hunt. Both father and son have Monday through Friday 8-to-5 jobs, making weekday hunts nearly impossible with the time change. By 5 o’clock, it’s dark outside.
Then on Dec. 15, they saw the big buck again on camera and that’s when they decided to hunt the upcoming weekend after the cold front passed on Saturday.
On Sunday morning both hunters were on their stands.
For the most part, other than seeing a lot of squirrels and doves, it was uneventful hunt until around 9:30 a.m. Something spooked the squirrels and doves.
Is it a pig?
At first, Chase Sonier thought it was a pig coming and used his binoculars, glassing for what seemed like 10 to 15 minutes. That’s when he saw a head dip on the right side of his food plot that he said he wasn’t really focusing on. It was him!
In what seemed about 3 to 5 seconds, the 35-year-old hunter said he spun in his chair and let his instincts take over. Aiming high on the shoulder, he fired off a round from his Browning 6.5 Creedmoor. The huge 14-point buck dropped in its tracks, where he stood, approximately 75 to 85 yards away.
Chase Sonier said, “There was nothing long range about it. He was up wind from me so there’s no way he could have caught my wind. Everything just lined up perfectly. The deer dropped in its spot. I did not have time to think about it. I knew I just had to take deep breaths and focus. Now, after the shot, I’m pretty sure I rattled the screws loose out of the stand.”
The Soniers attribute the number of good deer on their property to all the improvements they made after Hurricane Ida. The two hunters used an excavator and skid-steer to clear out trees and briars to help shape the habitat into a place deer want to live on said the younger Sonier.
Unofficially, Chase Sonier’s Area 9 14-point buck has a gross score of 189. Its final score with deductions appears to be 170 1/8. That likely will shuffle the state record book.
Prior to harvesting his possible Louisiana record book buck, the biggest deer Chase Sonier had killed was a 6-point. To which he said, “It’s all downhill from here now!”