On Nov. 29, 2025, I was hunting on private family land in Avoyelles Parish when the biggest deer of my life walked out. We had this deer on camera for about three days, and I would’ve never thought I could get the chance at him.
Meanwhile, my brothers and cousins had already killed deer, so I was anxious to kill one.
Before I shot my deer, I got a text that my youngest brother, Jax, had just killed a deer, so I was thinking about if I shot a big deer, I didn’t want to take away the spotlight from him. Then my buck walked out at about 50 yards and I immediately knew this was the deer we had on camera.
Between the moment I grabbed my rifle and propped it up, I was thinking, “How can this happen?”
After I shot him, I unloaded my gun and started praying that I killed him. I hurried and called my grandpa and told him I had just shot the biggest deer of my life. He told me to wait right there in the stand until he got there. It was hard to do that, but I waited.
I called my mom next, and when I was talking to her she thought I had hurt myself because I could barely talk. I was finally able to talk and told her what happened. She was so excited.
Then my grandpa got there. We looked for the deer but couldn’t find it. I told my grandpa the angle I shot at him from and he immediately said that the bullet didn’t exit the deer. So we had to get a dog to come search for the deer.
Answered prayers
While the dog was searching, I prayed the Hail Mary repeatedly, and finally when I finished the third prayer the man yelled at us to say that he found it. At that moment, I was the happiest boy alive. When I picked up his antlers I said, “I’m never going to kill a deer like this ever again!”
Once it was time to drag the deer out, I swore that I could do it by myself, but I only got like 5 feet, then my dad grabbed the other side of the antlers and helped me. We drug it out together. The buck had only run about 50 yards, but in the thickest weeds you could ever imagine.
My other brother, Colt, helped load the deer and got catapulted out the side-by-side when the deer was loaded. After we finished the dragging and loading, we took a lot of pictures. We also weighed the deer, and it weighed 223 pounds. He was a mainframe 11-point with a couple of stickers, making it 14 points total.
My mom, dad, brothers, family and friends came by to see it and I helped to skin it. I really don’t know who was more excited, my parents, brothers, my grandparents, or me. That night I replayed the hunt over and over in my mind. It was an unforgettable experience for sure. The next morning we scored the deer and it unofficially scored 164. We are having it mounted and I will be hanging it in the house.
-Reid Leger, 14
