When the ideal weather conditions fail to arrive, a choice needs to be made. Do you hunt, or do you stay home? Robert “Rob” Gonzales of West Feliciana Parish woke up on Jan. 3 and almost stayed home, potentially missing out on claiming his monster buck.
“I really didn’t want to go hunt,” he said. “It was warm and I really thought I was wasting my time, but I finally decided to go for it.”
Gonzales did not have to travel far to his privately owned 120 acres of hunting land. With little to no effort, Gonzales donned a pair of jeans and t-shirt for his morning hunt. The only hunting apparel he made sure to wear was his blazed orange cap.
“I broke all the rules so to speak,” he said. “I didn’t even walk in and drove my four-wheeler straight up to the stand.”
Gonzales ascended the 12 feet to his box stand and waited. Minimal time passed when he noticed a doe enter into view. It grazed and then shortly disappeared from view. After another doe came out, it was not long until his buck came into the picture.
“He came trotting into view, and when he made it about halfway across the clearing, I hollered at him,” Gonzales said. “That made him stop in his tracks and look up, giving me only seconds to take the shot.”
Moment of truth
After locating his target in his scope, Gonzales squeezed the trigger on his Browning X Bolt 300 Wind Mag and took the 300 yard shot to land a direct hit. He saw the buck’s rack in his scope but could not identify how big it was, but he knew it was sizeable.
“I had an old timer tell me long ago that if you can see horns without a scope from that far away, then you take the shot,” he said. “You know its going to be a big deer.”
Gonzales’ buck certainly proved to be once in a lifetime buck with its 13-point rack that scored 152. After claiming victory, Gonzales started making those celebratory calls that all hunters make.
“I called my buddy that wasn’t hunting too far off and then I started calling my family,” he said. “Man, there was just a lot going on at that time.”
Gonzales said he had been hunting for 15 consecutive days. While persistence obviously paid off, he said he had never seen this buck prior. He was never tracking it and had no idea of its existence.
“I never saw this deer before in my life,” he said. “I never saw it on camera. The first time I ever saw it was when it came into the clearing and I took the shot.”
