Foggy start pushes Rougeau to different stand, but he still takes down nice 142-inch buck
A thick blanket of fog on the opening day of rifle season in Area 4 turned out to be a good omen for Gonzales hunter Paul Rougeau.
The 31-year-old was hunting on farmland in West Feliciana Parish on Nov. 16, and initially planned on going to a spot in the woods he had been prepping for opening day.
But the fog combined with an unfavorable breeze pushed him to a box stand set up on a tree line looking out over a huge field.
“The fog was a big issue on opening day. It was a problem,” he said. “That’s why I like working the fields when there’s a heavy fog because if it’s a big field, you have more light, you’re able to see, and the heat and wind coming through those areas tends to move it out sooner.”
That decision proved to be a wise one, and at about 6:30 a big 10-point emerged from a gap in an old fence line and started to cautiously make his way across a narrower section of the field towards the tree line where Rougeau’s stand was located.
“He came through the gap and stood and stared right where I was at,” he said. “He knew what was going on. He was hunting me, too.
“He looked like a big, giant 8 (point), but I was able to see that kicker on his G2.”
The big buck would trot 10 or 15 yards then stop and stare at Rougeau’s box stand as he cautiously made his way to the tree line. But the hunter noticed a second deer approaching the same gap, and checked that one out in his scope to gauge its size.
“Our rule is that you have to kill something bigger than the year before,” said Rougeau, who shot a heavy-antlered 8-pointer there last December that measured 139 2/8 inches Boone and Crockett.
He determined the second buck was a smaller basket-rack 4-point, and turned his attention back to the big buck, which was now nearing the tree line.
“When I got back to him, he had made some ground up and he was not wanting to stick around,” Rougeau said. “He was just about gone. Five more feet and I’d have been having to explain to the rest of those jokers over there that I had seen a monster.
“It was sort of a ‘last-minute, elbow-up-high shot without good posture,’ but I let it rip,” he said. “The next thing I saw when I pulled away from the scope was a big white belly.”
The shot from Rougeau’s faithful .270 hit the big buck in the base of the neck, and he fell immediately.
The buck weighed 212 pounds, and had an inside spread of 21 inches. Main beams measured 20 ¼ inches, with 5 ¼-inch bases. In addition to the kicker on his right G2, the deer had a 2 ½-inch kicker on his right brow tine, and green scored 142 inches Boone and Crockett.
Rougeau said he especially enjoyed watching the big buck moving through the fog, carefully making his way towards the tree line.
“He acted like the ghost that we all believe they are. He was working a careful line, hugging the edges and staying hidden as long as he could,” he said. “That foggy opening morning was a pain in the butt, but it ended up working out.”
Don’t forget to enter photos of your bucks in the Nikon Big Buck Photo Contest to be eligible for monthly giveaways and the random drawing for Nikon Monarch binoculars at the end of the contest.
Read other stories about big bucks killed this season by clicking here.
