Building a hunting memory

• By JOE MACALUSO
• Advocate Outdoors writer
• Published: Jan 1, 2009 - UPDATED: 1:15 a.m.

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Baton Rouge hunter Wayne Blackwell had tears in his eyes last spring when he described the effects the state’s expanded approach to getting more physically challenged hunters afield.

His plea to the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission continued his long-standing effort to keep the program moving forward. Blackwell is a wheelchair-bound outdoorsman, and he couldn’t have known months ago that his work — and that of state wildlife managers and so many others — would have abundant rewards.

The quintessential prize for their dedication came to light just days before Christmas when Brandon Soileau posed with a trophy whitetail.

Soileau is 14 years old, a tough 14 years considering he was born with spina bifida. Paralyzed from the chest down, he’s confined to a wheelchair.

He can use his arms and hands, and that allows Soileau, with the help of family and friends, to hunt and fish as often as possible. And, in early 2007, when the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries built wheelchair-accessible deer-hunting blinds on the Sherburne Wildlife Management Area, lots of problems of getting Brandon Soileau into the woods were solved. His home is in easy driving distance of the 44,000-acre WMA.

With as steady an aim as anyone else in the woods, Soileau took five deer from the special blind last season.

This year, he started by taking a doe, then followed that up with a Thanksgiving weekend hunt neither he, nor his godfather Tim Bourque, nor his mother Julie Soileau will forget.

“When the buck got within about 100 yards, my godfather told me to get ready to shoot,” Brandon Soileau said. “So, I raised my godfather’s .270 rifle and looked through the scope. When I saw how big he was I began to shake. My godfather told me to shoot when it got within 50 yards, so I did and the buck folded up and ran. I knew I hit him good, and me and my godfather high-fived and hugged each other,” he said.

How big? All 240 pounds of mature 8-point buck with 20-inch main beams.

Bourque needed to be there, because of Soileau’s age and the necessity of needing assistance to get to the blind and, hopefully, to retrieve a deer.

Waiting for several long minutes, they spotted the downed deer at the far end of the field. Bourque took the young hunter back to Bourque’s truck and more anxious minutes passed before Soileau realized his dream of taking a trophy whitetail.

“I sat there waiting to see how big he was. When he brought the buck out to the truck we both cried,” Brandon told a Wildlife and Fisheries employee. “We took him to the weigh station where department officials told me they haven’t seen one that big in a long time. Then we left to show off our trophy to the whole town. I could not stop smiling and I’m still smiling.”

Julie Soileau said the program helped her son continue in the sport he loves.