Hunting for Bridgette Vidrine may have started as a way to spend more time with her husband, but this hobby is now something she just can’t get enough of.
Vidrine said, “Although I have family that hunts, I hunted very little. My husband, Jonathan, on the other hand went all the time. That’s initially why I decided to start hunting. I wanted to be able to spend more time with him”
The dentist by day has now become a pro at switching from her white coat to camouflage to take down trophy size deer.
One of the local’s massive deer kills came last December at Overton Hunting Club in Bunkie.
Vidrine, who doesn’t use any bait or camera to hunt, described the day she took down the nine point deer as “super cold,” but totally “worth being in the woods.”
Vidrine said, “I got in the stand really early that morning, and as time went on I really started thinking that the hunt was going to be a bust.
“A little button buck came in the lane and started running towards me, but then a fox squirrel started barking and they both ran off.”
The button buck that she had just seen was nothing compared to what Vidrine was about to view through the scope of her gun.
Vidrine said, “I really thought I wasn’t going to kill anything, but then I heard some wood ducks fly into the slew on the side of where I was hunting. When I heard the ducks get up, I knew there was something there.” And, she was right.
“I kept seeing his antlers poking through the thicket,” said Vidrine. “He kept going in and out of the brush near my stand. And, when he stepped out, I shot and killed him.”
The deer that Vidrine had just earned herself was one many other hunters had been seeing on their cameras, but it was Vidrine who claimed the prize.
After proving that she can take down some of the largest deer in the area with a rifle, Vidrine decided to head to northwest Colorado to see if she could take down a mule deer with a bow.
Vidrine said, “I was ready for more of a challenge so we packed up and headed to Colorado for archery season.”
Even with a different weapon in hand, Vidrine proved her ability to take down deer has nothing to do with luck, but instead everything to do with pure skill.
What she says she has come to enjoy about this style of hunting is the fact that she said, “you have to work for it.”
Vidrine said, “The deer are very in tune to what they hear and smell. You have to work for it, and that makes it more rewarding than if you just kill something by luck.”
What really made her most recent kill in Colorado even more special was the fact that the person who taught her to hunt - her husband - watched the entire kill happen.
Vidrine said, “When I killed the mule deer, what made it really cool was the fact that my husband was in another area watching the entire thing occur. My husband then made me blood trail it, which was the first time I had done that. When I came up on the deer it was picture perfect. The sun was coming down and it was shining on the deer perfectly. It was just so picture perfect.”
Even as she becomes a better hunter though, Vidrine said she still can’t forget about a deer she missed in the past.
Laughing, Vidrine said, “I remember missing a deer one time that was so close to me that I couldn’t help but be so embarrassed. I think about that sometimes because that helps me make sure to never do it again.”
Now her and her husband’s love for the outdoors is even translating to their three children.
Vidrine said, “Now that our children are getting older they are starting to want to go hunting too, which is nice. It is becoming a family thing for us, because just like it allowed me to spend more time with my husband, hunting hopefully will be something that we can always do together.”