KipCarson
Well-known member
As I prepare for another deer season, only a couple of weeks away from the October 1st opener here in Louisiana, it always has me thinking back over past seasons and the most memorable deer of my life. This time of year always has me hoping for a repeat, but that will likely never happen and I’m ok with that! I thought I would share an article I wrote that was published in Bowhunter Magazine back in 2013. It’s the story of my hunt for a deer I called Zeus. Its a long read but if you stick around to the end I hope you enjoy it!
A Broken Paradise:
Mother Nature’s fury transforms a good whitetail area into a big buck hotspot.
The tornado wasn’t kind to me at all, or at least at first it didn’t seem so. It didn’t destroy my home or belongings, leaving my life in shambles, but it did destroy my favorite hunting spot. As I slept at home, oblivious to the tumultuous thunder storm outside, I had no clue that oak and hickory trees were being blown apart and twisted into one massive game of pickup sticks, leaving behind a mess that would have taken a skilled logging crew a week to straighten out. Fortunately, nature, in its divine design, has a way of healing itself, and the real damage was only temporary. The once shaded forest floor responded to the direct sunlight of the open canopy and produced a wonderfully dense thicket consisting of primarily American Beauty Berry, Carolina Buckthorn, and several species of smilax. The tornado had taken a block of woods that was usually only popular with whitetails during the fall acorn drop and turned it into a year-round bed and breakfast. It was in this piece of broken paradise that a legend walked into my life.
Bow season 2012 started as fast as a herd of sleepy snails. My hopes had been high, but the weeks leading up to the opener had been plagued with a cloud of events that seemed to spell disaster for my season. Between invasions from feral hogs, almost zero deer activity, and trail cameras conspiring to all break down at the same time, I was having a rough time. In addition, I would miss the second week of season traveling for my job. Usually I would be greatly distressed at the thought of losing a week of hunting, but it didn’t seem like I would be missing much with my current prospects.
Before leaving, I decided to take my one functioning trail camera to my tornado alley thicket to scout for me while I was away. While looking for a place to set up my camera, I came across a faint trail with a track that seemed to be abnormally large. The best part about it was it looked like whatever had made that track had been there frequently. Immediately I knew this is where my solo camera must do its work while I was out of town. Just weeks prior, I had commented to my dad about the ravaged hilltop and said, “I have a feeling that thicket is going to pay off big in the coming years with a great buck for me.” I had no clue how true those words would be.
The track consumed my thoughts and I couldn’t hurry home fast enough to see what behemoth had taken up residence in my thicket. Upon my return, I quickly swapped memory cards and rushed back home to see what had transpired in my absence. After feverishly downloading the images, I must have let out quite a shriek when they appeared because my wife immediately came from the next room to see what was wrong. I reassured her that nothing was wrong and everything was just right! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Right on my computer screen, sauntering around in broad daylight, was a buck that was unlike any other deer I had ever captured on camera. The best part was that he had been there repeatedly throughout the week. For the next few days I was walking on clouds every time the thought of that buck entered my mind, and that was often. It didn’t take long before this amazing deer earned the name “Zeus” because he was definitely a buck of mythical proportions!
The first issue I needed to work out in my new all-consuming quest was hanging stands. The camera had given me the recon I needed to get started, but I didn’t have a stand up anywhere in that area. Hunting Louisiana in October has its own set of special challenges. I couldn’t just sneak in, hang a stand, and then immediately hunt it. If I did that I’d be drenched in sweat in the 90-degree heat and would smell as sour as the local hogs.
Monday evening when I got home from work, I gathered all of my gear and got ready to start my guerrilla warfare hunting strategy. I left for the woods around 10 p.m. when I was sure Zeus had gotten up and moved out in his nightly forays, hopefully far away from his home base, my precious thicket. The best stand trees were now gone, and finding good cover to hide in had become much more challenging. I did the work by headlamp the best I could with the sparse cover I had. But after all, it was up to Zeus to choose the location of my hunt and this is what he had chosen, so I would have to work with it. It is much more effective to go to the deer than to just hope the deer come to you.
My broken trail cameras were my second hurdle. Trail cameras have revolutionized modern bowhunting strategies with the massive amount of information they can provide when used properly. To effectively pattern Zeus I needed a small army of cameras in and around the thicket that would give away his patterns and deliver him the the tree where I would eventually choose to hang a stand.
A Broken Paradise:
Mother Nature’s fury transforms a good whitetail area into a big buck hotspot.
The tornado wasn’t kind to me at all, or at least at first it didn’t seem so. It didn’t destroy my home or belongings, leaving my life in shambles, but it did destroy my favorite hunting spot. As I slept at home, oblivious to the tumultuous thunder storm outside, I had no clue that oak and hickory trees were being blown apart and twisted into one massive game of pickup sticks, leaving behind a mess that would have taken a skilled logging crew a week to straighten out. Fortunately, nature, in its divine design, has a way of healing itself, and the real damage was only temporary. The once shaded forest floor responded to the direct sunlight of the open canopy and produced a wonderfully dense thicket consisting of primarily American Beauty Berry, Carolina Buckthorn, and several species of smilax. The tornado had taken a block of woods that was usually only popular with whitetails during the fall acorn drop and turned it into a year-round bed and breakfast. It was in this piece of broken paradise that a legend walked into my life.
Bow season 2012 started as fast as a herd of sleepy snails. My hopes had been high, but the weeks leading up to the opener had been plagued with a cloud of events that seemed to spell disaster for my season. Between invasions from feral hogs, almost zero deer activity, and trail cameras conspiring to all break down at the same time, I was having a rough time. In addition, I would miss the second week of season traveling for my job. Usually I would be greatly distressed at the thought of losing a week of hunting, but it didn’t seem like I would be missing much with my current prospects.
Before leaving, I decided to take my one functioning trail camera to my tornado alley thicket to scout for me while I was away. While looking for a place to set up my camera, I came across a faint trail with a track that seemed to be abnormally large. The best part about it was it looked like whatever had made that track had been there frequently. Immediately I knew this is where my solo camera must do its work while I was out of town. Just weeks prior, I had commented to my dad about the ravaged hilltop and said, “I have a feeling that thicket is going to pay off big in the coming years with a great buck for me.” I had no clue how true those words would be.
The track consumed my thoughts and I couldn’t hurry home fast enough to see what behemoth had taken up residence in my thicket. Upon my return, I quickly swapped memory cards and rushed back home to see what had transpired in my absence. After feverishly downloading the images, I must have let out quite a shriek when they appeared because my wife immediately came from the next room to see what was wrong. I reassured her that nothing was wrong and everything was just right! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Right on my computer screen, sauntering around in broad daylight, was a buck that was unlike any other deer I had ever captured on camera. The best part was that he had been there repeatedly throughout the week. For the next few days I was walking on clouds every time the thought of that buck entered my mind, and that was often. It didn’t take long before this amazing deer earned the name “Zeus” because he was definitely a buck of mythical proportions!
The first issue I needed to work out in my new all-consuming quest was hanging stands. The camera had given me the recon I needed to get started, but I didn’t have a stand up anywhere in that area. Hunting Louisiana in October has its own set of special challenges. I couldn’t just sneak in, hang a stand, and then immediately hunt it. If I did that I’d be drenched in sweat in the 90-degree heat and would smell as sour as the local hogs.
Monday evening when I got home from work, I gathered all of my gear and got ready to start my guerrilla warfare hunting strategy. I left for the woods around 10 p.m. when I was sure Zeus had gotten up and moved out in his nightly forays, hopefully far away from his home base, my precious thicket. The best stand trees were now gone, and finding good cover to hide in had become much more challenging. I did the work by headlamp the best I could with the sparse cover I had. But after all, it was up to Zeus to choose the location of my hunt and this is what he had chosen, so I would have to work with it. It is much more effective to go to the deer than to just hope the deer come to you.
My broken trail cameras were my second hurdle. Trail cameras have revolutionized modern bowhunting strategies with the massive amount of information they can provide when used properly. To effectively pattern Zeus I needed a small army of cameras in and around the thicket that would give away his patterns and deliver him the the tree where I would eventually choose to hang a stand.
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