140 Louisiana Sportsman^ | April 2015
If
a survey was taken of all deer hunters in
Louisiana and their method for hunting
deer, I suspect the most-common way is
to sit in a permanent box stand waiting
for a deer to walk out into a food plot or
visit the corn feeder.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.
Get in a helicopter and fly over the
rural landscape of private lands, and I
suspect you will see what I have seen
on many occasions — lots of box stands sitting on pipe lines,
woods roads and the edges of pastures, fields and food plots.
It is just the normal way to hunt deer on private lands. Set up
in an area that has something to attract deer and wait for the
deer to come.
While this plan will work, have a year when there is an abun-
dance of acorns and many might have to alter the plan if veni-
son is desired for the freezer.
Now, survey that group of hunters who pursue wild turkeys
about their method of hunting, and chances are you won’t have
many who build permanent box blinds and wait for gobblers to
come to them.
Unless, of course, they disregard the regulations concerning
hunting turkeys over bait or they only own a few acres of landsurrounded by other private land with turkeys and can hunt
only on their small tract.
Turkey hunting and deer hunting are definitely different
activities.
Tom Kelly, author of the book Tenth Legion, considered deer
hunters to be on the low end of the hunting totem pole, while
turkey hunters were in that elite group at the top of the pole.
The white-tail buck won’t sound off in the morning to let the
hunter know where he is, so the hunter sits and waits at a loca-
tion that he thinks (or hopes) a buck will show up.
The crafty gobbler, on the other hand, will sit in the top of a
tree and announce to the entire world where he is and dare the
hunter to come and get him.
Once you have heard a tom gobble, have chased after him in
pursuit, had him answer your love calls and perhaps tasted
victory, it is hard not to have a desire to go back and do it all
over again.
Most deer hunters who put a deer or two in the freezer during
the season, generally have had enough of the logistics involved
with deer hunting, don’t worry about tagging out and are ready
for other things.
It is the turkey hunter who has that inward burning desire to
attach that second tag to another longbeard — so the pursuit
continues for the entire season.Tagging out
The author killed
this tom with an old
Mossberg bolt-action
12-gauge with a C-lect
choke.