There is an old saying, “If you don’t go, you don’t know!”
Many hunters rely on game cameras to take pictures of game movement around their stands. They later find out they should have been in the stand.
This was not the case for two local deer hunters, Grady Franchebois and Lance Eusea of Boutte.
Both headed to deer stands that were hundreds of miles apart but each of their hunts paralleled each other.
Grady was invited to make a ranch hunt in Freer, Texas, which is 720 miles away. Lance belongs to the Manchac Hunting Club along I-10, east of Laplace.
“Being from Bayou Gauche, it takes me 30 minutes and I’m sitting in my stand,” Lance said. “We have 1,400 acres for seven members. Our population of deer has a very high number.”
Grady had to spend nine hours driving to meet up with friends and co-workers. On Grady’s first afternoon in the deer stand, three does and a 10-pointer stepped out in the shooting lane around 3 p.m.
As quickly as they appeared, they disappeared into the thick mesquite cover around the shooting lanes.
The does reappeared 150 yards from his stand. An hour later, the 10-point buck was nowhere to be found. The does worked their way towards the feeder and the buck followed around 4:30 p.m.
“The 10-point came within shooting range two times but I wanted to make sure I was going to get a good shot,” Grady said.
At 5 p.m., the buck turned broadside 148 yards away from the stand. Grady put the cross hairs of his Remington 700 on the middle of the buck’s shoulders and fired a shot from his 30-06.
The 150-grain bullet dropped the 10-pointer in his tracks.
“I’m glad the buck fell in his tracks,” Grady said. “Last year we tracked wounded hogs in the thick mesquite under growth, and it shredded my hands. Now it’s time to make sausage!
“You can’t kill em on the sofa.”
Lance’s hunting trip was a much quicker one. On Sunday afternoon, Lance made his way to the Manchac Hunting Club. Thirty minutes later he arrived at his two-man buddy stand at 3 p.m.
“I like using the two-man buddy stands because I can move it around,” he said. “We hunt the ridges in the swamp where the deer like to travel. Being able to move helps a lot.”
The wind was blowing real hard but the temperature had dropped into the low 40s. At 4:30 p.m., two does were making their way to the feeder.
Behind them Lance caught movement.
Slowly the 8-pointer worked his way towards the does. At 5 p.m., Lance put the crosshairs of his Remington ADL 700 on the shoulders of his buck.
The 270 found its mark and dropped the 186-pound 8-point.
“This 8-point was unaware of my presence while sitting in the two-man buddy,” Lance said. “The buck was walking crosswind. My stand was positioned downwind and the deer never knew I was there.”
After talking to both hunters, they were excited they were in a deer stand and not letting a game camera record activity.
Duck Hunting
On the last weekend of the first split, Hunter McDonald and Cody Morales hunted with Cody’s grandfather in Venice.
The tides were very low and the two Hahnville football players had a hard time reaching their favorite duck ponds before daybreak.
They managed to kill two mallards, two green wing teal, and a female ruddy duck.
This Saturday opens the second split for ducks in the East and West Zones and it runs until late January.
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