Mossy Oaks mini web series Seek-One (Hunt NOT for Charlie)

Can Seek One do an episode on how to gain permission from landowners? I'm at 100% in seeking permission, but I have only asked 1 landowner. I want to seek additional parcels but can't bring myself to knock on the door.

This is a great feat that these guys seem to pull off time and time again. Gaining permission in those zip codes is an art form.

Here’s an update.

Suburban Bowhunter: Address to the Hunting Community

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As expected with any record class whitetail, there have been numerous rumors flying around about the deer named Zeus killed by Lee Ellis this past week. Because Zeus has garnered significant attention and will continue to do so, we feel it is important to address these rumors before they begin to define the story of this amazing animal. First, we would like to give a background on the hunt for Zeus to give context to these claims and the individuals Facebook post.

Three years ago, Lee was sent a trail camera picture of Zeus and was told the deer was somewhere in Atlanta. Lee spent a year and a half chasing down leads, obtaining permission and running trail cameras in search of him. Finally, at the end of the 2016 season Lee found where his general area was and began hunting him late in the season. Zeus was only showing up once or twice a week, so Lee was unsuccessful after hunting for a month straight. After the season ended, Lee began the legwork of finding exactly where Zeus was hiding in the spring and summer months. He knocked on and requested permission from every home within three square miles that owned any significant amount of acreage where Zeus could hide. During this search Lee ran across multiple other hunters that were hunting Zeus and had been for years, but were so far unsuccessful. Lee also met a man who denied hunting permission but told him that he feeds corn in his backyard and there is a very large buck that he sees weekly on his property and the surrounding properties. Curious as to what deer it was, Lee continued to speak with the man and got confirmation that it was indeed Zeus. After meeting with the man several times over the summer Lee was able to see Zeus in person and take a few video clips. At this point, Lee had known about Zeus for years and had spent hundreds of hours locating and hunting him, and he knew that as soon as September rolled around Zeus would begin to break out of his summer range and roam back over towards the area he was hunting him the season prior. Lee continued to hunt Zeus and obtained permission on nine different properties within that three square-mile radius. He setup trail cameras on every single one of the properties, waiting for Zeus to reveal his pattern. As expected, starting in mid-September Zeus began popping up on Lee’s trail cameras, but never in daylight hours. It wasn’t until the peak of the rut and more than thirty hunts later that Zeus finally made a mistake in daylight. Lee killed Zeus over a mile away from where he was being fed in the summertime. There is so much more to the story that will be shared in the video, and even more that was impossible to capture on film. A tremendous amount of time and effort was put into this hunt and the filming of it, and Zeus was in every way a wild animal. He was over 170” for four years in an area with multiple hunters, and his rock-solid instincts kept him alive.
Now to the context of the phone call and the defaming Facebook post. At some point during the season, Lee found out that the man who was feeding Zeus was friends with another hunter, and that hunter had asked the man to put a trail camera in his backyard for him. That immediately raised red flags for us, so we began to monitor forums and social media for pictures of Zeus. Sure enough, at some point in October photos of Zeus popped up on a Georgia hunting Facebook page but then were quickly taken down. We knew at that point killing Zeus was going to cause jealousy and controversy, and besides ending the hunt the only thing we could do was call the individual as soon as Lee killed Zeus. So that’s what Lee did. Lee explained the situation and politely asked the other hunter to not mention anything to the man who had been feeding Zeus. During the phone call, the individual responded civilly, confirmed that Lee had nothing to worry about and stated that the deer are free to roam where they please. The individual also admitted that he had attempted to obtain hunting permission from his friend who was feeding Zeus but was turned down, then continued to try and gain access to a block of woods nearby. The conversation ended, and Lee felt that the individual handled it well. Twelve hours later, the individual posted a hateful rant on his personal Facebook page which then spread like wildfire.

In response to the claims that Zeus was bottle fed as a fawn, raised in a pen, and wore a collar; we suspect that these claims were fabricated out of jealousy and anger to defame Lee. The fact that the individual had also attempted to hunt Zeus proves that he was not simply standing up for his friend. At no point in Lee’s communications with the man did he ever say anything about bottle feeding, and the deer was certainly not raised in a pen and did not have a collar. In fact, the man only showed Lee photos and spoke of history with Zeus from the last 4 years, and Zeus is an 8-10 year old animal. The individual also made claims that Lee was baiting or hunting between two houses that were feeding. The individual has no idea where Lee killed Zeus and has clearly fabricated these claims to further defame Lee. Everything about the hunt was 100% legal, and that will be proven when Lee passes the polygraph test for Georgia Outdoor News Truck Buck Competition. It’s unfortunate that posts like this come from members of our hunting community, but we fully expected it and we appreciate those who are standing up for Lee and the Seek One team. What we have learned over the last decade is that drama and controversy will always be a part of suburban hunting, and that’s part of what makes it interesting and different. We do our best to avoid it, but when it comes up we embrace it for what it is and handle the situation as best we can.

This situation with Zeus is not unique in suburban hunting. All bucks, suburban or not, have a summer hideout. These hideouts will have food, water, and bedding cover and the bucks won’t leave an area of about 5 acres all summer long while they grow out their antlers. Often times in the suburbs, these hideouts are in small acreages of woods where a homeowner is feeding corn. With such a high number of landowners along a deer’s range, there is a very high likelihood that one or multiple people feed corn and see the deer on a regular basis. These deer will let their guard down in the summer months on these properties where they have been fed for years and haven’t been hunted, but as soon as they leave that property at the start of hunting season they begin to act just like any other wild deer.

It’s understood that hunting the suburbs is different than hunting in rural areas, there’s no doubt about it. The deer hide in small fingers and pockets of woods that run along creeks and flood plains between neighborhoods. These corridors connect to larger blocks of undeveloped woods in parks, golf courses, utility property, etc. The deer travel these corridors and roam a vast amount of land crossing busy roads like nothing is there. For the most part, the deer eat what any wild deer eats; acorns in the fall, grasses and forbs in Spring and Summer, and whatever they can forage in the Winter, which is often landscaping. In the wintertime, these suburban deer pile into neighborhoods at night to eat flowers, sod, bushes and whatever else is green in people’s yards. This gives them a false sense of tameness because so many people are seeing them close to houses and roads. Spring and summertime the bucks get in bachelor groups and hide in small acreages of woods, then when September rolls around these bucks split up and start roaming. In order to hunt these deer effectively we have to be very mobile and have the ability to obtain permission at the drop of a hat, and that is what makes suburban hunting so difficult and time consuming. We are not the only people that do this. Often times there are up to ten different people hunting the same deer, and they still make it through the season. They have adapted and learned to survive in their unique environment.

For those of you who hunt large tracts of land, think of it this way. Take your typical bucks range of about 1000 acres square and divide that into 500 two-acre tracts. Now distort those 500 tracts and string them out into fingers and creeks and river bottoms pinched between houses and buildings. Now the distance of that deer’s range has increased significantly but you only own one two-acre piece of his range. There are 499 other people that own and have hunting access to that deer’s range. If you sit back and hope the buck walks through your two-acre lot at the exact time you are hunting, then sure you might get lucky a time or two in your life. But in order to have a good chance at patterning a specific buck, you need to gain access to a handful of those other 499 properties in his range. That is not a simple or quick task. In order to obtain permission, you have to first figure out what properties to target using tax assessor maps. Then you have to drive around, sit in traffic, knock on doors after work hours and hope that homeowners are home. Say on your third attempt, the owner of your choice property does answer the door. Now you have to convince a complete stranger to let you shoot a deadly weapon in the yard where their kids and dogs play, at the animals they think are their pets because they see them running through the neighborhood at night. After about 100 attempts you’ll start to get a feel for the things you need to say and the body language you need to present in order to evoke confidence and trust from the stranger….and then you might get lucky and the wife who answered the door will say she needs to ask her husband who’s not home. Then she doesn’t get back to you and you have to sit in traffic again to go knock on the door three more times, and you finally talk to the husband and you land permission! You put out a trail camera and it sits for three weeks and you don’t get a single picture of the buck you’re hunting because he travels the other direction from the two acres you just worked so hard to get. Now you have to repeat these steps 15 more times to figure out the pattern on a buck until you get the right property to kill him on…oh yeah, and then the actual hunt starts. The buck has a route he travels and completes approximately once every week and a half, so you sit in the stand 30 consecutive hunts until you have your shot. You have to do all of this before the buck is hit by a car, killed by another hunter, or shot off of someone’s back porch with a spotlight. You put in the time and the effort and you are able to pull it off, but that was the last mature buck in that 1000 acre range. To be successful consistently, you now you have to go find a completely new area that has good genetics and doesn’t have hunting pressure. In order to find that new spot you must repeat all of the mentioned steps countless times.

This is the time and effort that people don’t see when a picture of a giant suburban buck is posted on a forum or makes the cover of a magazine. Unfortunately, the hundreds and hundreds of hours it takes to hunt these deer and the drama we have to deal with on a daily basis is very difficult to capture on film and portray in a short video, but we are going to continue to try. This is our passion and we are going to continue to pursue it and share it with those willing to listen and watch. We hope that our videos are entertaining, informative, and have a positive influence on the hunting community. Thank you to those who support us.
God Bless!

Congrats again Lee on your whitetail success. Had a blast with your GON hunt story details at the web links below.



http://www.gon.com/truck-buck-entries/279228

Points: 14 (7L, 7R)

County: Fulton

Zone: North

Week: 10

Season: 2017-2018


AND



http://www.gon.com/news/fulton-county-buck-could-break-state-record

Fulton County Buck Could Break State Record

NOVEMBER 20, 2017

chance to top the Georgia state record for the highest scoring typical-racked buck ever taken with a bow with this 14-point giant

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That sixth paragraph is the part I think some folks don't understand.

KKrueger said:

That sixth paragraph is the part I think some folks don't understand.

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Exactly. After getting worked up about a big deer in my neighborhood a couple years ago, that is precisely what I realized. The amount of time and work gaining permission to achieve decent odds of LEGALLY harvesting him wasn't worth it to me.

Congrats to the hunter!

I guess the polygraph at the truck buck will shut all the Alligator mouths. Heck of a buck

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So when are we going to see this story on the Home Page of GON ? I want to know more about our new state record!

XJfire75 said:

Here’s an update.
those of you who hunt large tracts of land, think of it this way. Take your typical bucks range of about 1000 acres square and divide that into 500 two-acre tracts. Now distort those 500 tracts and string them out into fingers and creeks and river bottoms pinched between houses and buildings. Now the distance of that deer’s range has increased significantly but you only own one two-acre piece of his range. There are 499 other people that own and have hunting access to that deer’s range. If you sit back and hope the buck walks through your two-acre lot at the exact time you are hunting, then sure you might get lucky a time or two in your life. But in order to have a good chance at patterning a specific buck, you need to gain access to a handful of those other 499 properties in his range. That is not a simple or quick task. In order to obtain permission, you have to first figure out what properties to target using tax assessor maps. Then you have to drive around, sit in traffic, knock on doors after work hours and hope that homeowners are home. Say on your third attempt, the owner of your choice property does answer the door. Now you have to convince a complete stranger to let you shoot a deadly weapon in the yard where their kids and dogs play, at the animals they think are their pets because they see them running through the neighborhood at night. After about 100 attempts you’ll start to get a feel for the things you need to say and the body language you need to present in order to evoke confidence and trust from the stranger….and then you might get lucky and the wife who answered the door will say she needs to ask her husband who’s not home. Then she doesn’t get back to you and you have to sit in traffic again to go knock on the door three more times, and you finally talk to the husband and you land permission! You put out a trail camera and it sits for three weeks and you don’t get a single picture of the buck you’re hunting because he travels the other direction from the two acres you just worked so hard to get. Now you have to repeat these steps 15 more times to figure out the pattern on a buck until you get the right property to kill him on…oh yeah, and then the actual hunt starts. The buck has a route he travels and completes approximately once every week and a half, so you sit in the stand 30 consecutive hunts until you have your shot. You have to do all of this before the buck is hit by a car, killed by another hunter, or shot off of someone’s back porch with a spotlight. You put in the time and the effort and you are able to pull it off, but that was the last mature buck in that 1000 acre range. To be successful consistently, you now you have to go find a completely new area that has good genetics and doesn’t have hunting pressure. In order to find that new spot you must repeat all of the mentioned steps countless times.

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SO... when you accomplish ALL of this and finally stick a deer, how do you legally retrieve it? I'd bet that wounded deer crosses at least one or two property lines.

Long Cut said:

SO... when you accomplish ALL of this and finally stick a deer, how do you legally retrieve it? I'd bet that wounded deer crosses at least one or two property lines.

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Most double lunged deer shot with today's broadheads never make it out of sight. But i would assume that if they needed to they could just ask the landowner for permission to search for it. Most people would let someone search for a mortally wounded animal i would bet. Even if they didn't want you hunting their property.

There are plenty suburban hunters im sure and im sure some dandy bucks are being killed we dont hear about. But these guys are killing monsters. They certainly know how to find the big ones. That cant be argued. Im sure there is a lot of work involved in just finding them. And, they have to be passing 140 and 150 inch deer to kill these im sure. Most would never be able to do that

Im still wanting to see the hunt for Charlie

Is Drew's buck this year not entered in the shootout? I didn't see it

Tmpr111 said:

??? The GON link you posted for the " http://www.gon.com/news/fulton-count...k-state-record " was active earlier and now is not valid and has been removed. I didn't get to read it all but came back to finish it. Will it be back up?

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Interesting. I wonder why

When will the video of the hunt be posted on youtube?

Can't wait to see the video. Although I doubt the record will last long if the one I am hunting slips up. He towers "Zeus." We call him "big tine."

kbuck1 said:

Most double lunged deer shot with today's broadheads never make it out of sight. But i would assume that if they needed to they could just ask the landowner for permission to search for it. Most people would let someone search for a mortally wounded animal i would bet. Even if they didn't want you hunting their property.

There are plenty suburban hunters im sure and im sure some dandy bucks are being killed we dont hear about. But these guys are killing monsters. They certainly know how to find the big ones. That cant be argued. Im sure there is a lot of work involved in just finding them. And, they have to be passing 140 and 150 inch deer to kill these im sure. Most would never be able to do that

Im still wanting to see the hunt for Charlie

Is Drew's buck this year not entered in the shootout? I didn't see it

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I agree the capabilities of the modern equipment are there... but a double lunged deer can still cover 200 yards very quickly. A liver hit deer can cover even more ground.... meaning asking permission for multiple properties, probably at night.

Nice buck congratulations

Video?

any updates? cant wait to see the next episode..

They posted this on another site.... Doesn't look like they'll ever post the kill of Charlie, after all this time. Reasoning seems odd to me considering when he was "killed". But this should put this old thread to rest and what a shame, IMO. Several watched this deer for years here in the area. Moving along...............


"seek1productions@cline_towerdawg12 we should have both the Bane and Zeus episodes released by mid January. We do not currently have plans of releasing a Charlie episode because of sponsor conflicts."

But....I thought there was a video of the new state record? That's the one I want to see.

Any new info re this buck????