Jason Enlow and his brothers purchased approximately 100 acres in Concordia Parish this past summer and he and his cousin Brad Adams started working on the prime piece of land almost immediately. The land is in its second year of CRP and provides plenty of cover for deer.
“We wanted to get it ready for this year’s deer season so Jason and I got equipment in there to open some lanes and make a food plot,” Adams said. “We ended up with clearing some 7 acres for the food plot and planted a mixture of Buck Busters, rape and oats. It started growing good and we put out 1500 pounds of fertilizer just before Hurricane Laura dumped 9 inches of rain. Man, it just exploded with a crop growing knee-high and the deer were just tearing it up, bypassing the food troughs we had with corn, soy beans and rice bran.”
Enlow lives in Baton Rouge while Adams resides in Monterey, where he is a mechanic for Goldman Equipment. The cousins were anxious to give the recently purchased property a chance to see what deer it would produce.
“Jason drew first blood,” Adams said. “On Nov. 30, he downed a big 10-point buck that scored 152 5/8 inches, a buck that weighed in at a whopping 280 pounds.”
There was another buck that the previous property owners knew about and had trail camera photos of the deer. However, neither Enlow or Adams had seen the deer nor had photos of him.
Milk crate set-up
On Dec. 17, it was Adams’ turn to give it a try. He got to the land that afternoon and instead of climbing into a stand, he took along a milk crate to sit on.
“I had the milk crate set so I could watch a trail where I had seen lots of deer tracks where they were crossing,” he said. “The bigger bucks had not been hitting the food plot during daylight hours so with the rut being on, I wanted to watch the trail where I knew deer had been crossing. I hadn’t been there long when some does came out and crossed the trail.”
In a moment, Adams became aware of more action in the thicket; he could see deer moving around in there, but not clearly enough to know what they were. He decided on another plan of action.
“I got up off my milk crate and stepped down into the trail and set up my shooting sticks, standing and waiting for what might happen next,” he said. “I didn’t have long to wait because some does came across the trail in a hurry followed by a small 8-point buck.
“With all that action taking place, I felt like a big one could be following so I had my 35 Whelan on the shooting sticks and cocked back the hammer. The big buck stepped into the trail at 50 yards and I was ready. One shot and he fell right there.”
Heavy mass
The buck was impressive with a rack of 14 points; the G3 had been broken off even with the main beam, which would have made it a 15-point rack. The buck weighed 275 pounds and had heavy mass all the way out the rack. It was determined to be 5 ½ years old.
“At nearly every measurement, the mass was around 6 inches; I could hardly get my hand around it above the G3,” Adams said.
He took the buck to Simmons Sporting Goods in Bastrop to enter it in the big buck contest and the measurement came out to 172 3/8 inches.