Lee Ellis - another Metro Atlanta Giant - "Zeus"

[MKW]

I've had to push them out of my way with the bumper of my truck in these "mini ranch" neighborhoods. Shooting one no matter how big, never crossed my mind. Envious??? Not hardly. More like disappointed, that our society is full of mirror kissing assholes.

This^^^is how I feel too.

[2thDoc]

i cant read all this because my head hurts.

BUT, I would shoot the piss out of that deer. BUT, I wouldnt do it to show what a great hunter I was. I think most of us can agree (no matter how hard some of you want to make this) that deer would be fairly simple to kill once you got permission to sit the kids playhouse next to the corn pile. So, I guess the part that bugs me is that some want to say the dude actually accomplished something in the hunting world....but he didnt.

[M2Field]

My family has 10 acres in Charlotte. I think I'll take a little walk on it over Thanksgiving. Last time I walked it I jumped a huge buck

[ccleroy]

You can compare this type of hunting to Fripp and Hunting Island.

[FEETDOWN]

He got it done, punched his tag, tipped one over, put the rage in the cage, shwhacked him, let the air out of him, center punched him and got a big buck down. Give the man a second

This thread and the one and GON are prime examples of what disgusts me about the majority of "hunters" nowdays. If you don't like it, fine, scroll on past and don't comment. Regardless of what you'd like to think, nobody really gives a fuck whether you'd shoot it or not, or what you think of the guy that did.

As for me, I wouldn't actively seek out this kind of hunting, but if a friend of mine called me and said, "Hey man, I know where theres a 200" buck in a subdivision and I've got permission to shoot him", I'd load up the pine straw and my Halon and haul ass........

[Highstrung]

He puts himself out there so the critiquing is going to happen. If he didn't seek the glory it would be different. I have my reasons to hunt, his might be and seem different to me.

[Highstrung]

But I sure as shit won't be told I should be envious of him, I am not. I love me more.

[FEETDOWN]

Hey Ralph

[NUTZ]

Hey Ralph

This guy gets it. Hey Ralph.

[Highstrung]

Heeeey Feets

And good morning to you Mr Nutz

[2thDoc]

This guy gets it. Hey Ralph.

this guy gets what ralph gets.

Hey nutz

[FEETDOWN]

But I sure as shit won't be told I should be envious of him, I am not. I love me more.

Oh I absolutely agree there. He seems like the type of fella that would bring 4 people with him if you invited him on a dove hunt. Helladouche.....

[GobblerHntr]

All the negative comments and nobody is rejoicing that prayers were answered.

[marsh chicken]

All the negative comments and nobody is rejoicing that prayers were answered.

#blessed

[GobblerHntr]

[marsh chicken]

This reminds me of the travel tball thread in a weird way.

[FEETDOWN]

All the negative comments and nobody is rejoicing that prayers were answered.

This guy gets it^^^^^

[PharmHunter]

All the negative comments and nobody is rejoicing that prayers were answered.

[turbo]

I'd kill that 200" deer with a bush axe in FEETS' living room if it meant I could hang him on the wall. Why FEETS would keep a 200" deer in his living room is beyond me, however.

I'd most certainly gig his ass with a bow in some uppity neighbor's back yard.

I also don't give a fuck what any of you think... much less the rest of the internet.

[scatter shot]

From GON-

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!