Eric Hansen and Ethan Sleeman
Posted By
Hunter Kailos
at
8/9/2010 12:00:00 AM
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Eric Hansen lives in Stanley, NY with his wife Crystal and 7 month old baby girl Eva. Eric and his family own and operate Hansen Farms LLC, a 3,000 acre vegetable and grain farm that his grandfather started in 1955. You will see Eric hunting a diverse landscape in the Finger Lakes region of NY. His home farm is blessed with rich soil and abundant crops on a relatively flat landscape. He and his family also own 150 acres of beautiful hill country land in Steuben County, NY that is much more of a wooded terrain. Eric got hooked on passing small bucks at an early age and pursuing only the oldest bucks in his hunting area preferably with archery gear. Eric prides himself in being a good steward of the land and in his free time he works on habitat projects aimed at improving the quality of his hunting experience.
Ethan Sleeman lives in the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY with his wife Amy and son Fischer. Ethan is a high school business teacher at a local high school and enjoys everything outdoors. If he’s not hunting whitetails you will find him exploring the waters of the Finger Lakes fishing and camping with his family. Ethan has grown to have a passion for whitetails ever since he was introduced to the sport as a young boy. He enjoys the challenges and the rewards that the great outdoors has to offer. Ethan will be hunting a variety of landscapes this year follow along and watch the season unfold.
Ethan Sleeman and Eric Hansen 2011 Hit List
"Lucky 7" This buck showed up last year in one of
our sanctuaries for security away from the treacherous NYS guns
season. He sported 7 points after breaking one in a fight. We had a
few encounters with this buck well with in gun range but elected to
pass based on his age and home range habits. We noticed in some late
season pics last year he had a bad right eye. We were excited to see
him show up this summer on one of our Frigid Forage clover plots, but
the injury to his right eye has impacted his antler development on
the one side! We will be keeping a close eye on him as our season
approaches. This year he will not get a free pass!
"French Fry " A new buck we had trail cam pictures of from early summer. He has developed nicely into a shooter 8 point. He grew quite a bit from July until now. French Fry is hanging out in a rolling swamp which allows him to bed from numerous vantage points. We have made one adjustment so far this year by moving a stand location but will probably have to make one more in order to get into bow range.
"Wally Jr." This buck showed up in a solid bachelor
group this summer with “Lucky 7” We have a suspicion he is
related to a buck that Eric shot in 2009. His rack has two distinct
features that allow us to profile him as a unique buck. One is his
large brow tines and the second is all the small points towards the
end of his main beam! We are going to see what his habits are as the
season unfolds and might elect to pass him if we feel he will stay
tight to “home” and grow for one more year. He has potential to
blow up into a real giant if we can keep him in some of our
sanctuaries during daylight hours. Stay tuned to see what happens!
*UPDATE*
"Wally Jr" After talking it over for a few days we have decided to pull Wally Jr from the hit list. He has shown us his great potential and will be a super giant if we pass him this year. SO at this point in our season we have pulled wally jr from the hit list and added one other.
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Eric and Ethan’s 2010 Hit List
"Déjà vu"
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Even though we have never laid eyes on this buck he is at the top of our hit list. Eric found one half of these 135” sheds on a late winter scouting trip on the edge of one of his sanctuaries. Ethan had a dream a few days later that they would find the other half in the same area. Low and behold on Eric’s next trip to the property he found the matching side within 100 yds of the first drop. We believe this buck moved in late season and/or is extremely reclusive.
"Temptation"
We had several trail cam pics of this buck last season and were very tempted to pursue him, but judged him to only be a 2.5 yr old buck, with great genetics and a lot of potential. Eric had him come out into a corn food plot in December last season so we are pretty certain he is still alive.
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"Mr. T"
This solid 8 pointer showed up in early July in a bean field a long ways from any road. We don’t have much history with him but know his core area is going to be a challenge to hunt. We have three different sets to try and catch this guy on his feet during daylight. One set is a little more invasive than we like but we will stay away until we feel the time is right.
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"Pedestal"
This buck is going to be called the Pedestal buck. I think if we shoot him we might get a pedestal mount to change it up a bit in the trophy room. As far as we know this buck is a 3 ½ yr old deer living in a swamp not far from MR. T. We are going to try and intercept this deer in a small funnel on the edge of a cattail swamp.
