Perhaps the wind just happened to be right on Dec. 20, 2013, or his elevated box stand is airtight. Or maybe Alex LeBlanc’s little piggies simply don’t stink.
The deer he shot that day didn’t seem concerned with the 20-year-old’s shoeless feet.
An hour and 15 minutes earlier, when he climbed into the box blind at 2:45, Alex had been wearing waders. That’s way early for starting an afternoon hunt in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, where the temperature had risen well into the 70s those five days before Christmas.
People thought he was wasting his time by going afield so early, since everyone knows deer aren’t especially eager to be afoot when mosquitoes are buzzing. But the young conductor for the BNSF Railway didn’t want to waste an off-day watching the clock spin inside his Opelousas home.
So he dressed lightly, slid into his rubber hip boots, and went to the family’s property, going deeper in than he would’ve otherwise ventured. He chose that partic...