Broken Glass Outdoors: November 2009

I anxiously awaited my return to Kansas since Robert, Shane and I left last year. We were getting some good trail camera pictures from the land owner throughout the late summer and early fall. We decided that we were going to leave on Sunday November 8, 2009.
My alarm went off at 2:30 am on Sunday morning; I took a shower, got in the truck and headed to Dallas to first pick up Shane, then Robert. I was very excited, but have to admit that 2:30 in the morning is a little early; I don’t care where you are going hunting.

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We made the long drive up through Texas, then Oklahoma and finally Kansas. We arrived at Henry Pierce’s house (our host) at around 2:00 that afternoon. We visited with Henry and Dennis Potter, another hunter at the lodge from Wisconsin who hunted with us last year, and then got unpacked and dressed for the evening hunt.
Shane and I both went back to the area that we hunted last year, while Robert drove around with Henry to see some new ground that Henry had secured for us. The sit that evening was pretty uneventful for me, but I did see 3 or 4 does. Shane did not have much luck either, but Robert did see a large shooter buck while walking into his stand.
The next morning I again hunted the same stand. This is the stand where I shot the large 7 point the year before on my first trip to Kansas. I sat until nearly 11:00 and did not see any deer. It was fairly discouraging, but I knew it was early and I still had a whole week to hunt.
After the morning hunt Robert took me to a stand across the road from where I had been hunting that set overlooking a river bottom on the edge of a large recently cut milo field. The field edge was covered with scrapes and good deer sign, so I decided that I would hunt that location for the next few days. I had only hunted one location in Kansas all last year and this year, so I was excited about looking at something different.
The first evening in the new location I saw quite a few deer, but only small bucks and does. Most of the deer were behind me in the milo field, but some passed in front of me in the creek bottom. The amount of deer that I saw was enough to make me come back the next day. In Kansas you can sit hours and sometimes days without seeing a deer.
Robert was hunting about a quarter mile to my west on the same river that evening and he passed up a very nice 8 point with unbelievable brow tines that I think definitely we have netted P&Y. In hind sight Robert should have shot this deer, but I think that it was too early in the trip for him to make that decision. The game camera at the stand where Robert was sitting took a few pictures of that buck and Robert brought the memory card back for us all to see. Everyone but Robert agreed that he should have shot the deer, but he was not having any part of it. Shane was only seeing a does and a couple of small bucks and we decided to set him up a new stand the next day in the same area he was hunting down in a creek bottom where he was seeing the most activity.

The next morning I sat in the same stand and only saw a few deer. I sat until about 11:00, then got out of the stand and went to pick up Shane. We both agreed that we would go back to the house, grab a quick bite to eat and get back in the stand.
I was back in the stand by 1:30 that afternoon, and my lack of sleep was really starting to catch up with me. At about 2:30, I was starting to dose off when I heard a loud grunt coming from across the river. I opened my eyes and the woods exploded. I saw two small bucks running in my direction, obviously being chased by something. I immediately let out a snort wheeze and was answered by another loud grunt. I grunted back and again was answered. This went on for about 2 or 3 minutes, me grunting and the buck (which I could not see) grunting back at me. Finally I saw a doe crossing the river about 75 yards away from me, followed closely by a nice shooter 10 point. I grunted, rattled and did everything I could to get them to turn in my direction so that I could get a shot, but the buck was not going to let the doe come any closer to my area and he ran her into some thick cover where I could only listen as he chased and grunted at her. This raucous went on for about 5 minutes before the woods finally quieted down.
I saw several more deer that evening, mostly in the field behind me. About 30 minutes before dark I noticed a new deer on the edge of the field about 150 yards behind me to my left. I put my glasses on him, and immediately recognized him as the 8 point that Robert had passed up the day before. I videoed him for a little while, then I let out a doe estrous bleat. The buck too my surprise turned and began walking along the very edge of the field in my direction. I grabbed my bow and got ready. I decided that if he came in front of my stand where I could video the shot, I would take him, but as luck would have it he never did. He walked right behind me coming within 8 yards of my stand. I decided not to shoot him because Robert had already passed him up. I am really not sure if I ever had a shot, it would have been difficult and I would have had to squeeze my arrow through some limbs in order to hit him. As he walked behind me, I never really even tried to evaluate my shot opportunity, and just watched as he got farther and farther away. Again in hind sight I probably should have tried to get a shot on him.
Robert saw another old very large deer with heavy antlers. He had him at 14 yards and could have easily taken him but decided to pass. This buck was pretty cool with a lot of character. He had 8 points on one side and 4 on the other and had a tall rack, but he only had about a 14 inch spread. Shane still had not seen a shooter. He was mostly seeing a couple of resident button bucks and their mom.
The next several days I hunted the same stand, only switching locations for one afternoon. The weather was warm and windy and none of us where having any luck. I think that the big boys were locked up on does, which is why we were not seeing any shooters cruising through our set ups. Robert kept asking me when I was going to go back to the stand where I shot the deer last year, I told him I was done with that stand. He kept telling me, “You know that is where you are going to shoot your deer”.
The end of the trip was quickly approaching. We were all very tired and frustrated. Long hours in trees had us all mentally worn out. I sat all day Friday without seeing a deer. On Saturday I woke up and told myself that I was going to give it one more good effort and then I was going to call it quits for this year. That morning I could not stay motivated and ended up getting out of the stand at 9:00 am after not seeing any deer again. Shane and Robert were not really having any better luck, so it did not give me much hope. The hunting was just tough.
For some unknown reason I decided that I would abandon my river stand on Saturday evening and go back to my original stand where I killed the 7 point last year. On the way to out to hunt, Shane I and made a pact that if a 130 class 8 point or better walked out we would shoot. I didn’t have a whole lot of confidence. After dropping Shane off, I climbed in my stand at about 2:30 that afternoon. It was opening day of pheasant season in Kansas and I was greeted with a bunch of men dressed in bright orange and dogs running through a field on a ridge about 500 yards away from me. Pheasant hunting is a talking sport and I could hear just about all of their conversations. I thought that this was going to be another wasted sit, but decided to wait it out and see what happened.
It was about 5:20 and I had not seen any deer. I was getting ready to start packing up my stuff. I told myself that I had hunted hard and it just was not meant to be this trip. I was very tired and thought that even if Robert and Shane decided to hunt on Sunday morning before we left for Dallas, I was going to sleep in. Just as I had all but given up, I saw 3 does coming in my direction off a ridge to my left. I sat tight to see what would happen.
The does slowly made their way into the bottom where I was hunting and then turned and walked straight away from me before finally stopping to feed and mill about 160 yards away. As the does where moving about in the cedar trees, I lost track of them from time to time. Darkness was fast approaching and again I had given up on the hunt. I was looking over the area where I had last seen the does and noticed a new deer coming out of a draw. I put my glasses on it and immediately recognized it as a long tined white antlered shooter. I did not study the rack long; I did not have time to. It was going to be dark soon and if I was going to get it done, I had to get to work.
I started with an estrous doe bleat, the buck did nothing. I then grunted at him, again no response. I had to do something and do it quick. I did a very short rattling sequence and the buck started walking, but in the wrong direction. He then went behind a clump of cedars and I lost sight of him. Seconds later a doe exploded out of the cedars running full speed straight at me. He quickly followed. They ran at full speed across my shooting area and up the ridge to my left. Then they ran away from me. Then back toward me, then away again. I was in basically what amounts to a large open pasture, and these deer where zigzagging back and forth right in front of me. My bow has a single pin adjustable sight and the whole time I am working the dial, 20 yards, 40 yards, 60 yards, back to 20 yards. All the while I am grunting with my mouth trying to stop the deer. I had a few markers picked out and pretty much knew the ranges if I could get the deer to stop. They made a huge loop away from me and then came running full speed again from right to left, The doe ran up the steep hill onto the ridge above me. I made the loudest Urrp I could and the buck finally stopped quartering away from me. I could see that the buck was exhausted. He was breathing hard, with his mouth wide open, staring at the doe that was now standing at the top of the hill in front of him. I had my sight set a 35 yards, I figured the buck to be at about 45 yards. I did not have time to reset the sight as I knew he was just seconds from going after the doe again. I drew back, felt my anchor points and put my pin on the top of the bucks back. I had practiced so much for this moment the past off season, and I had all the confidence in the world in my ability to make this long shot. I let out a deep breath and squeezed the release. I watched as the arrow flew the long 45 yards starting high and dropping perfectly into the kill zone. Upon impact the buck let out a huge gasp of air and then bounded away from me. I immediately began grunting again and got him to stop within eye sight about 135 yards away. I watched as his tail began twitching faster and faster until he finally fell over.
I was shaking, did that really just happen? I had spent so many hours in the stand to have it all come down to the final 20 minutes of my hunt. I felt like I had just conquered the world! As I sat and replayed the events of the moment as well as the whole week in my mind I quickly came to the conclusion that what had just happened was my most exciting moment of my entire hunting career. I still did not know how big the buck really was, and I did not care. The feeling of accomplishment was overwhelming.
I decided to leave the deer alone in case he was not dead, I did not want to push him and risk losing him, I was fairly confident that he had expired, but experience has taught me not to risk it. I climbed out of the stand and went to get Shane. When I pulled up I saw that Shane did not have his jacket on, and I knew that something had happened for him also. He explained to me that he had shot a heavy horned 8 point at 35 yards. He was not sure about the shot; he said that upon impact he heard a loud thud that he thought sounded like the arrow hitting bone. He did not have his glasses and could not see very well in the fading light, so he backed out of the woods so that he would not push the deer and risk losing it. We decided to go back to the house and get Robert, then head out to recover our deer.
We went to look for Shane’s buck first. We went to the spot where the deer was standing when he shot and found some blood, we then continued down the creek channel finding good blood the whole way. About 30 yards from the spot of the shot, there he lay. Shane had executed a perfect heart shot; the buck did not have a chance. The body on Shane’s deer was huge! He actually ended up field dressing 195 lbs. He had a nice heavy Kansas rack with 9 points. We all high fived, took pictures, field dressed him and drug him up about a 30 to 40 foot embankment and loaded him on the Ranger.

I was starting to get worried; I hoped my deer was as good as Shane’s. He had down played the size of it to me, but Shane told me that instead of ground shrinkage, this deer grew. We made the short drive over to where my deer was, the whole time I was down playing the size of my deer, since I was unsure of what I had really shot.
We walked straight to my deer where he lay dead with the arrow sticking out of him. Again, this deer did not disappoint. He was a beautiful 9 point as well. Shane and I figured that my deer will score better than his. We have not measured him, but I think that he will make the P&Y record book. I figure him to score about 135 gross. Again we went through the customary high fives, pictures and field dressing and then headed back to the house.

Shane, Henry and I celebrated into the next morning with beer, Knob Creek whisky and stories while Robert lay in bed sleeping. He hunted hard all day Sunday, but was unable to get his buck. Hopefully he will make a return trip later in the year and have more luck.
I am writing this a week to the day that I took this great Kansas buck and I am still just as excited as I was that evening. I will never forget this I will never forget this great adventure. It was a real accomplishment. We all hunted very hard and challenged ourselves mentally as well as physically. This experience has taught me to never give up; it only takes a few seconds for everything to change. The perfectly placed 45 yard shot has also reconfirmed to me that all of the long hours of practice in the off season made the difference between me going home with a buck and going home empty handed. Like all hunters I would welcome the 15 to 20 yard chip shot any time, but it is nice to be able to trust my ability to get the job done at greater distances if the situation calls for it. I don’t know what hunting experience the future holds for me, but I will always cherish this one. I can’t wait to get back out in the woods and try to do it again!