Our Outfitter

A small buck jumps over the fence behind my stand

Dan and I awoke to much colder temperatures and 30 mph winds. The temperature dipped considerably. Dan went to the stand I hunted last night and I hunted a new stand which was at the head end of a brushy draw. I had several bucks come in at first light, none were shooters. It was pretty slow at my stand, a couple good bucks were seen off in the distance and lots of immature bucks chasing does. The wind was howling and from my vantage point there was not a lot of movement. Dan had a better morning but I'll let him tell you about it...

After missing a 170-incher at 15 yards the evening before, I tossed most of the night wondering if fate would give me another chance at one of these big Kansas whitetails. I didn't have long to wait this morning as a giant buck came in before good video light and I had to let him pass at 15 yards. He was a huge thing with tines sticking out in every direction. But as the sun finally came out, fate sent yet another book buck toward me. This was the 7th book buck I'd seen in four days of hunting and fired up the video camera as he came closer. He was almost identical to the buck I missed last evening but a year smaller. Still, he was a great buck that offered me a perfect 20 yard shot.

As you can see on the attached video clip, my Widow sent an arrow through him and he only went 20 yards before tipping over in the morning sun. What a thrill to pull my fat out of the fire with the agony of missing a gagger to tagging a 150 incher on video in a picture-perfect setting. Only in Kansas Toto...

Watch Dan shoot his big Kansas buck on video

Dan's buck grossed 150 inches

Since Dan killed his buck we decided to hunt together to film my hunt. The evening hunt was very slow...until 5:30 PM. Then all heck broke loose! A group of does came running into our little setup, chased by a nice 7pt buck. The buck would not have this little harem for long, a bigger 10pt buck came in and ran him off. And to top that off, an even bigger buck, a non-typical with a deformed right antler and 8" drop-tine ran off the 10pt. For nearly 35 minutes it was grunting, scraping, fighting, wheezing and chasing does - all right underneath our stand and all captured on film.

This 8 pt. was the first on the scene - I passed on him

All 4 bucks gave me a shot, standing still at 15 yards, however I would have had to shoot facing the tree. I was not comfortable with that since I shoot a 60" longbow. I I figured one of them would cross the stream (like some of the does had) and walk under us. No dice. The bucks stayed on the opposite bank until a bigger buck ran each one off. The drop-tine buck was the last man standing and hung around until it was nearly black - we had to scoot him away. What an incredible evening with 4 book bucks within 20 yards!

This nice 10 was only 15 yards from my stand!

I can only guess what tomorrow might bring...