2018 Kansas hunt recap - 12/12/18
My father and I made another trip to the great state of KS again for the state’s 2018 rifle season.
We followed the same script we had in recent years – arrive on Saturday (for the Wednesday opener), catch up with our friends there, get an understanding of what the deer are doing, get in some shooting, and wind direction permitting, set a few ladders / blinds.
A single caveat before you go any further – if you’re a Creedmoor hater, I’ll suggest you end your reading here - there are three mentioned in the proceeding prose.
It was a unique year for certain. An overabundance of rain made beaches of some of the bedding areas. The wet also meant many of the crops (mainly winter wheat and/or canola) had either been lost already or not planted yet in the lower areas. Some of the higher elevations north and far south of the ranch had reasonable winter wheat so that meant many of the deer would be traveling some pretty good distances on/off the place.
One field on the ranch had enough chewing close to the river and bedding areas to keep some of the deer occupied so we knew we’d at least be in business with the right northerly winds.
This marked the first year we’d seen some decent rutting activity prior to our hunt, making a few bucks visible that’d otherwise be figures in the dark. Dad and I encountered two such bucks with a doe the day before the season while setting up a ground blind in some pasture – one buck, a wonderful mainframe typical 10 that I’d guessed right at the “magic” mark, the other, a weathered, old warrior that I recognized from years past, particularly last year (after our tags were filled and a bitter cold front brought him to a field where I was a sorry spectator). Neither buck knew of our presence as we watched the big 10 continually walk off the old buck we’d now come to call “stickers”. My mind was made up that morning – it’d be one of those two or I’d put my tag on a doe. Very wishful thinking of course, as it’s my experience there that if you’re lucky to see one like that, you won’t see him again. More on that later.
I know many people that have read the hunt recaps from the last couple of years think there are mature deer behind every tree – it’s simply not so. While it’s a sizeable chunk of ground with 3 miles of river bottom, you can only hope for a big deer to make a bigly mistake. Even sans hunting pressure, if they move in the daylight (rutting or big change in weather), they’ll use every bit of real estate to avoid detection. Hunting a single marginal wind can blow an entire 1/3 of the place for the season.
I’ve chewed the fat with several members here over the years and a couple have suggested mooching the river bottom to get them moving. And, at first blush, this seems like a plausible plan were it not for every chunk of ground (with hunters) surrounding the ranch waiting for an idiot to do so (not to mention one of the very top ways to get uninvited). I digress.
A SE wind made hunting the area we’d seen the two bigger bucks a no-go for day one but we had higher than normal hopes dad would find one of the two from his newly-fabbed cedar blind on Thursday. The opener came/went with numerous small buck sightings by both of us but we were really looking forward to Thursday. After an uneventful Thursday morning, dad would sit the cedar ground blind on the pasture terrace and I’d set up about a ½ mile to the east of him in slim hopes of catching one of the bigger bucks at last light.
About 4:30 we both began seeing some deer activity. At 5:10 as light began to wane, I heard a shot close enough it could only be dad – the eagerly anticipated text came that he’d gotten a good one down. I went to full sprint mode in hopes of capturing a photo or two before darkness was upon us.
He was sure it was the big 10 we’d seen two days earlier. I dotted around in the long grass as dad directed me to the location. I found the buck he’d anchored and sped through the scenarios in how I might inform him that it wasn’t the buck he thought it was. After standing over the buck in the shallow crease in the pasture, I could easily envision the story dad relayed; the buck appeared out of nowhere in the long grass and lack of elevation caught him off-guard - the nearly 18” height of the whitish rack made him look like a giant. Still a GREAT buck but I felt for dad – BTDT on this chunk of ground (and others).
Rifle: 7600 Chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor / 120 TTSX
TBC.
We followed the same script we had in recent years – arrive on Saturday (for the Wednesday opener), catch up with our friends there, get an understanding of what the deer are doing, get in some shooting, and wind direction permitting, set a few ladders / blinds.
A single caveat before you go any further – if you’re a Creedmoor hater, I’ll suggest you end your reading here - there are three mentioned in the proceeding prose.
It was a unique year for certain. An overabundance of rain made beaches of some of the bedding areas. The wet also meant many of the crops (mainly winter wheat and/or canola) had either been lost already or not planted yet in the lower areas. Some of the higher elevations north and far south of the ranch had reasonable winter wheat so that meant many of the deer would be traveling some pretty good distances on/off the place.
One field on the ranch had enough chewing close to the river and bedding areas to keep some of the deer occupied so we knew we’d at least be in business with the right northerly winds.
This marked the first year we’d seen some decent rutting activity prior to our hunt, making a few bucks visible that’d otherwise be figures in the dark. Dad and I encountered two such bucks with a doe the day before the season while setting up a ground blind in some pasture – one buck, a wonderful mainframe typical 10 that I’d guessed right at the “magic” mark, the other, a weathered, old warrior that I recognized from years past, particularly last year (after our tags were filled and a bitter cold front brought him to a field where I was a sorry spectator). Neither buck knew of our presence as we watched the big 10 continually walk off the old buck we’d now come to call “stickers”. My mind was made up that morning – it’d be one of those two or I’d put my tag on a doe. Very wishful thinking of course, as it’s my experience there that if you’re lucky to see one like that, you won’t see him again. More on that later.
I know many people that have read the hunt recaps from the last couple of years think there are mature deer behind every tree – it’s simply not so. While it’s a sizeable chunk of ground with 3 miles of river bottom, you can only hope for a big deer to make a bigly mistake. Even sans hunting pressure, if they move in the daylight (rutting or big change in weather), they’ll use every bit of real estate to avoid detection. Hunting a single marginal wind can blow an entire 1/3 of the place for the season.
I’ve chewed the fat with several members here over the years and a couple have suggested mooching the river bottom to get them moving. And, at first blush, this seems like a plausible plan were it not for every chunk of ground (with hunters) surrounding the ranch waiting for an idiot to do so (not to mention one of the very top ways to get uninvited). I digress.
A SE wind made hunting the area we’d seen the two bigger bucks a no-go for day one but we had higher than normal hopes dad would find one of the two from his newly-fabbed cedar blind on Thursday. The opener came/went with numerous small buck sightings by both of us but we were really looking forward to Thursday. After an uneventful Thursday morning, dad would sit the cedar ground blind on the pasture terrace and I’d set up about a ½ mile to the east of him in slim hopes of catching one of the bigger bucks at last light.
About 4:30 we both began seeing some deer activity. At 5:10 as light began to wane, I heard a shot close enough it could only be dad – the eagerly anticipated text came that he’d gotten a good one down. I went to full sprint mode in hopes of capturing a photo or two before darkness was upon us.
He was sure it was the big 10 we’d seen two days earlier. I dotted around in the long grass as dad directed me to the location. I found the buck he’d anchored and sped through the scenarios in how I might inform him that it wasn’t the buck he thought it was. After standing over the buck in the shallow crease in the pasture, I could easily envision the story dad relayed; the buck appeared out of nowhere in the long grass and lack of elevation caught him off-guard - the nearly 18” height of the whitish rack made him look like a giant. Still a GREAT buck but I felt for dad – BTDT on this chunk of ground (and others).
Rifle: 7600 Chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor / 120 TTSX
TBC.