KS 2013

[triggertrav]

Kansas Baby! Kansas!

This has been the typical greeting between my hunting buddies and me (and some of our kids) for the better part of a year. The trip was decided as a go back in early January with application deadline mid-April, and from then on it was all that was on our minds (and apparently for good reasons).

After months of planning, a trip down in September (just to set trail cams – which most deemed myself crazy for doing this), millions of texts, phone calls, emails we finally arrived at camp just before midnight for nine days of hunting. Two guys had gone down before my truck and pulled 4 trail cams that day, so we had a few thousand pics to drool over and a few beers prior to bed. We were seeing lots of ‘good deer’ (120-140) on the cams, but there was one that really got us excited. I figured we have close to 50 pics of this deer.

How are we to sleep now? My brother took great interest in this deer, deleted his beautiful children from his screen saver on his phone and welcomed ‘Freak Nasty’ to be his new love for the next week.

At first light the next morning, we were out pulling the rest of the total 11 cameras, just hoping I could remember which tree I put them on 2 months ago. The second camera is back in the woods a bit and we paused at the truck briefly before heading. Someone said, “We should have a bow”. Well that was voted as not needed and we progressed into the woods. With our scent control on, we are tiptoeing thru the trees to locate our camera. Halfway in I hear some heavy commotion just a head. We freeze. “Fight!” and there we stand with no weapon. They must have sensed us close. They split, to have a beautiful 9-point 135ish inch mature whitetail bound twice and stop quartering away for 10 seconds at 30 yards. That is something you would never see here back in MN. Deer stopping and looking back to see what the hell was that? Well, it was a good thing that we did not have a bow because my buddy would have for sure ended his KS hunt even before climbing into a tree stand. Nonetheless, we were jacked!

By late morning we had the cameras pulled and had gone thru about 1/10th of the 10,000 pictures we had, but it was enough for us to make a game plan.

For some reason I tried a spot that night that we hadn’t had a camera. I had a good reference on the location by visiting with one of the locals back in September. I was in and set by early afternoon. Couldn’t be more excited to finally be in a tree in KS. Here are a few of the pics from the set that night.

Probably only after only two hours in a tree I pick up on some movement working towards me along the field edge (2 pictures up from right edge moving left). Big-bodied animal. HORNS. ‘oh dump.’ I need to make a decision if I am ready to try and punch my KS tag after a year of planning with only two hours in a tree. To my luck this buck stopped to work a few scrapes, which gave me time to hang my bow and pull up the binos to get a good look at the deer.

[sunyuv88]

Awesome, look forward to reading more!

[triggertrav]

Here is a quick video of the eight as he was working his way towards me.

[Big Country]

AWESOME! Trying to talk myself out of not going in to the frozen tundra here in Minnesota this week after work. My toes and fingers thank you for getting the juices flowing. MAN it's freaking cold out! That look's like a blast. BC

[NoWiser]

Awesome! I can't wait to see how this hunt plays out!

[sticknstring]

How are we to sleep now? My brother took great interest in this deer, deleted his beautiful children from his screen saver on his phone and welcomed ‘Freak Nasty’ to be his new love for the next week.

[triggertrav]

So after some deep thinking I opted to pass on that mature 8. Yet about an hour later he came back for more. I had 5 does come in and he was in tow, grunting and chasing. They all came right in on me and were around for a couple minutes. I managed to get some nice video of him working for his next girlfriend. And this is why we bowhunt.

[BRULEDRIFTER]

is this public land or a ranch style hunt?

[triggertrav]

Sorry - i fixed the locked videos.

[triggertrav]

is this public land or a ranch style hunt?

100% fair chase - private land. my brothers, father-in-laws, sisters, boyfriends, cousins uncles......you get the point, but yes it was private.

[Gofishleech]

Good stuff!! Love these kinds of threads

[frogtosser]

I am headed to kansas the end of Oct next year and cant wait.

[triggertrav]

Day 3

I head north again planning on a full day sit. After my brother’s day of fasting, I have decided I will always have a lunch packed every day. Easier carrying a sandwich in the woods than trying to ration a granola bar over 10 hours. If I recall, sunrise was at about 7:25 that morning. Legal shooting was at 6:55. My phone starts to go nuts with texts. From my brother at 6:58 “He’s dead!!!!!;;;;;;!!;+” again 6:59 “Keys get stuck!!!!!+++”. (apparently he has trouble hitting the right keys when filled with excitement) I have no clue what he is going on so I need to call. He picks up. And you know those guys on TV that are way too excited – that was him. He just shot “Freak” and had every reason to be. He came in to well before shooting light and saw him thru the binos and knew it was him. Then he had to wait and pray that he would stick around till shooting light. Right as it was getting light enough the Freak circled downwind of his doe decoy, which presented the perfect quartering way shot. He watched him run about 60 yards and nosedive in the winter wheat. We couldn’t believe it and I am pretty sure I was almost as excited as he was.

We had already accomplished more than we had expected to on the trip, everything else was a bonus. In reality, every animal is a bonus – we go on these trips to spend time with the people that have meaning our lives and that have the same love for the sport as each other - expect that Terry that was with, he is just funny as hell and liked taking our money (just kidding Terry).

I had a hard time not getting out of my tree the second I hear from him, but I stuck it out for the rest of the day. It was a long slow afternoon, but for the last 2 hours I believe that I saw six different bucks, none of which were supporting all of their tines or any that were near shooters. Apparently in KS, deer have difficult times not busting up their racks (as did my brothers, missing close to 40 inches of bone, (my estimate) more than half of his main beam, a good portion of his G3 on the opposite side and a handful of other stickers that all looked like they should be 3-6 inches. I also had a couple young boys going at it pretty hard about 100 yards in front of me. All in all, it was pretty exciting, but nothing climactic in my treestand for the night.

Finally, back at camp I got to congratulate my brother. Boy were we still excited! We went through the story again and I felt the excitement as he drew on the animal, punched a carbon thru the heart and watched it crash. What a beast! Commence celebratory drinks.

[maros91]

Awesome!! Solid deer right there.

[bltbowhunter]

Wow! That's so awesome. Congrats!

[DonBo]

Great deer, great story. Can't wait to hear the rest.

[Scoot]

Great deer! Wonderful thread! I'm enjoying every post!!! Thanks for taking the time to share with us.

[sticknstring]

Lets see some more pics of the "freak"! That S-hook drop is wicked!

[Bear55]

Lets see some more pics of the "freak"! That S-hook drop is wicked!

This! So much this!

[mrklean]

great read beast of a buck

[perchking]

Great read and even a better buck, congrats...

[triggertrav]

Thanks all - i will get some more pics and the trip wrapped up here soon.

[certified jumbo]

Awesome stuff triggertrav. Incredible buck. Thanks for sharing!

[triggertrav]

Here are a few of the trail cam pics and another hero shot of my brother and Freak Nasty.

Like i said - i have 50+ pics of the bruiser (most of which are at night though).

And the hero - all busted up and retired. What a deer brother! Congrats.

[triggertrav]

Day 4 (the turn)

Well, if you thought MN weather people were bad at their jobs, you should see the KS staff. When we left home, it was 75 degrees in KS. Based on the 10 day, it wasn’t supposed to get below 30. Well, they changed their minds. And the change happened today. 6 AM there was little bit of precip and about 50 degrees. By the time we were in the stand, raining pretty hard and about 40 degrees. An hour later, still raining, windy and about 30 degrees. As bad as I wanted to get down and find shelter, I stuck it out. The good thing about this weather is that the deer were moving, specifically the boys. Not a lot, but steady enough to keep a guy interested. I did have a real nice buck at about 100 yards, but I couldn’t coax him in any closer. He was working some scrapes and I had high hopes that he would return, but the cold beat me out that day and I headed back to camp around 11.

For the rest of the group (there were five of us there) most of them were seeing the same results as myself. Good numbers of deer and a fair amount of the “good” bucks, but nothing worth shooting. Two members of the group had enough and were ready to head home that morning, but I was far from ready. After a cold and windy day, nothing, and some additional road scouting, it was a slow evening with no more bloodshed. But by the time we were ready to call it a night, we had a game plan for the morning.