Patience, persistence, dedication. Heck, you can even call it stubbornness. Whichever term you use to describe it, refusing to give up is a big part of what trophy whitetail hunting is all about. There’s definitely such a thing as being too bull-headed about a technique or location that simply isn’t working, but just as common is the problem of not sticking with a sound game plan.
Always eager to take out a fully mature buck, Dr. James Kroll ("Dr. Deer") did just that on his December hunt near Hutchinson, Kansas. The hunter was using a T/C Icon in the new .30 TC cartridge.
Heading into the 2007 Kansas deer season, three members of the North American Whitetail Television team — NAW editor Duncan Dobie, Dr. James Kroll (“Dr. Deer”) and I — all had prime deer permits in our possession. We also had every reason to think that at least a couple of us would be out of tags sometime in September. That’s when the state holds its early muzzleloader season, and all three of us would be hunting great spots. Surely a bruiser or two would hit the ground then.
Well, somebody forgot to tell the big bucks about how the script read, because they sure didn’t follow it.
James and Duncan, along with cameramen Mike Clerkin and Ron Sinfelt, hunted near Hutchinson with John Butler, whose Buck Forage Oats (www.buckforage.com) will be sponsoring James’ “Dr. Deer” segment on our 2008 shows. James has worked with John for many years to refine the cold-hardy Buck Forage oat variety that is rapidly becoming the cool-season food plot of choice for many whitetail hunters.
The oats were just starting to come up as our guys got to Hutchinson, and plenty of bucks were on the food plots. Some of those bucks were big, too. But with an open-sight muzzleloader, seeing and shooting aren’t exactly synonymous. All of the good bucks seen were simply too far away.
The advantage of a Kansas gun tag is that, if you don’t fill it with your open-sight smokepole in September, you can return for the late November-early December reglar gn season, in the process converting over to a scoped centerfire rifle if you so wish. So that’s what our guys did after Thanksgiving. And things went much better this time around.
With Mike being the camera, James overcame blustery conditions to down an ancient “management” buck on one of the Buck Forage plots. And a few days later, Duncan and Ron struck even shinier gold: a 180-class non-typical that stepped out just before shooting light faded on our team’s last evening of hunting. Ron was able to get the action on video, and Duncan’s .270 Rem. T/C Encore punched the buck’s ticket from 250 yards!
After James shot his buck, Mike and I drove out to western Kansas, where in September I’d hunted with my friend, Todd Bigbee, on some prime land he and a friend own. On our short muzzleloader hunt we’d been plagued by extremely hot temperatures and high winds, neither of which made the mature bucks every active. But we knew there were plenty around, so we assumed it wouldn’t take long to spot one in rifle season.
This old "battle axe" of a western Kansas buck had lost a lot of antler during the rut. However, the author considered him a fine trophy regardless.
That proved to be true. In fact, as dawn broke on the first morning of our hunt, we saw a big-bodied deer moving our way across a chunk of CRP grasslands. As we got camera light, we saw that the buck was an old-timer, and that he’d been using his massive rack for a weapon. Indeed, we could tell that several points were either chipped or entirely missing. But none of that was enough to dissuade me from shooting him; after all, a mature buck is a trophy, no matter what’s on his head. One quick shot from my T/C .280 Rem. Pro Hunter and it was over.
The old buck had nine points on his rack, with evidence that at least another four had once been there. Some guys might not have shot him, but with the rut dropping off and this buck being extremely mature, I was happy to get him. He’s a neat buck, one of which I’m mighty proud.
From there, Mike and I began our journey back homeward. But we didn’t get far before the weather turned bad. In fact, as we were stopping in for a quick visit with Jeff Simpson and his crew at Heartland Bowhunter (www.heartlandbowhunter.com) in the Kansas City area, it began to snow . . . hard. Without hours the area had picked up several inches, and there was more of the frozen stuff on the way. After spending about 1 1/2 days in the KC area with Jeff, Mike and I cranked up the Tundra and headed east once more.
Seems we got out just in time. Fortunately, by the time I dropped Mike off at his truck in Louisville, Kentucky, we’d moved out of the snow and ice and into a cold rain, one that continued until I was almost back in Georgia. Finally, at 2:45 a.m. Eastern time, I wheeled the Tundra up the curb in front of my house in Marietta. I’d been behind the wheel for 17 hours and 900 miles since leaving Jeff’s place in western Missouri the morning before.
Well, time to get some shuteye. Maybe I’ll dream of a buck with all of his points still on his rack!
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