Patient Planning Leads to Giant Kansas Buck

I started hunting deer with my father when I was four years old, and 44 years later it is still my favorite time of the year. I.m not sure at what point in my life it happened, but as I got older I became very focused on shooting mature trophy whitetails or nothing at all. I don’t know why, but for some reason there is a holy grail out there for deer hunters that is the 200-inch mark. I have only had the opportunity to hunt such an animal twice in my lifetime, and my neighbor killed the first 200-inch plus buck I've ever chased. So, my story on this deer is long, but very fun to tell. About four years ago, my family moved to Ottawa, Kansas. After the move, I started looking for new places to deer hunt that would be closer to our new home. I obtained permission on a nice piece of property. There was a creek running through it, and to get to where the deer were I needed to find out who owned the property across the creek. After doing some digging, I finally found out who the owner was and gave him a call. It was hands down one of the worst feeling I’ve ever had while making one of these types of phone calls as the young man who answered the phone was very emotional. I quickly found out he had just lost his father that very day. That young man’s name is Collin. After introducing myself, I told him I would give him a call another day down the road.

I reached back out to Collin a few months later and we officially met in person and immediately our friendship began. I quickly found out that he was a very passionate waterfowl and turkey hunter. After sharing my family’s passion for whitetail hunting and some of our hunting stories of the deer we have had the privilege to harvest over the years, Collin seemed hooked! You could see the excitement in his eyes as he asked how I hunt with a bow and arrow and how he could get started. He truly could not wait to learn how to bowhunt. Shortly after, I sold him one of my old bows and started teaching him how to shoot. I began educating him on how we do things, showing him what a mature deer looks like and how to tell if it’s not a mature deer so that we allow our deer to grow . Over the next four years, Collin was able to harvest three deer over 150 inches. He was always eager to learn more and worked hard at becoming a better deer hunter. We began spending even more time together, putting food plots in at our hunting spots and even waterfowl hunting after deer season. Through uncontrollable circumstances, it was getting too expensive for Collin to drive from Kansas City to Ottawa on that consistent of a basis in order for us to deer hunt together. I told him that if he could find some places to hunt closer to where he lived, I could hunt with him during the week and hunt with my family on the weekends. Both of us were very excited to start knocking on doors and see what we could find. During his search for properties, he was able to get permission for us to hunt three different spots. We quickly began scouting them and were very excited about the potential of these spots.

In September, we started clearing brush, access trails and hanging deer stands. On one of the properties, we were shown a shed picture of a very large deer, which made us even more excited. We both decided that we wanted to hunt this deer together, so we came up with a plan. Once we got all our out stands hung and some trail cameras up, we started playing the waiting game. By October 1st, we were getting all kinds of pictures of mature bucks. On October 6th, we got our first picture of a big, non-typical buck. We were both very excited — I can’t even begin to express all the emotions running through both of our heads. Collin had found this property and gotten us permission so I made it clear to him that he would hunt this deer and I would hunt somewhere else. However, Collin said he wanted me to hunt the deer as a way of saying "thank you" for everything I had done for him over the past four years.

I came up with a gameplan on how I was going to hunt this deer, including what winds were good for me and which ones were not. The deer began showing up more and more as I was getting pictures of him. Of course, all the pictures were all in the middle of the night until the week before Halloween, where I got my first daylight picture of him. I couldn’t believe how beautiful and mature he was — and of course, how many points he had. A deer of this age and size was smart, and he was only coming in with unacceptable wind conditions. So, I got in the tree super early and sure enough I got to lay my eyes on him for the first time in person. Unfortunately, he was 31 yards away and facing the wrong direction, so I had no shot. My second encounter with the deer was on November 2nd, and again he was with a doe and did not present me with a shot. The next few days were very frustrating. I was getting both nighttime and daylight pictures, but the wind was never in my favor. Although it was so hard to sit at home, knowing that he was standing there in broad daylight, I played it smart knowing I couldn’t go after him in those conditions. I have a very close friend by the name of Danny, who I talked to daily about the deer until we were blue in the face. We decided it was best to stick to my plan and never go in there unless the wind was absolutely perfect.

On November 18th, I got a picture of the deer that was very depressing. It looked like he had broken off the top of his rack. It was so hard to tell if it was a bad picture or if he had really destroyed his rack in a fight. He ended up breaking off over 25 inches of antler.

But the week of Thanksgiving, I saw my opportunity. I was going to get five straight days of a north wind and the temperatures were going to drop, so I knew this was going to be my best chance. This Thanksgiving, for the first time ever my family decided to have our holiday dinner on Friday instead of that evening like we normally did. My daughter, Katie, and her husband, Kyle, went to his family’s for Thanksgiving dinner. My son, Jordan, went to his girlfriend’s for Thanksgiving. That left my wife Michele and I with nothing to do, so we both decided to go hunting that evening. I got into my treestand at 1:30 PM, and at 2:05 I saw the buck chasing a doe. They were headed the wrong direction at a very fast pace. I remember watching him disappear into the heavy timber and thinking "well, that’s that." I sat back down and started relaxing, watching all the other deer moving around in the timber. Around 3:45, one of the smaller bucks in the area started acting very nervous. I kept looking in his direction trying to figure out what was bothering him. That’s when I saw him, the big buck coming down the ridge right toward me. He was all by himself and came completely downwind without a care in the world. I immediately started thinking this could be it. It took him about 15 minutes to commit to where I wanted him to go. When he finally came in, he was facing away from me, and yet again offered no shot. He was standing there for about 13 minutes, facing the wrong direction. Then a small group of does came off the ridge and he immediately showed interest in them. I knew in that moment that this would be my only opportunity. When he turned to head in their direction, I grunted at him and was at full draw. By the time the noise finished coming out of my mouth and I let my arrow go.

Panic struck in this moment. I've shot a lot of deer over the years, and I have never not shot completely through a deer. Normally, I go over to where I shot and pull my arrow out of the ground. This deer, however, spun and ran off through the timber. All I remember in that blur of a second, was half of my arrow flying 10 feet in the air, going end-over-end before landing softly on the ground. At that very moment I thought, “Oh my God, did I miss? Did I hit a tree limb?” What could have possible happened? The shot looked and felt good, but it happened so fast. I started running all kinds of scenarios through my head. I waited about 15 minutes and slowly got down from my stand, walked over to the arrow and picked it up. I noticed I was missing about 6 inches of the arrow, but the entire shaft was covered in blood. I stuck the shaft of the arrow in the ground, called my family and told them I had shot the big buck and that I was headed home to wait for them all to get home se we could go retrieve this beautiful animal together. I immediately called Collin and told him what had happened, and even though he was hunting less than a half of a mile from me, I told him to stay in his tree and finish out his hunt. It wasn’t 30 minutes later when he called to tell me that he had harvested a big deer as well. I had an hour drive home and all we did was talk to each out about how exciting it was that we both tagged out on the same day.

The next few hours were absolutely gut wrenching. It took my son about an hour and a half to get home after my call. My wife was still sitting in a tree finishing out her sit, so it took her almost an hour to get home, too. Luckily, my daughter and son-in-law pulled into the driveway about 20 minutes after I did. Once the whole family arrived, we piled into one vehicle and headed back to Kansas City to retrieve my deer. I had also reached out to Danny, so he was headed in that direction also. And of course, Collin was going to meet us there as well. Once we were at the property, we devised a plan to let Danny, Jordan, and Kyle lead the way. The rest of us would be very quiet and follow them. When we got to my treestand, I showed them the arrow and where I shot the deer and they immediately found blood. And in less than 60 yards my deer was recovered. It was at that moment I realized that with all the excitement of the moment when I shot him, I hadn’t even realized or heard that my deer had crashed before I had even turned around and hung my bow back on the hanger. The next few minutes were a blur, and the first thing I did was run to my wife and give her a huge hug. She was always supporting me and telling me I was doing the right thing by staying home and waiting for the perfect conditions to kill this deer. After all kinds of hugs, high fives and a few pictures, we tagged and loaded the deer up to go home and celebrate. I obviously knew I had shot a very big and impressive deer. But I didn’t realize truly how big he was until the next day when we started taking measurements and scoring the deer. That’s when it really sank in how big this deer was.

This was by far the highlight of my hunting career, and I don’t expect to ever shoot anything like this ever again. I am so incredibly grateful that I was able to retrieve this deer with all my family and with a few close friends. Also, to add to this great moment in my life, the very next night my wife harvested her biggest whitetail ever with her crossbow. It turned out to be a very special two days that I will never forget.

Jeff’s Kansas bow buck officially scored 239 5/8” gross 227 6/8” net non-typical.

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