Before November 2008, my perception of Kansas was that of twisters, the Wizard of OZ, remote truck stops, and endless miles of hill-less corn mazes.
I had heard of giant prairie ghosts that only a few lucky hunters had the chance to pursue. And that year, I got lucky with an invite to make the trip south with Sitka Founder Jonathan Hart. For five days I watched pale white antlers weave through cedar-ridden hills, and my whole outlook on Kansas changed. I have been back twice since, and I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be in the November rut.
My past experiences in the "sunflower state" are full of fond memories of frosty sunrises, hearty meals, and tales of successes and failures around deer-lodge fireplaces. The only thing that was missing was, well... me. I missed five bucks in my first two trips. Being a traditional bowhunter in the west my entire life, I'm well aware of and OK with the fact that sometimes I'm going to miss. But 200+ pound whiteys approaching my stand was making the adrenaline flow thicker than anything else I have hunted, and I was, quite frankly, falling apart. Killing is not the most important part of any hunt for me. I handicap myself with a stick bow from the moment I step out the door. But this streak was really getting to be a pit in the bottom of my gut, and I badly wanted to harvest a whitetail buck.
If you take a map, draw a straight, 150-mile line up Interstate 81 north from Wichita, and then go 40 miles to the west, you'll be smack dab in a small farm town called Glen Elder, Kansas, the home of Rader Lodge. This is where the latest of my Kansas journeys took me, and where my whitetail cold streak ended.
My goal for this hunt was to leave behind my antsy elk chasing habits and try to sit all day – for at least a few of the five days. As we all know, and as my whitetail-junkie comrades constantly remind me, a lot of mature bucks killed during the rut are shot in the middle of the day. But for the first three days, I did not stay in the tree all day. The thought of a hot lunch, toasty lodge, and a chance to get some blood pumping through my frozen veins was too much temptation. On day three, after leaving my morning stand at 11 a.m., I decided to sit a new farm across the county road where my hunting partner Ben Summers from True Ball had seen a couple dandy bucks on his morning sit.
That afternoon at about 2, we walked out to our stands. My stand sat about 300 yards down from his, just inside the hardwoods from a small patch of CRP and not 100 yards from a corn field. I harnessed in, slipped my face mask on, nocked an arrow, and did my usual routine of checking shooting lanes. To my left was a perfect 15 yard slot framing a small flat between two deep ravines with a perfect deer trail feeding right into it. I drew, anchored, and imagined a buck in my sight picture.
I settled into to my seat, checked my lanes, scanned the area, no movement in sight. A dozen minutes later, a buck came like a dream right into my sweet spot.
I drew, anchored, followed him into the clear and released. All that showed were four white fletches, stuck low and right behind the shoulder, quartering in. Beyond them, a pierced heart. I watched him tip over at 50 yards.
Many thanks to my friends at Grandview Media Group for putting this hunt together.