Best Buck from Physically Challenged Bowhunter

The unmistakable sound of brush breaking from across the river startled me to attention. A fat doe suddenly exploded into a clearing like she was fleeing for her life. She crossed the river about 100 yards from my stand and headed into an open pasture as she continued her escape.

Although I was a little disappointed that she crossed the river so far away from the trail I was sitting above, I wasn’t too surprised, because 15 minutes earlier two fork-horned bucks had crossed the river from my side and just underneath me.

I was just starting to relax from the short encounter with the doe when an extremely loud crash came from across the river in roughly the same place where I’d seen the doe. I still wasn’t too excited because I figured it was probably the two young forkies. Then I caught a glimpse of antlers — big antlers!

I grabbed my bow, bit down on my mouth tab, and pushed my compound to full draw. The big buck stopped in the middle of the river 25 yards away from me, frantically looking for the hot doe.

Dawn on November 10, the prime period for the Kansas whitetail rut, broke just as the weatherman had predicted — clear and brisk. The sun rose as a bright ball of fiery red, without a cloud to be seen in any direction. A light northwest breeze blew just enough to make a few stubborn, dark-brown cottonwood leaves rattle to keep the otherwise silent riverbottom woods alive. It was an absolutely beautiful morning to be in a treestand.

My youngest son, Bob, along with our good friend, Mark Kruse, were a few miles away on another farm that we had permission to hunt. Mark and I met many years ago when we were both members of the Physically Challenged Bowhunters of America. The PCBA was a group of people — able-bodied as well as disabled members — whose mission was to get people with severe disabilities or illnesses to experience the best therapy there is — bowhunting.

Although Mark has no use of his right arm, he is one of the best bowhunters I’ve ever met. Mark uses a release fastened to his shoulder and triggers it by using pressure from his chin. Although Mark has an extensive list of trophies, you’ll never hear him carry on about them. Mark used to live in Alaska, where he worked as a government timber cruiser, and he has just recently moved to Oregon. While he lived in Alaska, Mark helped me, my two sons, and a good buddy of ours hunt Sitka blacktail deer. While the first hunt resulted in each of us seeing a nice buck, we all came home with some great memories and a pledge to go back again. A few years later, the same group of us went back to try our luck again, and each of us came home with a nice buck.

Now, back to Kansas. The big-antlered buck stood in the middle of the river 25 yards from me, frantically looking for that hot doe. I stood there with my bow at full draw, and the buck had no idea that I was anywhere in the county. My shot looked perfect, but the buck’s only reaction to it was to flinch slightly. Dumbfounded, I then watched the buck walk straight underneath me and back toward the river. He stopped about 10 yards away, still looking for the doe, so I nocked another arrow, bit down on my mouth tab, pushed out on the bow to draw, then opened my mouth to release the arrow. My second shot entered the buck’s flank and came out his opposite shoulder, at which point he mule-kicked and bounded away. As I sat in the tree regaining my composure, I looked for my first arrow but to no avail.

About that time, Bob called to tell me they were headed back to town. I told him he might want to come back because I had shot a small buck. Bob called BS on me and told me to just stay in the tree until they got there.

---

I showed Bob where the buck was standing when I shot the first arrow. He reached down, picked up the arrow which was stuck in the riverbed. It still had blood on it. He blood-trailed it to the second shot and picked up that arrow, also covered in blood. From there, it was an easy tracking job to where we found the buck lying dead in the river. He was by far my biggest whitetail. Either arrow would have done the job on him, but it sure didn’t hurt to have a second one in him for good measure.

When we first saw the buck, strangely it looked as though his whole head and body were lying on top of the water. It turned out to be his reflection, with his top half making a mirror image of itself. It made for an awesome picture!

We dragged the heavy buck up the riverbank, where we took many pictures, including some really good ones. After all these years of dreaming what it would feel like to shoot a buck of this size, the real event was way better than I ever imagined. The way the morning all played out was just pure luck. Not only luck in taking this tremendous buck, but also luck in never giving up on hunting this spot. I just knew it would produce if I hunted it long enough. You don’t have to wonder very long where I’ll be next year when the Kansas rut rolls around.

As we stood there admiring the buck, we got to thinking that none of us had ever seen him in person or on camera. And to our knowledge, none of the other people in the area had seen him, either.

I’ve hunted this area for a long time now, and I’ve seen my share of good bucks, but I could never get them in close enough for a shot. Not only is he my biggest whitetail, he’s also the first buck I’ve ever shot in this particular area. By Kansas standards, my buck isn’t all that big. He scored 1674⁄8, but I couldn’t be prouder. My goal throughout these many years has always been to shoot a buck that will net 150 P&Y inches, and this fellow soared past that magic number. Much to my surprise, my buck later took first place as a typical whitetail at the Kansas Bowhunter Association’s awards banquet.

Years ago, we had a 180-class buck that we saw numerous times on another piece of property that we’ve hunted for years. We simply called him the “Big 10,” and both of my sons and I, along with another close friend, all had several extremely close calls with this buck, but the big deer evaded us every time.

The closest opportunity I ever had at the Big 10 occurred one afternoon as I was walking to my stand. I heard a commotion in some cedar trees, so I nocked an arrow and waited. I was caught in the wide open when the Big 10 stuck his head and the front of his shoulder out from behind a very large cedar tree, yet he didn’t even notice me standing there with my bow at full draw. Just one more step and he would be mine.

Suddenly, everything blew up, and deer were running everywhere. I thought at first that one of them either saw or smelled me, but then an old coyote came walking into the opening where the Big 10 had been standing. I was so surprised and upset that I didn’t even think to shoot the darned coyote!

The truly sad thing happened the following summer, when we saw the Big 10 on the cover of a hunting brochure with a rifle hunter standing over him. To make matters even worse, we have a trail-camera picture of the buck standing under one of our feeders after dark on the last day of the previous rifle season. Poaching was such a sad ending for that magnificent patriarch.

The old saying about a big whitetail buck hiding behind every tree in Kansas is purely fictional — at least in our part of the state. In all my years of bowhunting, the Big 10 and the nice buck I was lucky enough to have killed this past year are the only two that any of us have been up close and personal with. It seems like we have a few 140-inch bucks, but very rarely do we see any of them make it to 150 or better. I don’t know what it is that keeps us from producing that next step up. We seem to have increasing numbers of out-of-state hunters coming in for other seasons, but I’m just not sure that is the biggest contributing factor because we see a few real monsters from other parts of the state where there’s increased hunting pressure as well. Personally, I feel like our overall numbers and quality are down from the good old days. With that said, I don’t have any plans of slowing down. I’ll be chasing whitetails for as long as I’m physically able to do so.

The author lives in Gorham, KS, with his wife, Mary, who also bowhunts.

Author’s Note

On this hunt, I was using a New Breed BX32 bow with a Ripcord rest, an IQ Bowsight, and Black Eagle Outlaw arrows tipped with 125-grain Magnus Stinger Buzzcut broadheads.