I'm leaving today (hopefully by 2 pm) for my yearly Kansas deer hunt. Every year seems to be different. Last year I relapsed back to wheels and while successful at filling a tag, I sure wish I had my recurve in hand and so this year, I will, again. Another twist this year is the great people that invite me out just had a baby boy (and Grandbaby boy) and so I'm not sure how much hunting we'll have together like years past. I've always said it's more the place and the people in Kansas that makes the hunting memories, not just the possibility of running into great big bucks.

I'm shooting a bit different setup this year. I'm dropping down to around 575 gr total weight, CX carbons, weight tubes and Zwickey Delta 2 blade 170's (sharpened with a KME)  and my old trusty Zipper all bamboo recurve. Well, it's trusty in so far as I do my job. Shooting about 53# at my draw and I've missed a grey fox twice this year and a little doe. The fast fox I can forgive and accept missing at 25 yards to my right ...... the doe however was pure I didn't pick a spot. I have GOT TO CONCENTRATE or I will find myself with that shot at a once in a lifetime buck and crumble.

Another twist is I have a new video camera. How much I'll use it remains to be see - I've never done this before – adding more elements to an already challenging hunt!

Here are a few bucks from years past ....... The guy there is my gracious host, a homemade recurve and that buck was like 166" if I remember right? Gorgeous buck though aint he? That massive 8 is cool, the giant 10 is from 2 years back, I don't know if he's alive still or not. The rack that was found dead near a stand that is hung every year ... the rack is extreme in mass, tines and an old buck.

Every day I'll post pictures, maybe some video if I'm lucky and hunt updates. I'll be able to hunt Friday morning (driving all night, sleep a few hours then hunt baby HUNT !) through next Thu/Fri or maybe a bit longer, we'll see. My goal this season is a 150" buck or bigger.


 

 

 

 


Here are a couple of bucks from a camtracker strapped to the trunk of a tree I have a stand in right now. Great deer activity here, rumors of a drop tine buck, a big 175" type typical 10 and 3 others bucks bigger than this one. But this one fits the bill – he's a shooter for me on this trip, no question. Should be in the 155" range?

 


Will be a good one next year?

 

this one has NICE main beams – but he's an 8, probably a 130" buck? Still he would be sweet to photo and watch

 

Looking forward to this one Brad, good luck!

David

Good luck and have a safe trip!!  

Best of luck. This will be fun to follow

Good luck.  Thanks for taking us along.
 

   

Good luck....your timing is good.

I hope I can do this as well as some of the guys do their hunting threads !


forecast next 10 days

Good luck Brad! I have followed your hunts in Kansas before and look forward to following your hunt this year. Thanks for taking the time to share your hunt with us here!

they are for sure moving after our lil fall storm last night good luck and have  fun jake

With a full moon next week, are you staying in the stand all day?  

How about posting times you spot deer?

Good luck for a 150" deer.  There seems to be plenty of those in Kansas.

Wishing you good luck Brad, I leave for Kansas this Saturday for a week, third year, excited-yep. Looks like Monday and middle to end of next week should be good after the front pushes thru.

Good luck! Looking forward also to the hunt journal.

Go get 'em, Brad!

Good luck! I will give you a tip on filming. Get the camera on early and in place where you are going to shoot because if you don't and are rushing to get set up you won't pick a spot. It happenned to me more than once.

I will be checking back frequently...hope you see some action.  Good luck!

I drove 700 miles - from 2:00pm and got to where I needed by 2 am greeted by 24 degrees and high SE winds. brrrr


it was a great morning and a bad morning.

great in that I saw 7 different bucks, one nice 8 that I could have killed (video below) and a 10 I'd love to have had a better look at


but climbing into the tree this morning, I rammed a stick into my eye - yes, as silly as that sounds. I didn't know how bad it was, just that it was bleeding and I still had 100% of my vision. when I got back to the truck I looked and yeah, it didn't look good. I got to a optometrist by 1 pm (lucky only 30 miles away and he had a good deer story too    ) and basically I scraped the top layers of my eyeball all the way back to the corner of the eye. I didn't puncture the eye, I only scraped the white - so very very luck there. But with a dilated eye that's throbbing no hunting this afternoon. Probably not in the morning, Doc ruled it out but I haven't yet  

lucky man I feel like right now - very close to losing an eye. I was pulling myself up and pulled right into it - unbelievable.

its throbbing a bit, but if I can handle the pain I think an am hunt in the morning I can do


but


here is the video of the nice 8 I passed on - he looked BIG under my stand  

http://youtu.be/yEWznXgW8JY


here at some photo's off the camtracker I took off the tree I'm sitting in ...

nice!

anti-biotic drops, 2 other bottles of drops and suppose to be icing it to ease the swelling.

great way to start a hunt huh? I'm going to try and hunt a few hours in the morning

see if I uploaded these video's right

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzfilS6re0w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN30W6XCDnE