Grow the Hunt

The "Old Split G2" Falls in Kansas

By Rich Miller

It has been a week since I got back from Kansas and I think I am still in shock over the size of the buck that I was lucky enough to kill out there. It’s a good thing you can’t wear a set of antlers out by showing them around if so I would be in bad shape as much as I have hauled them around!

The day I was to leave Kansas, I was on the phone with a good buddy of mine, Ken Cobb, from Hunting The World TV. He said John Kennedy and another hunter, Joe Lamaster, were in Kansas hunting and filming a show, also. They had been with an outfitter for a week and had gotten one good buck on film falling to John’s arrow, but Joe hadn’t had much luck. Ken asked if they could come up and hunt with us a couple of days and hopefully they could fill their other tag. I told him I had to get back home and wouldn’t be there, but Mick said to come on and hunt for a few days. 

I left Mick’s on Saturday morning about 4:00am to head home and they arrived around lunchtime and started getting some camera stands put up on some of the places where we already had stands in place. The first afternoon of their hunt they got to see what the area offered because Mick finally got to put his tag on a great buck. The guys were not having much luck the first few days they were there, so they moved to the area where the split G2 buck (that I had hunted the last two years with no luck) was roaming.

They went in Monday afternoon and hung a stand and never saw a deer that evening. I think they were probably starting to wonder if we even had any deer around. Tuesday morning everything changed about 8:30 that morning when John looked up and spotted a buck coming toward out of a pasture to the east. The sun was in his face and Joe couldn’t see the deer. John gave him play-by-play on where and what the deer was doing until he jumped the fence and Joe could see him. When the deer steeped into the shooting lane, he grunted to stop him and the made a perfect 30-yard shot. Now, they knew there was a deer in the area that we had been hunting a few years but they weren’t aware of which deer they had killed until a short tracking job as Mick filled them in. They downed the wary old split G2 buck that we had been after for so long. 

The deer was big but he didn’t weigh nearly as much as we thought, but his 156” rack made up for his body weight. Both those guys were thrilled; and to make it even better, that was Joe’s best buck ever. They said the hunt was great as well as the footage that they got. I don’t know for sure but I am think the show will probably air in late summer on the Outdoor Channel on Hunting The World TV. I can’t wait to see it. After all the hours I spent in the stand hunting and never catching a glimpse of him, I will still get to see him die!
 

Opening Day in A Blaze

By Brandon Wikman

The Wisconsin Firearm Season opener may have been a treated delight to some lucky hunters, but many gunslingers across the Dairy State were left wondering if gun season even opened!

Hundreds of thousands of blaze orange outdoor bandits awaited the countdown to Saturday morning. Family, friends and relatives from across the countryside continued their ever so great tradition that has been a staple at deer camps across cheese land for ages. I was just as stoked as the next gun hunter to get into the woods and get a crack at a burly buck!

Saturday morning began strangely slow. I’ve hunted opening day of Wisconsin since I was about 10 old and have never heard the woods so quiet in my life. The fire-cracking booms, bangs, and pops just weren’t there. In years past, the forest sounded like a firestorm of blazing gunshots from the tops of bluffs to the bottoms of rivers… but not this year.

I sat warm and toasty in my blind as the wind whipped across the field top. My eyes scanned a vast standing cornfield that was sure to suck a few deer in throughout the day, or so I hoped. As sunlight speckled through the cloudy morning, only a handful of shots ignited the rolling hill country. I waited my turn.

The morning ensued as my anticipation of cranking back the trigger began to plummet. Hour-by-hour my confidence spiraled into a fiery heap… no deer. I closed my eyes and wondered what exactly was going on in the whitetail world that would put their movement to a sudden halt. There was no pressure by me, the temperatures were extremely brisk, the sky was dull in a blanket of clouds, and there was a storm brewing for Sunday. The variables and recipe just didn’t add up.

My first deer sighting was at 4:30pm. A doe and fawn came into the field for a quick nibble before vanishing into the woods again. Realization fell upon me as night fell. I couldn’t help but attempt to figure out why opening day was so slow.

I came back to camp and was eager to hear about how the others did. Story after story summed up the day. Deer movement was at the minimum and buck sightings were few and far between. I can’t help but ask the deer gods what was going on!

Sadly, Sunday was a spitting image of Saturday. A mix of icy rain drizzled across the entire state and sent many hunters back to camp. Firearm season has just begun, but I hope the season gets better with time. Now that the rut is for the most part over, many bucks are laying low and gaining energy back.

Good luck for the next week as firearm seasons across the country continue!