Modern Wild Man: Modern Wild Man ~In the Deer Woods~

It's deer season - In the Deer Woods

The rifle deer season is open in Kansas and I have been blessed to be both in the deer woods and to take a great buck this season!

Deer hunting is so much more than chasing bucks and filling tags and freezers. Today I was thinking about deer hunting, about the hunts and trips I've been on chasing deer and it hit me that I have been hunting deer over 20 years now. I don't feel that old, and I'm sure that I don't look that old!

In the 20+ years I have spent pursuing deer in Kansas I cannot even begin to count the number of hours and dollars I've invested in their pursuit. Time spent planning and scouting, shooting and practicing before season. Time in the stand, early mornings, weekends and vacation time dedicated to hunting deer. I began hunting deer well before game and trail cameras, before crossbows were legal except for handicap hunters and before social media. The number of bowhunters in the woods was few and far between, and the local gas station or cafe was the best place to see a trophy buck.

The pursuit of deer nation wide has taken twists and turns and ups and downs over the years. Thinking back over the seasons I can remember many hunts and encounters like they were yesterday. Hunts with friends, with my wife, with my kids and by myself come to mind. Some of my most memorable hunts finished without a deer to show for the day. My deer hunting career started out with a borrowed rifle from a cousin and a dandy Kansas mule buck in the truck, but that's a story for another time. I have made many close friends that have stayed with me through the years of hunting deer. Friends like Eric, Frank, Steve and Dave started as deer hunting friends and I'm sure that my deer hunting friend list is not finished.

I have hunted deer from the ground and from trees. I've hunted and taken deer with a recurve bow, a compound bow and a rifle. I've used tactics successfully like rattling, grunting, decoying, still hunting and deer drives. Over the years I have grown to love the deer woods, to enjoy the sit and the wait.

This years deer tag attached firmly to my trophy.

Being in the deer woods and being quiet and still took me years to get right, but I'm glad I have. In my youth I didn't have the patience to wait, to sit and to wait on the deer, to take in all the woods had to offer. A lot of my hunts as a young man were three or four hours at daylight or before dark in a tree stand, maybe a walk along a creek or spot and stalk. None of these hunting tactics are bad or one better than another, but I have learned to love time in the stand or blind. I have grown to enjoy long sits, sometimes 8 hours or more, trying my hardest to notice all that the woods has to show me.

Sitting deliberately still and quiet helps you to slow down, to focus and to discover treasures in the deer woods that you would have otherwise never seen. A little bird on a limb in the tree you are in, a bobcat hunting along a creek edge or a group of turkeys chasing each other though the timber are all experiences I've had while hunting deer. The flutter of a fallen leaf spinning across the woods in a north wind or the brightness of bittersweet berries against the grey canvas of fall are little things that become big when you take the time to notice them. Watching the woods come alive at daylight on a snowy morning, the sound of duck wings overhead and the silhouette of a coyote mousing through tall grass across from your stand brings a sense of wonder to a hunter. The deer woods for me has become a landing strip where I can ground myself. It is a form of therapy where I can examine myself, find my thoughts and reconnect to the important things that have begun to fall away.

This year was another great opportunity to find myself in the deer woods in pursuit of not only a trophy deer or meat for my family, but also a pursuit of needed time in the wilderness. I opted to hunt with a rifle this season, with our family labrador in her second hunting season and showing great promise as a hunting companion I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. Choosing to hunt deer with a rifle rather than a bow this year was one compromise I could make to help devote time to bird hunting and Meg's training.

Opening morning of rifle season was warmer than many I can remember. I arrived well before daylight to the area I planned to hunt and carefully walked to my ground blind under the cover of darkness with the wind in my face. Reaching the blind it didn't take me long to get situated overlooking old growth timber stretching along a creek bank on one side and a finger of scattered willows and tall prairie grass bordering a small pond on the other. The morning was overcast and the air was heavy with moisture. It didn't take long for a few does to appear from the timber with the morning's first warming rays. The family group of does poked around a small clearing on the edge of the creek their handsome brown coats seemed to gleam in the bright early light. Before long another group of does, five in number, joined the first group from across the prairie grass. The two groups of deer joined together seamlessly and vanished into the standing timber to the north.

The morning had just begun and I had already seen deer, it was already a great hunt. I sat in my blind trying to notice everything there was to notice, taking in the sky and the grass, the color of the bark on the trees and the song of the birds around me. A few more does appeared a couple times and then were gone again, slowly slipping in and out of the timber along the creek. Snacking on a piece of jerky from my pack at mid morning I looked into the clearing the does had fed in at first light and noticed a little coyote with bright eyes and alert ears. I watched him through the binoculars for fifteen minutes or more, sniffing and scratching and doing what coyotes do. Finally he vanished into the trees to the south, only to appear again, but acting strangely. The coyote laid down flat pinning his ears, then unexpectedly jumped up and ran a short distance along the timber edge only to lay down flat again in a posture as if he was ready to pounce. Once again the coyote jumped up and ran backward again, this time I noticed a large whitetail doe appear from the steep creek bank crossing with a fawn and charge at the coyote. Back and forth they went, the coyote laying down as if it were trying to hide and the doe chasing it off fifteen or twenty yards at a time.

Watching the show in front of me I barely noticed a young buck that worked into the clearing, he was watching the same show and seemed curious about the events taking place as well. A few minutes passed and the young buck began to harass the doe as well. He chased her further into the clearing and the coyote finally lost interest and wandered off into the tall grass. Content with the show in front of me only two hundred yards away I was happy to watch the young eight point pursue the doe. Silently I sat in my blind watching through binoculars the display. After just a short time, from the same creek crossing, appeared a great mature buck. A heavy bodied deer with a swollen neck and glistening antlers. With the shake of his head and a low grunt he moved off the younger deer without any confrontation. The buck jogged over to the doe in the clearing and before he could reach her she pinned her ears and moved away. In frustration the seasoned buck walked stiff legged to an eight foot tall red cedar tree nearby and began to rub and thrash it with his antlers and forehead gland.

In all this excitement it didn't take me long to realize this was the deer I had gotten out of bed early to hunt. Without hesitation I shouldered my 25-06 Weatherby bolt action and found the deer in the scope. I didn't feel comfortable with the shot while the buck chased the doe around, and when he went to work on the tree most of his vitals were covered up by cedar branches. For what was only seconds, but felt like minutes, my heart was pounding and my mouth suddenly went dry. I calmed myself with a deep breathe watching the cedar tree across the clearing shake back and forth through the rifle scope. The deer raised his head for a minute and took a couple steps into the clearing and stopped. This was my chance, and I made short work of it. I squeezed off a confident round, the shot felt good and in the distance I saw a great buck tip over after only a step or two.

My 2017 buck was on the ground and I couldn't be happier! I had a great hunt, and was blessed with the opportunity at a great deer!

Walking up on my downed trophy deer.

Deer hunting has been a blessing to me over the years. I hope that one day I am able to pass that blessing onto my family and new deer hunting friends.

Modern Wild Man and my 2017 Kansas buck!

This years buck is a great tall eight point I had seen a couple of times through the summer and into the fall. He's got a couple unique kickers that really add character to his antlers.