(Long) Northeast Kansas 2012 Almost a Success

[SHoff10]

Well there was so much excitement heading into this trip that I thought there was no way we could come home empty handed....but we did. We were in Frankfort for 14 days. We spent the first three full days scouting and hanging stands. We took 14 stands and I left one of my lone wolfs set aside so we could be mobile whenever we wanted. After hanging stands and scouting, I hunted the next 10 days, mornings and nights. The first week we were there it was terrible hunting weather. One day got up to 80 degrees and if it wasn't hot like that, then the winds were blowing 40+. The second week we were there welcomed some cold weather. However, it was a strange year in Kansas this year. Where we were hunting seemed like it was hit pretty hard by EHD. We had a lot of deer sightings but a lot more does and smaller bucks than we have ever seen before. We heard reports of several deer grossing over 200" that were claimed by EHD in the area.

Most of our deer sightings were during the first week that we had terrible weather. The cold weather then seemed to jump start the mature bucks, but it seemed like it jump started lockdown instead of chasing. We hit a lull in activity for the last four days we hunted. If you read my earlier posts you would know that on Tuesday morning I shot the biggest buck I've ever shot at. Unfortunately I never recovered my deer. We tracked blood for a little over two miles. I returned every day after that to search for the body, yielding no results. Hopefully the deer I shot lives. It all happened so fast that I can't give an exact score. I would think he was between 150-170 somewhere. I know that is a broad range but I saw that he was a shooter instantly and didn't look at his antlers again. It was a sickening feeling knowing that I just wounded a magnificent animal but I guess it happens to everyone. It is something that I will learn from. It is very frustrating because I am usually a very good shot and I practice all of the time. The only thought I have is that I must have hit high in the shoulder or his leg was back and I hit all shoulder. The blood was very bright red. We found 3-4 puddles of blood and 3-4 baseball sized clots of blood. Judging by the deers hoof, this deer had to be pushing 300+ lbs. It was a very easy track because of all of the blood and his hoofprints. Every 50 yards we tracked, I thought we would walk right up to my deer, but we never did. Eventually the blood trail ended and so did my hopes of finding this deer.

In that two week span, I saw at least 8 deer that would gross over 140". The only one within range was the one I shot and lost. I did have a 170" 12 point at 50 yards but didn't have a very clear shot and I usually only shoot out to 40.

Despite throwing up a goose egg, it was the most fun hunt that I have ever been on. Company was great and it was the first time that I have ever hunted more than 4 days in a row. I have learned a lot from this website and I believe that this knowledge contributed greatly to me getting a shot on a nice pope and young deer. I appreciate all of the advice and words of wisdom from all of you.

[dan]

Sounds like a great hunt despite the goose egg.

[Swampthing]

Sorry about the buck, but what an exciting area to hunt.

[Edcyclopedia]

Sounds fun and exciting to me!
Cool read!!!

[Stanley]

Nice read.

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[hunt n nut]

Sorry to hear you didn't find your buck. I was in SE Kansas Nov. 9th till Nov. 14th with a couple of buddies, we too were unsuccessful, but I also had a great time. I saw deer every day, 15 bucks, I past on a 130-140 class 9 pt. Expectations were high, we heard a lot of stories of true giants in that area. I guess we were a little disappointed in not seeing any "big" bucks. We too heard of EHD taking out some nice deer. A farmer told us they found a 182 incher dead, what a waste, mother nature has no favorites, I guess. Glad to hear you had a good time. It sure made it hard leaving bow hunting there to come back to the madness of Wisconsin gun hunting.

[xpauliber]

I'm not sure what your home state is, but it is an absolute ball hunting a new state. I am amazed that in a 4.5 hour drive from my home stomping grounds of PA, I can be hunting an area (Ohio) with completely different terrain & topography. I went from hunting thousands of acres of hardwood state forest with hills & endless laurel beds to hunting flat farmland with woodlots, fence-rows, drainage's, and pastures. I have read alot about different tactics that just didn't seem to work in PA, but when I applied those tactics to my areas in Ohio, it worked like a charm.

In the coming years, when I get more vacation time, I'm planning on taking 3-4 weeks off at the end of October/early November and hunt my way west. Start in Ohio and hunt till either I score or run out of time. If I score, then bounce next door to Indiana and try my luck there.

Eat, Sleep, Hunt.

It's good to see you still had a blast even though you didn't bring anything home. Time to start planning for next year.

[kenn1320]

Wow, sounds like you guys saw some nice deer. Bummer on the lost buck, its the unknowing if he lived or not that can really eat at you. Out there its so open he could have died and somebody could have saw it from a road and drove out and picked it up. This was on public land as well right(WIHA)? I was on my private farms from Nov 12-16 and only saw 1 buck I would shoot and he ended up circling down wind. I saw lots of young bucks and a few does. The big buck sign just wasnt there this year, think poaching got the big ones last year.

[SHoff10]

Thanks for the responses guys. We did the majority of our hunting on private land that we have gained permission to over the years but we did hunt a little WIHA.

We saw a lot of deer but a ton of does and yearlong bucks, which is uncommon for the area we were hunting.

There was very little big buck sign until you got into some nasty cover. We ran four trail Cams and 99% of our pics were of 3.5 and under bucks. I think we had one trail cam pic of a 4.5 year old and he was prolly around 150" or so.

It was aging trip and a learning experience. That was my first time getting out of the big woods and hunting that type of terrain. It's hard hunting little draws in big cut fields like that and getting deer within bowrange. I'll definitely be going back though!

And like you said kenn....I think there is a lot of poaching and a lot of death to EHD.

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[SHoff10]

It was a fun trip *

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[LouisianaArcher]

SHoff, looks like you guys had a good trip considering. I am thinking about doing a Kansas hunt next year with my brother, we are planning to hunt mostly WIHA land in NE Kansas. I was just wanting to hear more details about your hunt (how you guys located deer, what type of terrain you hunted ect..) I have never hunted terrain like Kansas (I am from Louisiana) and am not sure how it will be. I am imagining riding down highways bordering WIHA tracts and glassing dozens of 150+ bucks before dark then shooting one the next day What are the majority of the crop fields up there?