Mule Deer Fanatic

Kit Maxfield, a Hunting Sports Plus Member and his big Kansas Buck for 2006

Here is his story:

I left the HSP office on Thursday night after work in the middle of the big snow storm for the opening weekend of the KS 06′ deer rifle season. After a long white knuckle drive out to North Western Kansas I arrived at my motel which was only about 8 miles from the farm that I had reserved.

Each day I saw a ton of Mulies (30-40), and was trying to locate a trophy buck to put a stalk on. I had seen plenty of bucks each day, almost pulled the trigger on a few. I had held out until the third night of my hunt (had to get back to work), when I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. One after another Mulies were appearing out of what seemed to be nothing. That evening I had been watching an absolute monster for about a half an hour, when two others stepped out. They meandered about in the alfalfa and the second largest of the group broke off from the main herd to tend a small group of does that were headed East of my location. The small group of does walked up and over a hill right in front of me, and the buck followed suit. Once this buck crested the hill it was the first time in the trip that I had a real opportunity to close the distance between myself and a shooter buck.

Do I wait for the biggest buck of the group to come closer when I only had about a half an hour of legal shooting hours, or do I leave all of my gear behind and make it happen with the buck that just went over the hill. In my head these thoughts were racing, then all I could think was “GOGOGOGOGOGO”. I left my gear behind and made a b-line to a point where I thought I could get a shot off. As I approached the apex of the hill I could not see any deer, and then as the buck lifted his head, all I saw was bone. The buck in the picture was the second largest of the three trophy animals that I saw that evening. The largest is still running around, and at least survived the opening weekend of the season.