king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated - October/November 2007 - Index

44 HUNTING ILLUSTRATED.com
BY DAVE KRIEN
Early
E
arly muzzleloader season in Kansas has never been
fruitful for me until this past year. Hunting Kansas in
September is very difficult. Temperatures are often
in the nineties with twenty mile-per-hour winds. Often, the
success of the hunt is measured by the stamina and will
power of the hunter. I dream of monster mule deer for the
eleven months that I can't hunt and obsess for the four weeks
that I am allowed to hunt. In Kansas, you are allowed two
weeks in September and, if unsuccessful, you can continue
to hunt for two weeks during rifle season in December.
This year started with a different twist, the
temperature was mild and it was rainy. These were the best
conditions I could ask for because they allowed me to read
tracks and it was more likely that the deer would move
around later in the mornings and earlier in the evenings with
the mild temperatures.
Using this to my advantage, I was able to pick up
on some very fresh tracks the morning of September 22nd,
the last day of the season. Up to this point I had passed up
some very nice deer ranging from 175 to the 190's. I was
feeling confident that I had not seen the "Big One? yet and I
was also aware that I could still hunt the late season. After
finding the tracks and realizing that these were made by a
very large buck, I began to follow them. There were three
sets of tracks and I quickly realized that it would be very
difficult to get close enough to the big one without being
spotted by the others. As I crawled up over the terrace
where I believed the bucks to be, I was in utter shock at
what I found. There stood three very big bucks and one
was what I was looking for. As I pulled my binoculars up
in disbelief, I started to tremble. The mere sight of a muley
buck that size was almost all I could handle. I watched him
for three or four minutes, which felt like an eternity, trying
Dave Krien with his massive 216 gross
non-typical Kansas muzzleloader mule deer.
This 8x9 point buck is 33-inches wide.
KANSAS MUZZLELOADER BUCK
to count points and figure out how wide he was. After the
fourth minute, the monster buck started to work away from
me into a standing corn field. The buck had stood at about
150 to 200 yards away when I lost sight of him. I have the
best muzzleloader for the job, my Thompson Pro Hunter
would have certainly killed him at that distance; however, I
wanted a clean and quick harvest of this old veteran.
After the bucks were out of sight, I sat there, still in
disbelief, wondering if that was the end of my hunt. I then
decided to try tracking the deer through the corn, hoping that
they might reappear on the other side of the field heading to
water. I must have walked methodically through the corn
for hours and eventually lost the tracks.
As the day rolled on, I decided to take a break, eat
lunch and formulate a plan for the evening hunt. I assumed
the bucks were still in the corn, and decided to set up where
I had seen them that morning. At 1 o'clock, I couldn't stand
it anymore so I went back to the location that I had been at
not more than two hours earlier. This time, the wind had
died down and it was very quiet. I knew I would have to be
very careful to not make too much noise going in. I finally
got to my destination around 3:00 and snuggled into a big