Kansas Magic
By Tim L. Lewis
Oz and I, leaving Nebraska behind, dropped into Kansas, noticing little change in scenery. Color-wise, brown still predominated. Naked prairies and tilled farmlands swelled gently, forested only in narrow waterways and gullies. Dead deer littered the highways’ edges. Many were bucks. Intoxicating images of the huge buck I’d arrowed two days previously (the incredibly massive rack now riding in the back of the truck) induced a mild euphoria. Two widely differing notions contended in my head. We had drawn buck tags for Kansas and probably wouldn’t have that luxury again for at least two years, maybe more. One side of my brain said, “You’ve got the buck of your lifetime down, just go for any mature buck that gives you a chance.” The other side argued, “You’ve got the buck of your lifetime down, hold out for something epic.”
Two factors weighed in behind the first side. Unbeknownst to us when we made our plans, the calendar contrived for Thanksgiving to fall much earlier in the month than normal. Ozzie, suddenly counting days, reckoned his travel plans for that holiday required leaving on our drive home within six days. Normally, the first of us to harvest a buck whiles away the days pursuing a doe or photography, allowing the other unhurried opportunities. This year, it appeared we were on a schedule. Truthfully, I was not averse to an early departure. My daughter, seriously injured by a stonefish off Tanzania, was arriving home earlier than expected because weather in the Indian Ocean shortened one of her free-diving trips. She lives in New Zealand. Each day she is back in Florida is precious. Her impending early arrival caused me to view my distance from home in a less than positive light.
Tree limbs coalesced to thickly screen some areas yet, overall, distant deer could be seen from the author’s stand.
We arrived at our friend Steve’s house in the evening, too late for even a scouting foray. Our Florida friends, Maath and Tucker, arrived a bit earlier and probed the properties. While we had hunted in the same vicinity several years, the parcels open to us had changed, leaving us new areas to explore. In the morning, Oz and I awoke to find our friends had quietly departed, not wanting to disturb our rest. Oz desired to try a distant chunk of land. I felt the woods across from the house had always looked intriguing. He came with me as I scouted but then took off for the new property. I hung a stand, resolved to sit all day and to target any decent buck venturing within 15 yards. A chance wasn’t long in coming. First though, a coyote showed at 25 or 30 yards. I took a few photos. He sniffed around some fallen branches and then back-tracked 15 yards, bedding down. The dry, brown grass was not high, mostly ankle-deep, yet proved adequate to swallow his bedded form completely, defying even binocular magnification to find a trace of him. After 20 minutes, he arose. His transition from invisible to obvious amazed me.