Queue the champagne and fire up the cigars. Small Town Hunting's Chris Ashley and Joey Dombroski couldn't make it out of the tree stand before celebrating this 200-plus Mega taken during Kansas' 2022 muzzleloader opener.
"I squeezed the trigger and when the smoke cleared, I said, 'Oh my god, where is he?' Joey started yelling, 'You dropped him! You dropped him!' The rest is history. We started going crazy, slinging hats and jumping around in the woods," Chris told Buckmasters.
The folks at Small Town Hunting have had success over the years taking mature deer in different states, but Chris says this was the biggest typical deer he's ever looked at through a scope, and it's a new Small Town record with a rough score of 200 5/8 inches.
Granted, Chris killed a non-typical brute (his personal best) with a compound bow in Kansas three years ago that measured 217 inches. But, this 2022 trophy is, no-doubt, his favorite and the biggest deer Small Town has filmed to date.
Deer like to eat and, well, Kansas has a lot of food. Of the state's 52 million acres, 97% are privately owned and cultivated. The Small Town boys have their own little slice of heaven (5,800 acres of private, leased land in southeast Kansas) where their new outfit, Small Town Hunts, is providing low-pressure turkey and whitetail hunts and doing some hunting of their own.
David Livingood, longtime friend of Chris and Small Town Hunting, owns and manages Small Time Hunts' Midwest property. A lot of Small Town's early success in Kansas this year, Chris believes, is a direct result of how well David stewarded this private tract throughout the summer.
"David has been in Kansas all summer, and we've been hunting with him a long time. He's passionate about whitetails, so we knew for a fact he'd be perfect to run the outfit. It was one of those deals you don't even question," Chris said.
Kansas deer eat mostly forbs, woody material and farm crops in the summer months. David included a supplemental feed rich in protein to their diet, SweetStuff by Backwoods Attraction, every three days this summer, and had several target bucks on camera almost every night.
They couldn't resist the southern dish.
"David was feeding them protein in the bean fields and had photos of this big deer. I don't know how I drew the short straw to hunt him but I was lucky to be there," Chris said. "We knew a big deer was coming to this bean field every night this summer. We just didn't know how big. He only missed one night when he was shedding velvet but our problem was getting him out there in the daylight."
The afternoon of opening day, Chris and his camera man, Joey, set up on the corner of a 40-acre soybean field and deer started moving 30 minutes before dark. They saw 15 to 20 does, 4 to 5 small bucks, all active in the beans, as well as a three-year-old buck Chris nicknamed Funky because of its non-typical rack.
Chris was scanning the field with three minutes of legal light left when the Mega walked out.
"I came out the window with my muzzleloader saying to Joey, 'You sure you can't find any light?' He said, 'Dude I can't see nothing, I'm dark.'"
Chris let him walk.
"When I was looking through my scope, I was thinking he was a 170- 180-inch deer. I told the guys, 'I don't want to jinx anything because I've killed a 200-inch whitetail before, but this is probably the biggest one I've looked at through a scope.' He had way more mass than I thought," Chris recalled.
Day two, Chris sat on the same field. A handful of coyotes were grazing in the beans so deer were circling on the far side of the field. Closer to dark, with still enough light for Joey's camera lens, the target buck appeared from a tree line 230 yards away and started feeding.
"I couldn't see my crosshairs through my scope well enough at that distance to make a good shot. He was too good of a deer so I let him go again, but I got a really good look at him."
Day three was a little cooler. There was limited humidity and Chris had some help from wind. Deer started pouring into the beans an hour before dark. Joey signaled there was a big buck to Chris' left. He turned and watched a 150-inch 8-point walk right past their stand.
"I was kicking myself, saying 'Oh my god, I can't believe I just did that.' But in the back of my head I was thinking, this big guy's about to walk out because deer are out earlier than usual."
Ten minutes later another 150-inch 8-pointer came out on the far side of the field. Chris previously told himself if either of these 8-pointers showed up he wouldn't pass on them.
"Something in the back of my head told me not to shoot so I let them go. So now I'm looking at two big shooters, a bunch of 130-inch bucks, some hard horned, some still in velvet and others with velvet hanging off their rack. But our shooter buck didn't show up before dark or even that night and I was thinking, 'What in the world is going on?'"
Day four was warm but not as hot as opening day.
David put out more Sweet Stuff and sprayed another Backwoods Attraction's attractant, Krave, over the soybeans to get deer to move early. Thirty minutes before dark, two does, a rag-horn buck and a 4-pointer were active. Chris noticed movement behind his trail camera 86 yards in front of his stand and picked up his binoculars.
"I looked at Joey and whispered, "Dude, that's him.'"
The shooter buck was walking through the beans coming straight for Chris's stand before putting his head down to eat.
Chris asked Joey if they had enough light. Joey gave a nod and said, "Whenever you got a shot at him, shoot."
Chris said he and Joey were shaking like leaves in the tree stand, trying to settle down. "Joey was breathing like he was the one hunting," Chris laughed.
The buck quartered toward Chris so he put his crosshairs on its shoulder and was about to squeeze the trigger when a three-pointer came in fighting.
"He raised his head and I almost freaked out. I had to take a deep breath and let the 3-pointer clear out." A few moments later, Chris raised his .45 caliber CVA Accura MR-X and made good on a 75-yard shot.
When the smoke cleared, the celebration began.
This mainframe-11 has 18 scorable points and six-inch bases.
— Read Recent Blog! Throwing Smoke! Pennsylvania native Jason Diamond drove 16 hours for a showdown with a velvet stud during Kansas’ 2022 muzzleloader opener.