BUCK DETAILS

For the past 10 years, my brother and I have gone to Kansas to stay at our cousin Jeff’s cabin to try do-it yourself-hunts on state grounds.

The year 2017 turned out to be good to me, because on Monday, Nov. 19, I tagged out having previously taken a decent buck and now a nice doe.

With my tags out of the way and time to do what I always wanted to do, I was going quail and rabbit hunting the next day.

By this time my cousin and another good friend, Jeff, had left, leaving only my brother and me to hunt.

Tuesday rolled around, and at the usual waking time of 4:15 a.m., my brother Vince and I got up to go. Vince was going bowhunting, while headed out with my 12-gauge shotgun in search of small game.

We arrived at our destination well before sun-up in a frosty, mid-teens morning.

Vince was out of the truck and in his stand before dawn, with me waiting for the sun to break the horizon and allow the air to warm up a bit.

As the sun did what I was hoping it would do, I got out and started walking the edges off the fields and treelines.

On what was to be my last treeline to check for birds and do some scouting for deer, I came to what was the back side of the same woodlot my brother was hunting.

As I walked just some 15 yards out from the trees, I noticed what appeared to be the white belly of a deer back in the trees.

Bending over to see through the cover, I got a good look at the deer’s rack sticking up above the ground. And what a rack! Upon further investigation, the deer appeared to be only a few days dead with part of the hind quarter gone from the coyotes.

I knew if I wanted to take this deer home, I’d need a salvage tag from Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

I called the regional wildlife office for our area and requested to have a wildlife officer come and investigate the deer and hopefully give me a salvage tag.

After waiting approximately an hour and a half, a wildlife officer showed-up and investigated the deer for any foul play. Upon not finding any, he gave me the head with the salvage tag.

The officer said he believed the deer had died from a puncture wound on the back of its neck, likely from a buck fight.