Thought this would be a fun exercise for the diehard deer guys here.
And perhaps I can gain some insight from fellow members and we can compare notes after the hunt in December.

I am humbled at the unique opportunity to hunt a jaw-dropping-property in Kansas this year. I've not stepped foot on it but I've about broken Google Earth in the past few months doing recon work. The ranch owner (super guy) has a newfound hobby in drone videography so we have some interesting recent video stills at our fingertips here.

I will not be giving GE coordinates.

Aerial photo:
(Blue is the river)


Facing SE:


Facing West (about the middle of property)



So how would you approach it?
Scouting, possible stand placement (if you had to go in cold)?
Prevailing wind in central KS is generally south. But, it IS Kansas, so it could be from every direction in a given day.

This is for post-rut whitetails with the rifle and the quest is a mature animal.




What say you? (you should be able to "quote" the post to see larger images)

That's a beautiful piece of land.

Straight south from the house in picture 3 across the river. Hope it's shallow or a boat is handy. There is a point of the woods that sticks out, looks like an ideal spot for a stand. You would have good visual of the large field and the small lane/field coming into the larger one.
Straight East of that point on the opposite end looks like a second spot. I like anywhere woods water and fields are close together.
Not knowing what is planted in the fields makes it a little bit of a challenge but those spots look good.
Almost like a virtual hunting trip.

How about an address, we could all send postcards....LOL

RED,
Good thinking there - I like the merging of edges myself.
North side of the river looks like winter wheat. If there's a south wind, I'm hoping there is a spot that I can shoot across the river to the south into some of the heavier timber.

I think getting into any of the areas along the river (in the morning) without bumping deer will be a challenge so I likely won't be getting tight to anything the first couple days - morning or evening.

VEEERY slowly and into the wind. Muddy

PM me. I'll be happy to come help you out

I like inside corners of fields. The one in the Facing SE picture at the end of the field, where fenceline/ditch/whatever meets the timber along the river would be worth a look.

In the first picture, there are two larger greenfields on the western side of the property, south of the river. Where they narrow might be a good funnel. Looks like an old oxbow forms the timber on the north of the funnel and the prairie to the south would probably provide some bedding cover.

If you get a good south wind, still hunting + calling up the coulees on the south end of the property (ones with the stock dams) might be worth a try midday.

whitetails or mule deer?

Love it. A north wind would be a great morning spot at the very south end of the property too. If I were to accidentally bump anything in the cracks, they'd likely go into the property and wind and not put them on the neighbors.

The ranch gets very little hunting pressure but I'd still expect to find an older deer there - away from the other deer.

It's not uncommon to have a hot doe that time of year - seems to be a logical choice for a big buck to separate her from her normal routine and away from the other pestering bucks.

With a wind out of the South, I would start just on the South side of the river, hugging it closely, right behind the home place, and about where the litle island is in the picture. Sit where you can see into what appears to be a CRP area and that inside bend in the wood line. You will be most likely looking at bedding area, so be careful of the wind.

Start with lots of glassing before you start walking in further. I would bet money that you will see deer the first time you sit that spot. What you observe from there will tell you where to go next. Depending on what is planted, and if any of the trees are dropping mast, you will develop a pattern. My experience is that deer will walk through a corn field to get to a bean field. They will walk through any food plot or field to get to acorns.

rifle, muzzleloader or archery?

makes a BIG difference, at least to me.

also how many days do you have to hunt? might make a difference on how aggressively you want to hit it.

beautiful property! wowsers would I love to have something like that one day! you're a lucky man!

I would start with edges and WW fields and go from there, start shy and then after a day or two of watching the deer, make your move to them. they should be easier to pattern post rut.

I know I'd be sniffing hard by those points and funnels between the rive and that set-aside grass.

Any topography at all?

Looking at the aerial, the S and SW draws have some topography. I would glass that whole portion of property if possible, and if not use wind and still hunt/glass each draw. Water near and banged up bucks can hide in bottoms, travel, and shelter from a S wind.

Plus, if you can find the N edge of those slopes nearest river, you can glass entire wooded edge adjacent to river and all grassy areas. Cover more ground this way with less disturbance.

I hunt country like that in eastern CO. The deer seem to bed, for whatever reason, around a mile plus from those winter wheat fields. Typically in canyons, yuccas or deep weed patches. I'd watch the wind and try to setup where I could see several of those types of areas. Be ready to twist turrets. I do see late rut action in Dec a lot.

Or plan B, bring a 742 woodmaster, 3 mags of ammo, and an atv and go raise some hell.

I'd bring me.

Tanner

If going in blind, I would hunt where I placed the red dot the first morn. I'd then burn leather looking for sign, you'll find it. If I didn't find promising sign the first day, I'd go back to the red dot for that eve and repeat the 2nd morn. You'll find sign if you look enough. Funnels are usually easy to find in that type of country. Not the type of place I'd only want a few days on as it will take you that long at least to zone in.

Plan B made me LOL.
Appreciate the feedback from your experiences. Hunting those little canyons and draws is a rarity to this flatlander.

Lots of good stuff guys, keep it coming.

It is counter intuitive to this midwestern son too. But you will find them in those canyons many many times. Be anxious to hear how you do.

First of all SKane, YOU SUCKETH!!!!!!

Second of all, I'd go about it the way I hunt most everything/everywhere else, keeping in mind I'm not much of a stand hunter which admittedly may be a hindrance in that country....

1. Find the tallest hill nearest the food, or in between known bedding and food
2. Glass your cahones' off with a good pair of bins and a great spotter
3. Plot your attack

Good Luck my friend!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner....

well, the best way to hunt that, would be by swinging through northern illinois and picking me up :-D. But since that aint in the cards, id try and guess what I think is bedding, then i spec' id try and be down wind of said bedding and down wind of the faint trail that will inevitably be paralleling it, and see what I see, hopefully a 170" cruising through at 1st or last and then go from there.. id keep that 7saum on the sticks, and my eyes on the glass.

The big nightlight-in-the-sky will be turning full power that week.

All I can guess would be to hunt any type of funnel area and I am sure you will know it when you see it. Deer really seem to relate to rivers

That area looks way different than what I hunt in the Western Kansas flatland plains.

Good Luck on your excellent new adventure.

Full moon? Hunt the thickets and secluded feed midday. Some of those places along the river?

I wouldn't even make a guess without spending some time there. I've found lots of good spots that you wouldn't think would work, and lots that look good, but aren't.

We have a hedgerow on our farm with a treestand 40 yards from the highway, if you put one of your buddies there, he'd think you were nuts. My brother bowkilled a 180+ from there last year. You feel like an idiot sitting in it with cars whizzing by, but.....

Just like any other property� From the outside in. Start with the highest place you can find and do some glassing. This is really important to me, so I would go as far as climbing on top of the roof of the house, looks like there are some battery tanks on a location in the Northwest corner you could get on top of. Maybe find a wind mill even. Get your eyes on the deer and try to establish a pattern. In that country it would be likely that you watch a buck go into one of the draws or out in the crp and bed down.

What are the crops? Looks like winter wheat and alfalfa from the pics. By that time the alfalfa should be browned and the wheat should be more desirable. Never know until you know though!

If you just want to hunt and get in the thick of things. I would hunt off the fields in the morning watching the draws and crp, and hunt on the fields in the evening.

I'd get down in that creek chest deep in water and wait till they come for a drink.

Love it...it is amazing how deer adapt. Guys can forget that does relate to residential dwellings that border woods and cover because those residential areas offer safety from wary predators like coyotes, bears and wolves.

Deer are where you find them, and bucks will do anything to mount a hot doe, even if she is in the backyard or next to the highway.

everything I said, but from 10-2

Oh Hell No!!! I'd bring ME!!

Good luck Scott. I have this feeling things will go well for you..... Again!

Kind of like a 20 year old college kid!

Are you hunting this morning?

From the perspective of one who has had little opportunity to hunt larger tracts of land-

If the deer haven't gone nocturnal I'd hunt the bottlenecks where treelines offer cover between crop areas during morning and afternoon hunts. In the mid-day or if they're nocturnal I'd be finding high vantage points with good viewing and glass for bedded up animals.

All the above while staying downwind.

If you could get the right wind, I'd start in the rougher stuff @ the bottom of the 1st photo. Sneak and peak into the wind beginning ~90min after sunrise. For the 1st 90-120min of shooting light I'd be sitting on the tallest hill I could find with binocs and a spotter.

I hunt this same type of land form. The truly big bucks post-rut will mostly be up in those draws. They will feed down around the river at night but be back at the bottom of the draws by sunrise. You have to be there somehow. Get your butt out of bed and be already sitting up there with glass long before sunrise.

The south wind is going to mess you up. Hunt across the wind from the outside edges in. If you push deer out of the outside edge draws without getting them, they will gradually move themselves toward the inner property. You should be able to get many days of hunting out of that property if you have it to yourself.

If you have a wicked cold snap or high snow, they will be looking for corn to eat over against soybeans, as the corn has more energy to keep them warm. If it is sunny and rather mild, they will look for green fields and greens.

If you have the property to yourself, then you need to be out there all day long, just poking around in nice weather, or find heavy bedding cover in bad weather and get out of the wind. They will move around all day long if they feel undisturbed and are well away from their feeding areas.

Well gents, I'm back. And, thank you for the input on this property.

The ranch was even more magnificent than I had even imagined. Magnificent, and OVERWHELMING.

I spent three days glassing and gently walking perimeters etc. prior to the season. In all the days of glassing and hunting, I only went one morning (out in the cuts to the SW) where I didn't see multiple bucks - some of them really good bucks.

I spent all day in the field whether hunting or scouting (sometimes hanging stands etc) and did indeed notice a fair amount of midday movement.

It didn't take me long to realize the big guys weren't going to be near those fields in the daylight so I tried my best to be in spots in between fields or logical travel corridors. And I passed on some bucks that I would have been proud to take anywhere else but I was looking for a really good one.

I have a weakness. Well, actually, I have a whole slew of them, but one that is germane to the hunt is my penchant for rattling when things get slow or for mid-day fun. It's playing with fire really as it sometimes forces to make decisions in an instant.

Well, here is my mid-day Kansas buck that was rattled in and "getting away" before I got to properly evaluate him:





Random buck pict:


Video of some bucks coming to the horns mid-day.
[img]http://i1185.photobucket.com/albums/z345/joan4321/Video/th_IMG_3464_zpsxwm09jrh.mp4[/img]


I truly had the hunt of my life in hunting this ranch.
The ranch owner is simply as fine a gentleman as you'll ever encounter and am proud to call him "friend".

You have been deer hunting in Shang Gri-La.

What a beautiful place. Congratulations on a great buck.


What rifle did you use on this hunt?

It is indeed a hunting mecca. Problem is, I passed on a couple nicer bucks earlier.
And, truth be told, as much I think I know about whitetails, I got a real education on this place. *grins*

I used the 257 Weatherby until I had it in my head that it was once again cursed - switched to the SAUM that morning, and, wallah.

I used the Weatherby on a doe later in the afternoon - seemed to produce when trying to find a baldie. Of course, it was not uncommon to see 40-50 deer on the wheat field where I shot her.

If the one you killed is a small one I can only imagine what the big ones were like.

Congrats Scott!

Maybe he wasn't the biggest you saw, but he darn sure has a cool looking rack! Love the brows and mass.

Well done Scott. Maps and aerial views were fun to speculate where you would connect on a Kansas buck.

Wayne

Nice! Good work and congrats!

Holy browtines!

Beautiful buck. Well done and you have reason to be proud of that one.

Wow can you say mass? Awesome deer and cool thread.

Ooof... that's a toad. Nice one Scott.

Tanner

Damn Scott, another gagger! Great deer, proud of you! The big question (other than the obvious of why I wasn't there regardless of what Tanner says...) is why not the KS .280? Resting from the Idaho trip Good on you!

Stud! But I'm not surprised... As it's been said before, where Scott goes big deer die..congratulations!

Oh, I brought the .280 along too - it just didn't get to see duty.

I marked the locale where the buck was taken below.



Back to work today.

Great buck Scott. Didn't understand what you said about the cuts to the SW. Did you see some good ones down there or were they hanging where you got yours? Just curious and love the brow tines.

Great Buck Scott. Well done.

Kurt,
What I should have said is I didn't see a lot of activity there but one of my regrets is not spending enough time with those cuts. There are wheat fields further away from both the north and south ends of those cuts and it's logical a mature deer would take up residence there. I glassed the neighbors fields where those draws come up to - that wasn't the way to do that. I needed watch further back into those things.

There is another across the road (to the east) that I never even got to check out. Probably where I should have started though.

The amazing thing to me was how far some of these deer would travel to feed when they've got essentially the same feed a couple hundred yards from their bedding areas!

Like I said earlier, I got a real education last week. And I really enjoy that part of the experience.

Man that's a great buck Scott. It's really cool when something turns out even better than you expected, huh? Enjoyed your photos and the excellent story. Congrats on a well earned, and very, very nice buck.

Boy did you say a mouthful here, and it happens to me all the time as well:
"And, truth be told, as much I think I know about whitetails, I got a real education on this place."

Great stuff!

I have noticed the same thing regarding bedding areas. I have deer that come 2 miles to bed in a canyon like those when there is great thick cover between alfalfa and corn fields. I think in my spot at least, they get bird hunter pressure in those areas and tend to avoid them after getting jumped a number of times.

So I found a shed last week that had 19.75 inches of mass measurements. It looks close to yours and curious what the mass adds up to on yours if you get a chance. Very solid buck there. Those are special areas to hunt in for sure.

way to go bud , I knew you wouldn't let us down.

Awesome bud!

Studly deer!!

Nice Buck. Gotta like a buck with a lot of mass.

Pretty cool thread, nice buck

Hi Scott

You did get you a pretty nice buck there. Heavy set of head gear.

nice buck scott

Well, I just got done processing this old bugger.

My Gene Ingram is dull as a butter knife, my two Swedish boning knives are junk, and my bone saw needs a new blade.

I swear that thing has been eating Osage Orange since the day he was born!

Think I can pony up for a new saw blade.
You're on your own with the Ingram.

Nothing ever changes, huh? Dad deserves a good Christmas present for that one...grin

Tanner

Wow! Scott (Bwana) has a skinner/butcher. Does he have porters and a gun bearer, also?

Wayne,
I ripped the hides.

He's the finesse part of our team. And he works for Guinness and soda bread. *grins*

Guiness and soda bread, nice Irish lad. I would work for that as well!

Very cool thread SKane, thanks for putting in the effort of sharing the adventure.

Merry Christmas GRF

I'm 100% sure I could not have passed on that buck in your "random buck" pic. Good lord man!

Congrats on a fantastic buck!

Well...i haffta admit. I'd work for that too.

Congratulations, Scott! You got a NICE one!!! I'd be getting him mounted.

Eric

Awesome buck there Skane! I had a feeling you might connect with a pretty good one on that piece of property� or any.

Nice job Scott! Great buck!

Scott, very cool thread and awesome buck, that guy is a toad!

Scott - great buck! How about if I go with you next year to be your gunbearer, deer skinner, and deer hauler............

Great Buck! I love the mass!

Dang, Scott! Heck of a buck. Congrats.

Tom - with the benefit of glassing deer prior to the season, you would have been able to stay off the trigger. Lots of those guys running around.

Scott,
Congrats on taking a really nice buck! You have a rather nice collection my man.
If you don't mind sharing, how did you find this propoerty? Someone you know personally?

CLB,
The invite to hunt there was through a friend.

Great buck! Congrats on getting them figured out.

Next year take me and I'll bird dog them out to you. Might need a fast shooting rifle, know where you can get a Remington pump??

Kudos to dad for being the processing plant. I think it'll be a sad day for me when I can't help my boys out anymore and they're only 4 and 7.

Nice job Scott, the dishing on the left side is crazy. You sure do get around, I envy you!

Yes sir Scott, that's a dandy buck.

Congratulations!