Kansas has a long weekend for antlerless whitetail firearms season, and every year Outdoor Mentors (https://outdoormentors.org/ ) arranges for multiple hunts for young hunters. C&S Whitetails ( http://www.candskansaswhitetails.com/) is a guide service located in south central Kansas and for a many years has helped get kids into the deer blinds with a good chance of harvesting a nice doe.
Arrival time/check in was 1 pm, and lunch was served.
Hot dogs and venison chili and the kids were grouped together to go to the firing range to shoot paper with some dialed in 22's. Mentor/mentee assignments were made, and I found out that I would be hunting with "C", accompanied by his mom "S". C told me that he has killed a couple of does, and had gone on a C&S hunt last year, but didn't have a chance to shoot.
Firing range
After the .22 range was completed, a local game processor had a young deer up on the gambrel and did a demo on how to part out a deer. Hunters were intently focused on the process, and good questions were asked and answered. Busenitz Deer Processing knows his stuff!
After the butchering demo, any kid hunting that wanted to shoot their deer rifle had an opportunity to shoot at their 100 yard range.
Assignments of hunting blinds were completed, and Chayne, the head dude at C&S decided to drive us to our blind. On the way there I asked if his hunters had had a good season so far, and he replied that indeed this was the case. His brother (and guide) had killed a 202" buck, there had been several in the 175" range, and in total 12 bucks taken all scoring better than 155".
Arriving at our blind, we found three folding chairs and a nice view looking over a hayfield with oak trees (in full drop mode) along the drive up to the house behind the blind, and riverine bottom land to the south. Getting set up in the blind, I put several layers of seat cushions on C's chair so that he would be able to bring his 243 to bear, once some deer showed up. We tried the shooting sticks, but he decided that he wanted to use the blind window fabric as his shooting support.
(Photo credits to Jerod Cox Photography)
Arrival time/check in was 1 pm, and lunch was served.
Hot dogs and venison chili and the kids were grouped together to go to the firing range to shoot paper with some dialed in 22's. Mentor/mentee assignments were made, and I found out that I would be hunting with "C", accompanied by his mom "S". C told me that he has killed a couple of does, and had gone on a C&S hunt last year, but didn't have a chance to shoot.
Firing range
After the .22 range was completed, a local game processor had a young deer up on the gambrel and did a demo on how to part out a deer. Hunters were intently focused on the process, and good questions were asked and answered. Busenitz Deer Processing knows his stuff!
After the butchering demo, any kid hunting that wanted to shoot their deer rifle had an opportunity to shoot at their 100 yard range.
Assignments of hunting blinds were completed, and Chayne, the head dude at C&S decided to drive us to our blind. On the way there I asked if his hunters had had a good season so far, and he replied that indeed this was the case. His brother (and guide) had killed a 202" buck, there had been several in the 175" range, and in total 12 bucks taken all scoring better than 155".
Arriving at our blind, we found three folding chairs and a nice view looking over a hayfield with oak trees (in full drop mode) along the drive up to the house behind the blind, and riverine bottom land to the south. Getting set up in the blind, I put several layers of seat cushions on C's chair so that he would be able to bring his 243 to bear, once some deer showed up. We tried the shooting sticks, but he decided that he wanted to use the blind window fabric as his shooting support.
(Photo credits to Jerod Cox Photography)
