Youth hunt with Outdoor Mentors 2026

kansasdad · 2026-10-12T16:44:32-0600

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)

kansasdad · 2026-10-12T20:39:58-0600

I almost always see the deer before the kids do, by tonight C beat me to it. She was coming up into our field from the treeline, close to the county road. She immediately started working on the acorns. C was using his riflescope to watch her. S used their binos and I had mine. I had already ranged various possible spots on the field so I knew that she was just beyond 200 yards away.

After a little bit, we saw another deer following nearly the same path, this one was a young of the year deer. As we were watching her eat acorns, I saw her trying to crack white I presume was a much larger acorn as her jaw was wide open and she kept trying to crush it down without success for more than a minute. Several times the doe would snap her head back towards the tree line, and I told C to be aware of possible new deer coming onto the field where she was watching.

In watching her, we lost track of the young deer. I surmised that it was down in a ditch that runs water off of this ground towards the (dry) creek bottom. Watching C watching the deer I noticed that he was not breathing hard or shaking, a portend of future calmness when the shot opportunity arose, I hoped.

Something caused her to go on full alert, and she skipped off the field back into the woods from whence she came. Back in the blind, we all relaxed for a bit. Water bottles were shared, and we worked a little more on building a stable shooting position for C for when the time would come.

After 10 minutes or so, I saw ears coming onto the field, closer to us compared to the road doe. Eventually there were 7 does/fawns out on the field edge, moms were eating, the kids were doing some chasing of each other. Down by the road there were two more deer eating on the acorns, one with tiny spiky antlers. I reminded C that we were only going to shoot an antlerless deer, and within 100 yards as a goal.

Earlier at the .22 range, C had shown a good eye and fine trigger control. When the range was clear he had run down to the target zone, had taken the sticky target off the backing, and after looking at this results and showing the range instructor and his mom he put the target on his camo shirt. He told me that he had won a $500 gift card for a 4H project award, and had purchased his Ruger 243 with a Vortex scope on it. He told me that his target practice at 100 yards showed he should have no problem delivering a lethal shot when she was in range.

The whirling mass of deer were ever so slowly working their way further away from the treeline. Always just inside the shadow line of these trees. Chayne's corn pile had been giving us some fun entertainment as there were Bluejays partaking of the bounty. They would fly down from a row of cedars close to the blind, and when they flew back to the tree, the sunshine would cause the yellow corn to almost glow like a headlight.

The closest doe had continued further onto the field, and was getting closer to getting out of the taller grass/forbs that were regularly obscuring their vitals. C told me that he had a clear view of her in his scope, from my vantage point he would be barely missing an oak trunk sitting about 20 yards in front of us.

My rangefinder said 108, and she was now directly looking at us. I whispered into his active hearing hearing protection that I was confident that they would slowly continue working our way, and we should be patient. I also reminded him that we were looking for a full broadside shot, and to not shoot unless he felt quite confident in his aim.

I could tell that his breathing rate had picked up the pace, but there was no body shaking or other signs of buck fever hitting his body. S had stood up to see the deer as she had the worst angle for looking out of the blind. The wind was dropping my the minute, and all was calm and relaxed for every deer on the field except the closest one. She had taken multiple steps our way, and was now 104 yards away.

She then turned back towards the trees (and her young one?) and then eased to a slightly turned away broadside shot. I whispered to C that I was thinking there were going to keep coming, but if he wanted to take the shot now, the light was green.

BOOOOM!

She turned directly towards the trees, and made a very low run for the fence. Getting to the fence she slowed and slightly unbalanced crossed the fence and was out of sight.

kansasdad · 2026-10-12T21:03:47-0600

I asked C and S to clearly mark where the doe was standing at the shot and where she left the field. After they said they certain of both of those spots, I said where my two points were and they agreed with me.

At the safety briefing before lunch was served, Chayne had introduced two dog tracking handlers and their dogs. He told us that should your deer drop and stay down, then by all means feel free to celebrate and take photos and field dress the deer. If the deer ran off out of sight he asked that we stay in the blind and not attempt to locate the deer. In either circumstance a text back to him to update status was requested.

I texted him, and he said that there were tracking a deer, they were nearby and would be there shortly. But most importantly, he reminded me that we were to stay in the blind. Chayne asked me to describe the shot circumstances, and how she reacted at the shot, and her running form. I texted back that C told me he saw “blood coming out of her” on her off side, but I had t seen that. Based on her reaction, I thought she was hit back and was hit hard.

While waiting for the tracker to arrive, we loaded up our personal gear and once again shared some high fives and fist bumps. I told C that I was fairly confident that she was lethally hit, but it was going to take a tracking job to find her.

About 15 minutes after the shot I heard deer blowing in the woods fairly near where she had crossed the fence. I hoped that was some of her friends seeing her down and gone.

Chayne and the tracker arrived well before sundown, and the tracker interviewed C about the particulars of the shot. I was glad that we had already gone over this, and C handled his part well. I asked if the dog handler wanted us to point out where the shot took place, or where she crossed the fence, and he replied that at this time he was just going to let the dog have free reign on direction and speed of travel. His only request was that we stay back from where the dog was working.

kansasdad · 2026-10-12T21:28:12-0600

The dog was trotting along, heading in the general direction of where the deer had been, and then I noticed it picked up the slack on the rope (Kansas regulations to be on a lead) and started to move faster when it crossed the path taken by our doe. He went exactly to the crossing spot at the fence, and with a little shove the dog was over, followed by the handler, and then C and then S. I moved down to the road at the corner of the field to cover any escape attempt across the road.

Chayne was up at the blind, and I can imagine that his phone was blowing up with reports of succeyss, and possible need for tracking help. 16 kids were hunting tonight, spread out over a fairly large area, and keeping everyone straight and informed about what needed to happen next would be a logistical juggling act that he does very well.

From my slightly elevated spot above the creek bottom I could see the orange clad handler, dog, and chasers weave in and out of sight. Back and forth, allowing the dog to use its nose, tracking on tarsal gland scents of a wounded deer. As 10 minutes had transpired I could at first hear, and then see that the trail had moved closer to the road, and later I was told that there was a young deer hanging around where the trail led, and it was assumed that it was the doe's young of the year.

A decision was made that they would pull off the track for now, as there were other hunters needing assistance, and this would give the doe a chance to lie down and expire of her wound. After the regathering of all the hunters, pizza and a meatpole photo, they would resume the track and seemed confident that there was a dead deer waiting for them to find her.

C, S and I were driven back to the C&S HQ. We were the second hunting group to return, and as we unloaded the truck, my end of legal hunting time alarm sounded off. My hunter was again congratulated by myself, and I told him and his mom that I was going to not wait for the late evening tracking job, but would be waiting for the recovery photo.

I am told that the track was fairly easy once they returned to the trail. She did cross the road, and then laid down for her last sleep.