BY MICHAEL PEARCE
The Wichita Eagle
Jeff Watt had a pretty good idea he was within the territory of a good mule deer.
His guide, J.R. Dienst, had been scouting the nontypical for several months and had been adamant Watt join him on opening day of muzzleloader season.
The amount of traffic on the nearby back roads of southwest Kansas was also a great indication.
"There were a lot of pickups driving up and down those country roads," said Watt, of Raymore, Mo. "You could tell by the way they were driving they were looking for a really big buck that had to be around."
Bucks with 33 points and more than 250 inches of antler measurements tend to draw that kind of attention.
On Tuesday morning, the second day of the black powder season, Dienst and Watt saw the recognizable antlers of the buck that the guide had studied on his property in unit 17 for several years.
The buck eventually bedded in a huge field of standing milo. The stalk started at about 11:30 a.m. It wasn't easy.
Amid the huge sea of brown milo heads there were few landmarks to judge the process of the stalk. At one point, Dienst left Watt in the field and walked 400 yards back to the truck. There he looked through the spotting scope that was still focused on where the buck was bedded.
Dienst returned and within a minute they spotted antler tips. Thanks to a 35-mph wind they had no trouble sneaking to within about 30 yards unnoticed.
That's when the waiting began. For long minutes, they stood motionless, Watt's muzzleloader resting on stout shooting sticks, aimed at where they hoped the deer would stand.
Eventually a vehicle came down a nearby road and the buck rose up on his front legs to look, showing just the top of his body above the grain. Watt shot and missed.
"I think I held high and just shot right over him," he said. "Believe it or not, though, the buck just settled back down into its bed as I got down and reloaded."
Dienst then led Watt to a nearby terrace where he'd have a higher vantage point from 20 yards. After about 45 minutes of waiting, the buck again stood and Watt made a good shot.
A self-confessed addict of trophy mule deer hunting, Watt knew the buck was bigger than the two bucks he had at home that grossed more than 200 inches. He didn't realize exactly how much bigger, though.
"First of all I knew he was big because J.R. told me he was big and he sure knows," Watt said. "I thought he was every bit of 220 when we walked up on him, but I didn't know he was going to be 250 and change.
The buck's rack has 33 scorable points — 18 on one antler and 15 on the other. Dienst and several experienced scorers measured the rack at 254 gross inches that night.
