Sorry to hear you messed up all that good jerky meat.

Anyway you look at it, that is one nice buck. Exactly one more than I got this season! LOL

Hey Dave, just to give me an idea, is that 255 lbs estimated live weight or field dressed?

Beautiful buck Mr. Petzal!

Ship a truckload of those fellas to Orleans county Vermont. It was kind of a bleak deer season on Buck Hill for 2009.

Sweet buck! Kansas is an awesome place to hunt.

Glad you had a successful hunt Mr. Petzal. Quick question though. Didn't I read an article in the magazine (or perhaps it was on this blog that you had decided to quit hunting)?

Perhaps I'm mistaken. Just curious......

Again, congratulations on a fine deer.

Made a trip out to the western part of KS in November for pheasant with Del. We saw tons of deer and some very nice bucks and the corn was still up for the most part. I'll bet those green wheat fields are magnets for the deer now. Where we were hunting there wasn't much brush to hide behind though! Nice buck anywhere you go Dave!

Hmmmm ,.. very nice deer ,. Kansas may be my next
destination,.. but not this year ,.
Soon its time to head yet again to Wi
Strap on the x country skis sling a scatter gun and head into the big woods for snow shoes.
and what ever else a load of 6's can put in the pot.

Very nice deer MR Petzal ,. still if you'll pardon the observation ,.. you look cold enough in that picture,. to have possibly started freezing the proverbail cannon balls off the proverbial monkey.
Sitting long ?? YUK YUK

Jeesh. All this whining about not seeing a deer in Maine. All my relatives in Maine get their deer every year. I should live a life where I can jet around the country for a guided every deer hunt in every state that I can cram into an autumn.

255 big deal. The Biggest Bucks in Maine Club gets you entry with an animal that field dresses at or above 200 pounds.

Great buck and great shot. ...At -2 below did you get help from Sarah Palin in field dressing?

Good deer, 140 1/8 is the kind I dream about.

Great job. How many points and what's inside/outside spread?

Nice Buck, Congrats

Dave,
Congrats, that's a nice buck anywhere you can hunt. I've been trying to arrow an old buck that is a good bit bigger than him for 2 years now on a farm near Emporia. Beekeeper and I saw a giant standing in a bean field near Wichita while driving back from our pheasant hunt.
We have some monsters here in Kansas but Missouri has QDM in most counties now and look for more giant bucks to start showing up there too.
My requests for Quality deer management have fallen on deaf ears at Kansas Dep of Wildlife and Parks. Think how good it would be if small bucks were protected long enough to grow up.

BTW Dave I bought that buck ergo knife you talked about at Cabelas. You hit the nail on the head with that one. That is an awesome knife for the money. Mine is exactly like the one in the photo-no guthooks for me please.

Dave, Congrats to you, you do look cold. I was going to ask about the A-Frames, I guess you explained your reasons for using them. I still find it hard to use anything but a sp on deer but good for you and keep blogging on this site retired or not. You, as us, will always be full of it and have much to say.

Mr. P:

When did you retire? This is the first I've heard about it, and, I suspect, that most of us have heard about it.

Who is the new rifle guy at F&S (if there is one)? What are his qualifications?

I'm glad you had a good hunt.

TWD

thats a trophy in any woods. As for cold hunting i feel our pain im contemplating getting one of those sleeping bag lookn things to hunt the late season hear in wisconsin, YOHAN ive been using my CC skis to check my trail cam and small game since we got snow its great!

nice deer dave, congrats! i agree, hunting these critters is never as easy (well, almost never anyway) as sitting down on the edge of a feild and having one walk by. if you are lucky enough to shoot one, usually, you have earned it. or, you dump $3k and somebody drives you to a heated blind where all you have to do is pull the trigger. everything else, is done for you, including someone bringing your lunch.

You might retire Dave, but just don't quit writing. You ARE the rifle guy. Nice buck.

Congrats on the great buck Dave

Great buck Dave! Sometimes you have to suffer to get the nice ones. They usually don't stick around long either and sometimes you have to take the less than perfect shot. Sounds like you were well prepared. Again congratulations!

I read your story with mixed feelings. First, I'm happy you visited our state and had a good hunt. Yes, we've got lots of big deer (I passed up several like this one on our Kansas farm because there was a bigger one I wanted). The downside is that since we opened KS to out-of-state hunting, access w/o paying lots of money has shriveled up. All of our neighbors are now outfitted-up and it's several thousand dollars per gun to hunt deer. The KS wildlife department has become addicted to the money out-of-state hunters bring in (maybe all states have), as have many landowners (their right, I know, but I have lost all but one private-land hunting area I used to have, to outfitters). Supposedly we have the least public-access hunting land in the country. I guess the times are changing. I'm still happy that you had a good experience in KS, but excuse my little bit of regret about another article about how fabulous the deer hunting is here.

If you go back, are you taking hitch-hikers?

I would love to hunt Kansas, but the cost is out of my range. Approx.what does a 5 day hunt totsl cost up there Dave. Congratulations on a nice animal. I got a huge 10 pointer for N.C., weighed 290, a giant for this area. Largetdeer killed todate this yer in my area.

Petzel and Gunslinger don't need another thing for Christmas...just wipe those big dopey smiles off their faces.

Huge deer guys...congratulations.

Ho, Ho, Ho....and pass the ammunition.

Blue