Here it is and it's
NO PHOTO SHOP JOB
Flint Hills premium
A New York hunter finds a trophy buck in Kansas.
BY MICHAEL PEARCE
The Wichita Eagle
[/align]Courtesy Photo
[/align]Gerry Rightmyer of Brockport, N.Y., shot a monstrous whitetail on Nov. 29. It may be the biggest whitetail shot in Kansas by a rifle hunter in 14 years.
[/align][/align]Several Flint Hills locals told Gerry Rightmyer a whitetail buck with long tines in all directions and enough mass to make a moose proud roamed his new hunting area. A veteran of trophy deer hunts in 10 states and five Canadian provinces, Rightmyer knew such tales were often more myth than reality.
Shortly after noon on the Nov. 29 opening of firearms deer season, Rightmyer saw the tales weren't exaggerated.
"I immediately knew I'd never seen anything like that alive," said Rightmyer, who's from Brockport, N.Y.
The Unit 14 buck that locals had nicknamed "Grandpa" unofficially grosses more than 285 inches of antler. It could be the biggest gun-killed whitetail in Kansas in 14 years.
With Colorado hunting buddy Scott Fratter, Rightmyer arrived in the central Flint Hills two days before the season. Fratter had traded a Rocky Mountain mule deer hunt with some local hunters for a chance to hunt their whitetail grounds. It took the non-residents two years to draw permits.
Their hosts, who asked their names and locations not be used, showed the nonresidents some hunting grounds.
Rightmyer hung his tree stand along a timbered drainage that had crop fields along the edges. Signs such as big rubs, scrapes and well-beaten trails were plentiful. He hoped other hunters might drive deer his way from nearby public hunting lands.
Rightmyer passed opportunities at two small bucks and three does that morning. The living legend stepped into sight at about 12:40 p.m. One shot from a .270 killed the buck.
The fantastic rack has three drop tines, the largest almost 14 inches long, an inside spread of 23 7/8 inches and outside stretch of 27 inches. The buck's unofficial gross green score is 285 3/8 inches, even with three broken tines.
"I have no doubt he was a legitimate 300-inch deer before those were broken," Rightmyer said, "but I'm not complaining."
If the buck's unofficial green score of 269 1/8 inches holds, the buck should rank as the third-largest whitetail killed by a gun in Kansas. The state's best of 280 4/8 was shot in Shawnee County in 1987. The second-best, a Leavenworth County buck of 279 1/8, was shot in 1992.
Rightmyer later learned the buck had been seen and hunted by several locals. One farmer showed one of the buck's shed antlers. A bowhunter said he'd seen the buck three times while hunting and had passed on an in-range shot because too much brush was in the way.
Rightmyer was scheduled to fly back to western New York from Kansas City. He changed his mind.
"The last thing I wanted was some baggage handler throwing those antlers around in a cargo hold," he said. "I decided to rent a car and drive home."