I edited the title of the thread, in hopes others will join in with their success stories and photos, or their sob stories of tag soup.

This year turned out to be - relatively - a management hunt for me. I’ve been managing the herd on one of my properties for almost 20 years, and had unfortunately had two bucks rule this kingdom a little too long before finally getting an opportunity to take each of them last year and the year before - after 4 years of exclusively hunting those 2 deer. After finally knocking down both of those big bodied bruisers, having ran off too many other mature, quality bucks, and a poor fawn recruitment 5 years ago, this year was dependent upon cruisers. Mid-summer, I started seeing two nice 4yr olds, a 9pt with some decent mass for his age, but nothing to write home about, and a 10 point with a much more type-y rack and bigger body. Late fall, another 10 point moved in, very similar to the first, type-y as all get out, and big bodied.

I also learned this summer, the older guy who leased the property adjacent to mine had passed away. The same guy who I have caught almost every season trespassing onto my property, and the same guy who brings out other hunters and literally shoots anything they see. Multiple times in the last 10 years, I have seen them loading up fawns smaller than my dog. They show up after light, drive in on a UTV, drop one or two guys off on the side of a meadow, then the old man drives to the other side to park, and hunts from the UTV all day (illegal in KS) - all sitting 20yrds off of my fenceline, facing my side. Also multiple times in the last 10 years, I’ve found my fencelines with the top line cut and the bottom two pressed to the ground with UTV track into my property. More frustrating for me, the last 5 years, they had been bringing one of the guys’ middle school then high school grandsons along, and setting this standard of disrespect and unlawfulness with the future generation. Loss of life is always tragic, and I hate to speak ill of the deceased, but I’d be lying to say I’m not glad to have an irresponsible detriment removed from my neighbors property and our local deer herd. So I leased rights from my neighbor, and now control enough acreage there to be even more confident in successfully letting better bucks walk.

But having these three options and greater security for the investment bucks, I elected to cull the smallest of the 3 cruisers. “Men plan and God smiles,” but I’m hoping to expose more of my doe next season to the larger bucks for a more productive future.

That may all sound like a disrespectful concession in the face of my buck, which isn’t my intent. Watching college football, we can see many amazing runningbacks who are phenomenal athletes and fantastic footballers - but simply won’t make the cut for the NFL later in life. When I first started with this property as a teen, I would have drooled over a chance to harvest a buck of this quality, and I’m still proud to bring him home and put him on the wall. There are a lot of other 4 year olds out there any given year which wouldn’t have produced his mass, nor his body weight.

Some details on the rifle as pictured: Seekins Havak in 6 creed with Bartlein 1:7.5” Heavy Palma, pushing Berger 105 Hybrids at 3040fps over 41.7grn H4350, SilencerCo Omega 300, direct thread with flat end cap. Armaggedon gear suppressor cover. Bushnell DMR II shot at 12x. Jewel HVR set to 6oz. Taken at 52yrds from a Primos Trigger-Stik monopod, quartering away - I had to wait ~2min in the scope for him to turn and offer the shot. The bullet stopped under the far side hide, retaining 53grn, with the core still in the base of the jacket. The top half of the heart was shredded, and the forward lobe of both lungs absolute jelly. The bullet punched through the far ribs and nestled under the hide. He hunkered and ran poorly for 20 yards in a crescent path across then away from my blind, crashed, and never moved under his own power again.