It was chilly, foggy, and icy in north-central Kansas on Dec. 15, and Josh Keltner had been wanting ahead to getting out along with his household on the ultimate day of the state’s gun deer season. A retired U.S. Military veteran, Keltner was nonetheless new to looking the Sunflower State and he had by no means tagged a whitetail earlier than. He’d be looking alone that day, although, since his spouse and youngsters determined to remain in.
“I nearly didn’t go, both, as a result of it was so chilly – within the 20s,” Keltner tells Outside Life. “We hunt as a household as a lot as we will. However that frigid day they stayed dwelling.”
He rolled off the bed and received his looking gear in any case. He then headed to a floor blind he’d positioned on a pal’s 40 acres that was honeycombed with deer trails.
Keltner received to his floor blind simply after 6 a.m., properly earlier than daylight. He noticed nothing for the primary couple hours, and by 8 a.m. he was already serious about what he’d do the remainder of the day.
“I needed to depart the blind, however talked myself into staying a bit longer,” says a 46-year-old Keltner. “That’s once I noticed a doe strolling straight to me at 50 yards. She was on a path, and I thought of capturing her as a result of it was the final day of the season. However then I noticed one other deer with massive antlers behind her in some bushes.”
It was a welcome sight for Keltner, who moved to Kansas along with his household final yr after retiring from the Military. He’d grown up in Montana looking elk, mule deer, and antelope. However his service within the army, which included a deployment to Afghanistan, stored him from looking for round 15 years. He’d by no means taken a whitetail, and final yr was the primary time he’d ever hunted from a floor blind.
Even then, Keltner knew he was a large buck.
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“I didn’t wish to take a look at the buck’s rack,” he says. “I simply needed to focus on placing my crosshairs on his chest. He was wanting proper at me, and so was the doe.”
Keltner took the 80-yard shot with the buck going through proper him. He fired one shot along with his Browning rifle, and the 180-grain bullet struck completely, hitting the deer’s lungs and coronary heart. The buck turned and ran towards a close-by creek however didn’t make it very far.
“I used to be shaking with pleasure, and the entire blind was rocking up and down with me inside it. I couldn’t get out of the blind quick sufficient, and I discovered him useless simply past the creek.”
Keltner instantly known as his spouse, Daedra, to share the information, and he or she left dwelling with two of their 4 kids, Kolby and Taylor.
“It was improbable when she received there, and the youngsters may put their arms on a deer,” Keltner remembers. “Then we made photographs, discipline dressed the buck, and I dragged it out of the creek space.”
From there they took the buck to a processor. Then they introduced the top to a taxidermist, who estimated the buck at 5.5 years previous and gave the 19-point rack a inexperienced gross rating of 190 1/8 inches.
“He requested me if I used to be going to enter it within the Boone and Crockett report e book after its rack is measured once more following a 60-day drying interval,” Keltner says. “That’s one thing I by no means even thought of. It’s all new to me, this whitetail deer looking from a floor blind. It’s so much totally different than what I did rising up in Montana.”
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