Big bucks are what the deer hunter’s dreams are made of. They consume our thoughts, plans, and preparation throughout much of the year. Such was the case for avid bowhunter, Jim Dilley.
Dilley has spent countless hours and road miles working towards the opportunity to wrap a tag around the buck of his dreams. This year, it all came together while hunting in Kansas. He shares the story of his hunt below.
I have bowhunted my entire life. I’ve had a bow in my hand since I was 10 years old. I killed my first deer with a bow at age 14, and I’ve loved bowhunting whitetails ever since that day.
Being a Mississippi native, I’ve often dreamed of the giant bucks of the midwest. In my college years, I got the chance to chase deer as a resident while I attended college at Pittsburg State University. I had a few permission farms and killed a few nice deer during my time there, but nothing over 125″.
Fast forward 15 years later, and I finally drew a non-resident tag for my old Kansas stomping grounds. It was the 120 acre piece of land a good friend in the area gave me permission to hunt back when I was in college. It was mainly a duck hunting property, but it always held a good population of deer as well.
I made the 10 hour drive in the heat of summer and set out a few trail cameras and a feeder. I immediately started getting nice deer on my cell cams, but nothing huge. Months later, while at church, I get a trail cam photo of the type of deer I was hoping for.
I immediately text my brother – “Booner alert.”
From that moment, I knew I had to be all in on this one deer – the deer of a lifetime. I showed the pictures to my buddy that owned the land, and he volunteered to go put out some corn in that area in hopes we could create an opportunity to harvest this buck.
After weeks and weeks and thousands of trail cam pictures of really nice bucks, this buck would never show up on camera other than the one time on 9/11/22.
I had a black bear hunt in Oklahoma planned for October 1st – 4th in an area about 3 hours from my deer hunting land in Kansas. So I decided to drive up and hunt a day and half in Kansas just to try and get some more intel on this buck before the bear hunt. I was really just hoping the extra effort in the early season would pay dividends when the November rut came along.
The ten hour drive from Mississippi to Kansas seemed like half that time as I was really anxious to get boots on the ground and check things out.
A quick shower to knock the road sweat off and it was straight to the woods after the 10 hour drive.
A north wind gave me access to the south of the property, where there ended up being a very small water hole. Thick grass and no trees provided a tough location to set up, so I picked some shrubs and carved out a little hole to hide.
My two cell cams told me he was not on the north or west ends of this farm, so I was hoping for a sighting at this location. Within an hour, 5 does and a big 9-pointer had come by the water hole.
At 6:10, I caught movement to my left, and there he was. No doubt, the Booner deer I have dreamed of my entire life. He walked right out of the tall WRP grass, across the cracked up mud, straight to the water hole. I was able to draw my bow as he stepped into my shooting lane.
I released the arrow and immediately knew my shot was good, but not perfect. I watched him for about 70 yards across the dried up water hole. Then a thousand emotions hit me all at once.
I called my brothers as I always do, gave them the news, and backed out. I could not believe I actually got to see a deer of this caliber, much less release an arrow and hit my mark. I knew the shot was lethal, but I decided to wait until morning to follow up with tracking. It was a sleepless night, but in the morning came a short tracking job. Just 130 yards down the trail and there he was, buried in the tall grass. He taped out at 178 3/8″ with 26.5″ main beans. He’s got 11 scoreable points and mass for days. He’s truly the deer I’ve dreamed about all my life.
But even better, the hunt reminded me of how blessed we are as hunters. A great buck on the wall is great, but the blessings of good friends and family are trophies that’ll last a lifetime.
Until the next hunt – until the next memory – happy hunting!
