Dear memories of Kansas deer
This marks the 50th anniversary of deer hunting in Kansas. Before, and even after those first seasons, deer were so uncommon in Kansas many remember the first time they saw a deer in great detail. These hunters wrote about their memories.
Dale Hellman, Olpe: “I remember my first encounter with a deer (in 1959) like it was yesterday... scared the… out of me.
Several of my boyhood friends and I built a clubhouse at the bottom of a hill west of Eureka. We dug down the sides of a washout, cut down small trees to cover the top, and laid down clumps of soil with a tarp on top. We even had 12-volt lights from a bicycle.... It was quite an elegant mansion.
We used to roam the hillside at night and play flashlight tag. Several times we heard a strange wheezing noise (deer snorting) at night but none of us had any idea what it was, except maybe... a big hairy creature since Bigfoot was big at the time.
One night I heard a noise so I sneaked close, then turned on my light. All I saw was big shiny eyes and then it snorted really loud.... I covered at least a hundred yards in nine seconds flat. I thought I was going to be torn apart limb from limb and eaten because Bigfoot had done got me.”
Charlie Stevens, Downs: “I think the year was 1960, or it might have been 1961. I know I couldn’t drive yet. My mom drove two friends and I out east of Great Bend so we could try to hunt a pheasant. We were walking a fence row and jumped a doe. I can still see her running away. What a story we had to tell.”
Lee Ayers, Cottonwood Falls: “My first sighting in Kansas took place in 1963... my family’s first year back in Kansas after living in the Missouri Ozarks for seven years. I went with my Dad while he did farm work on our farm along the Cottonwood River. I was simply messing around in the timber along the river when a doe jumped up about 20 yards from me and ran across the corner of the field. When I told my Dad about the sighting he was a little skeptical as he said he had not seen deer sign on our farm. He had hunted deer while we lived in Missouri and had looked for sign on our farm as there were rumors of someone seeing a deer in the area.”
Marvin Whitehead, Fredonia: “First doe I ever saw was in the fall of 1964. While riding the school bus one morning, I glanced out to see two does, or maybe it was a doe and a fawn, running along beside us, just across the fence. Before that, if we even saw a set of tracks, we told everyone we knew.”
Dave Easton, Olsburg: “It was opening day of quail season 1965 and I had just bought a used Model 50 Winchester and was hunting by myself. I topped over a hill and in the bottom was a buck running three does around. I just sat down and watched them for about half an hour. I had no idea what it was all about... it was quite the show. It couldn’t have been more new. That was in northern Riley County.”
Randy Smith, Americus: “I remember taking evening rides in the family Chevy station wagon... to get out of the house and see how the crops were doing. One evening (around 1970) on our drive we spotted a deer feeding out in a alfalfa field. Dad slammed on the brakes and pulled over pointing in it’s direction yelling “Look over there, look, look, look it’s a deer!” We sat alongside the road for quite some time watching the doe. We were joined by a couple of other cars occupied by folks who were just as pleased as we were to see such a sight. Dad was so excited to get to see her. I remember him telling us what a treat it was to see such a rare sight back then. He told us he hadn’t seen deer back in his younger days back on the family farm around Hartford Ks. Every time we saw a deer, we’d stop to see them no matter where we were going or if it would make us late to where we were going. Whenever we went fishing, hunting, or found deer tracks along our fields, we’d stop and check them out.”
Larry Baysinger, Oklahoma City: “We moved out west near the Colorado border when I was just 2 weeks old. In the ’60s, I went pheasant hunting with my dad from an early age and we walked all over that country. I never saw a live deer during that time. Dad said it was very rare to see a deer when he grew up. The dust bowl and depression nearly cleaned them all out. I have seen writings from in the 1800s that talked about settling in Kansas and how wild game (including deer) provided many meals.
“When we moved near Wichita and I first roamed the woods (which we didn’t have out west) is probably my first sighting. I remember walking through the woods and coming to a wheat field on the other side. I noticed two deer on the far side of the wheat field and they were headed my way. I was probably 11. I climbed up in a big tree and just laid on a branch that was about as big around as I was and watched the pair come towards me. As they got closer, I noticed that it was a doe and a bouncy young fawn. They walked right under me never knowing that I was there. It was exciting and I was hooked from then on.”
Henry Armknetch, Osborne: “I grew up near where the Republican River comes into Kansas from Colorado. Deer were there by 1950 or so. By the mid-1950s, they were very common, so I don’t remember my first deer.
“I do remember my dad talking about finding tracks of a herd of sheep and tracking them only to find that it was deer.
“All of these were mulies. We often saw them in the uplands. We started hearing rumors of whitetails by 1960 or so, but didn’t begin to see them in the uplands much until the ’70s.
“My first actual specific memory of a deer was probably 1956 (maybe 1957). We were out for a drive and saw a small herd of deer. One was a monster buck. He stood by the road and let us drive right up to him. He suddenly took one huge leap, jumping the fence and landing just a few feet in front of our hood. One more leap and he was across the second fence and off into the woods. I could take you to the exact spot where this happened, about a quarter-mile east of the Colorado line on the south side of the Republican River.
“I also remember several other deer then following the buck. The last one (maybe a fawn as it seemed littler than the others) for some reason tried to go through instead of over the second fence. That fence was woven wire to hold sheep. It hit the fence twice and bounced back twice. Dad jumped out of the car and tried to catch that deer by the hind leg. Fortunately for him, the deer got over the fence before he got there.”
Derrick Schreiber, Derby: “I’m pretty sure I was 7. That would make it 1975.
“My Dad and I regularly quail hunted northwest of Augusta on a big dairy farm. At that age, I wasn’t allowed to carry a gun yet so I was the human form of a bird dog. We were walking some timber and I was on the fringe of the winter wheat and the timber. I heard the sound of something running to my right. By the time I located the source of the noise, a brown flash bolted in front of me about 20 or 30 yards. It blew across the narrow neck of the wheat field and disappeared into the timber on the other side. What I recall from my mind’s eye was that it was most likely an 8-point. What I do know for sure though that I scared the heck out of me! Prior to that, we would occasionally see tracks a few times a season.
“My Dad was walking in the timber and kicked up the buck. Boy, oh boy… that sure was something to talk about for the rest of that day and several to follow. Even up through high school (graduated in ’86) seeing deer was not the norm.”
This story was originally published August 29, 2015 at 12:01 AM with the headline "Dear memories of Kansas deer."