With a precious couple of inches separating the gunwales from the water, Troy Thomas was thinking he needed a bigger boat.
That his buddies Matt Medley and Gerald McCumber had chosen to blaze a trail back to the truck rather than ride with Troy and his dead buck probably saved them all a drenching. If Troy had been using an outboard rather than a trolling motor, he might've been dunked transom first.
But things turned out nicely.
For the past decade, Troy has devoted three weeks of vacation time to hunt public land in neighboring Kansas. The 44-year-old UPS driver from Missouri lives only 45 minutes from where he launches a flat-bottomed aluminum boat and attaches a trolling motor in order to reach his destination quickly and quietly.
During those hunting vacations, he leaves a stand hanging 24 feet up whatever tree affords the best view. He never worries about someone stealing his equipment because few hunters venture that far over unforgiving terrain.
"I go every day, usually all day, until I get something," he said of his Kansas trips.
In 2014, he burned his tag on Friday, Nov. 10, the unseasonably hot fourth or fifth day of his earmarked 21.
The 15-pointer, trying to reach a doe bedded within a copse of saplings, came to within 26 yards of Troy. Its rack - with a BTR composite score of 194 6/8 inches - was too wide for it to slip through the trees.
Troy and his buddies wrangled the 260-pound deer into the boat, and then Matt and Gerald walked back to the truck.
"The boat's sides were barely above water," Troy grinned.