Kansas Bowdom Gets a New No. 6
By Mike Handley
Chad Chambers’ buck from 2024 reshuffled the Sunflower State’s compound bow records, seizing the No. 6 spot among Irregulars.
To crack that very high ceiling, a whitetail must score 232 inches (without benefit of the inside spread). When Brad Forbus began punching buttons after measuring Chad’s Webaunsee County bruiser, the tally — with spread — read 255 7/8.
And to think the two men who knew about the buck had agreed not to shoot it the previous two seasons, even when it wore maybe 170 inches in 2023.
The 22-year-old apprentice lineman from Leavenworth first collected trail camera photographs of the deer in 2022, when it was probably 2 1/2 years old. He and a Texan who also hunts the tract passed on it.
The following year, Chad got only two photos of the buck whose rack might’ve scored in the 170s. Those came a week apart — on Oct. 3 and 7 — from opposite sides of the farm. He spoke to the man from Texas, and they agreed to let the deer grow another year.
Fortunately, Chad never had his resolve tested. Not only did he not encounter it, but trail cam photos also ceased after Oct. 7.
“To be honest, I thought it was dead,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see it again.”
His first glimpse of the very much alive deer arrived Aug. 3, 2024.
“I jumped out of my chair,” he said. “I couldn’t believe how much it had grown!”
He was so pumped that he ordered eight more cameras. And as the season grew nearer, he also created several mock scrapes to further entice the 36-pointer to linger in front of the lenses.
The tactic worked, too. He began amassing photos of the world-class whitetail every four or five days up until mid-September, the opening of the Sunflower State’s early two-week blackpowder season.
The first daytime photo came from the property’s east side. Shortly after that, the animal stopped walking in front of cameras altogether. Without photographic reconnaissance, Chad simply took his chances and bounced around the place, hoping to get lucky.
Two and a half weeks into October, while scouting a different area of the farm, Chad discovered a huge deer bed close to a rub. A fresh scrape was about 30 yards from the depression.
“I hadn’t discussed this deer with many people, but I shared (the news of) what I’d found with this kid, Carson, who was hunting nearby every day before school,” he said. “Carson told me he’d seen a massive buck near the same draw when he was leaving one morning.
“On the evening of the 26th, I decided to drive the road near there and glass the bean fields. I didn’t see the big one, but I did see a nice 10-pointer, the big buck’s running buddy,” he said. “I figured if the 10-pointer was there, the big one had to be close by.”
Finding the bed, hearing Carson’s tale and seeing the giant’s best bud in the vicinity helped Chad realize the deer he was after had probably seen him coming every day.
“The next morning, Oct. 27, I changed my access point,” he said. “That time, I went to the property’s west side, crossed the creek and parked a quarter-mile from the tree. I was in it before daylight broke.
“The wind direction was totally wrong for that setup that day, but there wasn’t much of it,” he added. “I was banking on the thermals rolling my scent over the hill, out of the draw, and that’s what happened. I could almost see them carried away with the lifting fog.”
Chad eventually heard two buck fights. He tried grunting, snort-wheezing and even rattling, but nothing came to investigate.
Five minutes after he’d exchanged text messages with Carson, he saw a deer running across the hilltop toward him. It stopped at 120 yards and grunted, and when Chad responded, the deer snapped to attention and plowed into the draw.
When the animal popped out minutes later, it was only 25 yards from the wide-eyed hunter. Even so, Chad had no shot. He watched the deer for 15 minutes, as it stood stock-still. It had apparently crossed Chad’s scent trail.
On high alert, the buck finally turned to walk away. Chad’s day might’ve ended very differently had the deer kept going, but it stopped again at 28 yards for another three minutes. It was as if the animal was torn between leaving the man scent in its rear view and finding the rival buck it thought it had heard.
The will to exert dominance won out over the flight instinct. The buck turned back around and came directly to the base of Chad’s tree, where it licked the bottom-most climbing stick before skirting the trunk.
“For a few seconds, I was looking at the deer through my stand’s grate, and there wasn’t a thing I could do,” he said.
When the whitetail began circling outward, Chad’s mind began shuffling through possible scenarios — none of which included an optimal shot. By the time the animal was in the clear, he decided to make a bold move and mouth-grunt. The last thing he wanted was to attempt a Texas heart shot.
At the unexpected sound, the buck turned completely broadside and froze. When the arrow smacked it, the animal wheeled and put pedal to metal.
“I could see blood spraying,” Chad said. “I’d cut the aorta in half!”