Corinna and I drove the 11 hours to Kansas for the hunt.  We arrived after some of our guests.  The first person we met was Mike Hanback of the T.V. show, "The Buck Stops Here".  Our fears were relieved as we shook hands with Mike and were immediately taken by his sincerity and interest in us! If you have ever watched his show, you know that he appears to be just a normal guy who is out hunting like the rest of us.  He isn't arrogant and in fact is a humble likeable person.  His T.V. persona and his real life person match perfectly.

Mikes show would comprise of two hunts. The other hunter was John Fink from Remington Firearms. Again, he was a pleasant surprise.  John was equally kind and acted like he was just another hunter in camp.  I would consider it a pleasure to hunt with these two men any time.

Lastly, we met Jay Guthrie who will be airing a new show next fall that focuses on the AR rifle as a platform for various calibers of hunting rifles.  We immediately knew we had met a new friend.  Jay is young and enthusiastic.  He is passionate about everything that he does and eager to work hard.  Again, like Mike and John, Jay was a pleasure to have in camp and they hunted as hard as or harder than the rest of us.

You can imagine our relief.  No matter how tough the hunting, life at the camp house would be an pleasant adventure!  Keaton, the outfitter, made sure that every single hunter had plenty of attention and was placed in locations where trophies had been spotted throughout the season.  Everyone felt like a celebrity at camp.

The litmus test for our group came when the hunting grew tough which was the entire week!  The first two days, the wind howled and the thermometer dropped lower and lower.  We had perfect whitetail weather for Kansas.  Not this week, the mature bucks hunkered down and did not show themselves!  Each hunter encountered numerous does and immature bucks.  The few mature bucks that did show themselves, showed after T.V. light or with broken beams.  Not one hunter in camp complained.  Everyone hunted equally hard and understood that free range hunting is unpredictable.  We were in the middle of monster buck territory and this was just not our week.

John, with Remington, mercifully harvested a crippled deer that had some sort of hoof disease.  Another hunter from Birmingham, AJ, sacrificed his tag for a wounded twelve point deer to keep it from suffering a miserable death during a tough winter.  That being said, the twelve point was AJ's first buck!  Yes it was a twelve point but AJ had his sights set high for a big Boone & Crockett Kansas buck.  AJ was a sport and a fun addition to camp.  He and his brother in law, Jack, provided great enthusiasm and entertainment throughout the week.  The rest of us hunted hard but were victims of smarter bucks.  The coolers in town were empty!  No one saw the mature bucks that week.

The most emotional part of our week came when Mike Hanback put the cameras on AJ as he returned to camp with his first buck!  AJ became a "movie star" and enjoyed every moment as did the rest of us!  We had a ball watching Mike and his two camera men interview AJ who was ecstatic over his trophy.  I was impressed with AJ's excitement and Mike's participation in the whole event.  It is a memory that will be with me and I'm sure the rest of camp for the rest of our lives.