This is where readers can submit pictures of their hunting trophies, or “Hot Shots” as we call them. You can submit .jpeg images to todaysbesthunting@gmail.com, along with your hunting story and it may end up on our Hot Shots gallery!
Hi, I’m Michelle! I’m pretty proud of this doe as it’s MY FIRST DEER! My husband has been taking me hunting for over 4 years, and I have had my share of misses…But in January of 2023, I finally did it during rifle season, it was a nice clean take down and I’m incredibly proud to say I contributed in putting some meat in our freezer for the year! God Bless yall’s hunts! ~Michelle
Hey this is Jade! I took this absolute stud of a Kansas 10 point. I’d been watching him for several years on camera and one morning on 12/3/21 at 8:45am, I harvested him with the good old 243 savage at 80 yards…hit him right under the lungs and he only went 50 yards! I was very blessed to be able to harvest him. He’s pretty tasty too!
Daybreak found me sitting comfortably in my blind, watching the Sun finally start clawing its way up into the sky. The time was 7:27AM and it was opening day of the 2019 Kansas Firearm Season. I had been in the blind for approximately 45 minutes and had already had four does ghost along in front of me before first light. With temperatures hovering just above freezing and a moderate northwest wind, I had high hopes of experiencing good deer movement. From trail cam pictures I knew there were some good bucks working the area so I felt pretty confident about my chances of harvesting one of them. The day was full of promise.
Between 8:00 and 8:30, I started seeing buck movement and had multiple visits from a small 4-point, a 5-point and an uneven racked 7-point as they visited the feeder area I was overlooking. They all just meandered lazily around and were not aggressive towards each other so I knew they were not dominant bucks. They finally worked their way back into the thickets each blissfully unaware of my presence. The next hour and a half was spent scanning the area while listening to shots from other hunters ring out in the distance.
Just around 10:00AM I happened to glance to the east and saw a pretty good buck staring intently at me. He was about 110 yards away but seemed to be laser focused in my direction. Iimmediately froze because I thought he may have seen me due to my being sky-lined by the window that was directly behind me. Watching him watch me, (or so I thought) I heard some noise outside the open east-facing window . As I slowly rotated my head, at a distance of only four yards away, I saw the 5-point I had seen earlier come walking out from behind my blind headed in the general direction of the much larger buck. It was then I realized it was the 5-point that had captured the big guys attention and not me. I let the 5-point get about twenty yards away so as to not spook him and run the risk of also spooking the bigger buck at the same time, plus the 5-point was now angling more to the north further drawing attention away from the blind area. I cautiously got my rifle into position, got a stable, comfortable rest and aligned the crosshairs just behind the big deer’s shoulder and slowly squeezed the trigger. I was using myown hand-loaded ammunition in the Mossberg .308 rifle I’ve owned and hunted with ever since I was seventeen (I turned sixty-four in 2019, you do the math). The trusty old rifle barked, igniting the charge of IMR 4064 powder to send the Nosler 150 gr ballistic tip bullet on its way. The bullet flew true and the big buck was mine. He was a large 8-point main frame with a small kicker point on each beam for a total of 10 points.
~Alan