Inspired success

This is a love story, to be sure.
Not one of those silly, summer chick-lit novellas that is to be read at the beach. No, this is about the love of deer hunting and about a couple guys with bows and a video camera.
The fact is I am just your average “obsessed with whitetails” hunter that eats, sleeps and dreams deer hunting.
So when Rod Owen of Blue Springs and a Drury Outdoors Team Member offered me a chance a year ago to be his videographer – even hunt with him – well, of course, I was on board. We were to hunt my lease in Kansas, and his lease in Adams County, Ill., in the fall of 2007.
To say I was excited was an understatement and both my wife and son could feel my buzz. You have to understand that while most kids grow up wanting to be pro athletes, my heroes have always been deer hunters – and Rod and Drury Outdoors are certainly two of the marquee names.
Time passed quickly after Rod’s invitation, and before I knew it, our scheduled hunts for the end of October and early November were upon us. Rod and I had planned to meet up in Kansas on Oct. 27. I was to leave Jackson, Miss., where I was working the day before on a construction job.
I planned to stay at my home in Monticello, Ark., that night and finished gathering my gear for the two-week hunt. I was halfway home when I got a call from Rod in Blue Springs. Seems as though a problem at work was going to delay our connection.
But I was not to be deterred. As soon as I hung up, I called my good friend Ted Gray and talked him into going to Kansas with me until Rod was free. He agreed and hours later we arrived worn out and decided to sleep in and hang stands after the morning deer movement.
By the next afternoon we were ready. So at 4:30 we parked the truck, grabbed our gear and a scouting camera and headed for an observation stand to see what might be in the neighborhood.
Arriving at the stand, I took the scouting camera and hung it on the fence line over an active scrape. After getting settled in, I did a half-hearted interview for the camera, almost as a practice run.
“We’ve only got 45 minutes left of daylight left,” I said. “I guess you can’t expect too much on the first day.”
I had just barely turned around when a buck stepped into the field 300 yards away. Much to my astonishment it was a “shooter” and he was slowly making his way toward us. Two hundred yards … 100 yards. When he cut the corner, I went to my grunt call. No response.
He eased to the edge of the timber, then disappeared. It was to good to be true, I reasoned: A buck that would score in the high 140s, 4-year old buck, first afternoon, 80 degrees, and only 45 minutes to hunt. Yep, just a fluke.
But just as I convinced myself it wasn’t going to happen, the trophy buck stepped back into the field and started working a scrape. Twenty minutes later he finally stepped into the open broad side. I drew my bow, anchored my pin and my first video buck was mine – a 145 6/8 Kansas nine-point.
My inspiration, Rod Owen, was still stuck back in Blue Springs, but I couldn’t help but feel he had been my muse.
In the coming days, Rod was able to break clear and we made tracks to Illinois. Despite near-perfect conditions in a secluded cut corn field, things began badly. First, an armed poacher, a farmer fixing a nearby fence and, perhaps worst of all, a damaged camera that would have to be replaced since we had come here to produce a Drury Outdoors video.
It wasn’t until the morning of Nov. 6 that things began to go our way – and after Rod graciously gave me the bow and he took the camera.
“Let’s change our luck,” he ordered.
It worked.
An hour into daylight, a nice 200-pound, 10-point made his way into my range. And a short time later, my second video buck was down. I was ecstatic but wishing it had been the guy who had put me in this fortunate position: Rod Owen.
That afternoon was nearly perfect – cold, calm and we were seeing bucks cruising fields on the way back into the field from lunch.
We watched smaller bucks in front of us the rest of the afternoon. Then with an hour and a half until dark, I caught movement of something that resembled a large antler.
“Giant buck! Giant buck!” I whispered loudly to my mentor.
It stood motionless 50 yards away and I pressed record on the camera. Rod did what he does best – he put a 300-pound, 172 1/8-inch Illinois whitetail in his sights.
These three hunts, along with many other exciting hunts, are documented on this year’s Drury Outdoors “Fatal Attraction” Video, Volume 8.
For me it is Dream Come True, Volume 1.