Well, southeast Kansas played host to my latest adventure in the outdoors.  If I could sum up the landscape, flat, 70% crops, 20% CRP, 10% timber (and 80% of that timber is on riverbottoms and creeks), and oh yea….BIG BUCKS!

We got into hunt camp on Saturday afternoon after a flight through Dallas-Fort Worth and then into Tulsa, Oklahoma where we rented a car and drove north 2 hours to St. Paul, Kansas.  The rest of that day was spent organizing gear, hanging out at our accomodations for the week, and finding the local Wal-Mart to buy my non-res hunting license. 

We stayed at a bed and breakfast there in St. Paul.  2 sweet ol’ ladies everything in order there and purchased groceries that we cooked ourselves throughout the week.  They even came in one morning and baked banana bread for everyone.  Here was my bedroom. 

Pretty elegant accomodations for deer camp if you ask me.  Good time though, big living room downstairs where we could watch football, the weather, and the debate on Thursday night.

Fast forward to Sunday, we spent the morning driving from parcel to parcel and checking out the stands and blinds we would be hunting from during the week.  After lunch, we fired off our muzzleloaders to see if they were still sighted after the airport transit.  Dad’s went off without a hitch, but I wish I could say the same for mine.  On my first shot, the bullet actually lobbed out of the barrel and only traveled 35 or 40 feet.  Never seen that happen before, but our only thoughts were that only a portion of the powder burned and was just enough to push the bullet out of the barrel but that was all.  If you have any thoughts, please weigh in with a comment below.  And no…I didn’t fire a .45 caliber bullet and sabot out of my .50 caliber muzzleloader.  We checked the cases, and plus, I’ve never known anyone who had a .45 caliber gun to get gear mixed up with. 

Anyways, pull the gun apart, clean, put it back together, shoot, 1″ right, 1″ low, good enough for me.

That night we cruised around some bean fields, but sightings were slim - an forecast of how the week was going to play out.