Youth Hunter Nails Big Kansas Buck While Hiding in the Weeds

Blake Landwehr was hunting on a hot September afternoon during the Kansas youth season when this buck gave him a 150-yard shot opportunity. Image courtesy of Jon Landwehr

Deer hunting is a lifestyle for Jon Landwehr and his family. In fact, you could say it’s in their blood. The end of one season is the beginning of the next, as they spend countless hours planning and preparing. It’s not by accident that the family has waylaid some outstanding whitetails, and they document their deer season each year for Midwest Whitetail.

Jon’s son, Blake Landwehr, is only 13 years old, but he has quite a lot of deer hunting under his belt; he’s been hunting since age 5 and has killed a buck every year since. And some of them are dozers. For example, his 2024 buck grossed 196 inches, and his 2023 buck went 166.

“We’re pretty fortunate to have year-round food and great antler genetics,” Jon explained of their Kansas hunting grounds. “We put in tons of work to make sure these deer stay alive and healthy. It can be pretty challenging at times, especially when you factor in EHD — we had it fairly bad in 2024 — and adjacent landowners who hunt.”

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A classic example of the sweat equity the Landwehrs invest in the ground they manage and hunt is the farm where Blake killed a tremendous buck during the Kansas youth hunt this September.

“We’ve been hunting this farm for five years now, and we’ve done lots of habitat work,” Jon said. “The farm is about 98 percent agricultural, and it has a big windbreak. This last winter, we put a drum mulcher on a skid steer and cleaned it up really well, making a lot more bedding cover. We’ve also put in food plots and water sources over the last few years. We’re now able to hold deer, which is tough to do in western Kansas, where there are no river bottoms or large blocks of timber.

This outstanding typical buck is the product of the hard work the Landwehr family annually invests in the properties they hunt. Image courtesy of Jon Landwehr

“Last year, we had Blake’s buck on a trail camera about 2 miles away from the farm where he killed it this year,” Jon continued. “He started popping up on the cameras again this year; he obviously felt comfortable there because he moved in and pretty much just stayed. Seeing the results of our hard work is awesome.”

The food source the buck was glued to was a milo field. Until the crop is cut, Jon said that the bucks really gravitate to milo in this region.

“They live in it, bed in it, and pretty much only come out to get water,” he said. “It makes it very difficult to hunt the big mature bucks, especially during the early season when it’s hot and they’re only on their feet for a short window in the daylight.”

A few different big bucks were roaming the farm by late summer, and the Landwehrs knew that catching them coming out of the milo and going to a nearby water source would be the name of the game for Blake’s early September youth hunt. They hunted five or six times, and because they had enough different options, they sat in new spots each afternoon.

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On Sept. 11, two target bucks were on the trail camera along a fencerow, leaving the milo to head for the water. It was smoking hot the following day, with temperatures soaring into the 90s, and Jon suspected the two big bruisers would follow the same routine. Father and son headed out to an overgrown fencerow and hid in some tall weeds.

“We got set up at about 5:45 p.m.,” Blake explained. “It was extremely hot, so we dressed very lightly. Nothing moved until about 7:15. One buck stood up, and then he went behind a tree, where we couldn’t see him. A little later, three bucks stepped out from behind the tree, and one of them that we call Log Splitter jumped the fence and ran right down to the water, where we could no longer see him.”

A second target buck jumped the fence, offering Blake a 150-yard shot. He aimed carefully and squeezed off a shot. His .243 cracked across the prairies, the bullet hitting the buck perfectly and anchoring it on the spot.

“It felt amazing to kill such an incredible deer,” Blake said. “We were both just cheering. It was magnificent. I called my mom and told her that I’d gotten the buck, and she was so excited to hear the news.

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“At first, we thought that Blake had spined the deer, being that it dropped,” Jon said. “But later, when we skinned him out, we learned that the hit was just behind the shoulder. The Hornady bullet really did some damage.”

A symmetrical 170-class typical 10-pointer gets a lot of glory for its antlers, but as thrilled as Blake is with his buck’s antlers, he doesn’t just deer hunt for antlers. When asked what he likes about deer hunting, he said, “The backstraps. They’re just so good.” Good answer, young fella.