TV celebrity Dan Thurston has a deer paradise right out the back door

Dan Thurston still laughs about the day he was negotiating to buy a little piece of deer heaven in southeast Kansas.

“We didn’t want the Realtor to think we had a lot of money,” said Thurston, who today is a nationally known deer hunter. “I had my old overalls on and I was in a beat-up truck.

“My brother-in law was with me, and he told the Realtor, ‘We’re going to turn this land into a pet cemetery and a nudist colony.’ That Realtor thought he was dealing with a couple of Kansas hicks.”

Well, those hicks did all right for themselves. Thurston bought the land in 1995 at a bargain price, fulfilling his dream of one day owning a farm.

“I was always into classic cars,” said Thurston, 59, who lives in Emporia, Kan. “But I’m a country boy and I had always wanted to own some land.

“I didn’t buy it specifically for deer hunting. But once I had it, I realized what I had.”

The land had an excellent mix of cover, timber and open areas that deer thrive in. Thurston worked to make that land even more attractive to deer, and more important, provided the best food and habitat at the core of his acreage. That way, the deer were protected from road hunters and had a place that made them feel safe.

The result? Well, swing open the door of Thurston’s deer-hunting clubhouse. The place is a shrine to Kansas’ famous deer hunting.

There are 41 mounts of trophy deer hanging on the walls, more than half of them taken by Thurston with his bow.

“We call this our Forty-Mile Collection,” Thurston said. “Every one of these deer were taken within 40 miles of this spot.

“This is a great area. There is timber along the creek bottoms, but there also are a lot of woolly pastures. When the deer get pressured, they’ll just hunker down in these big pastures with a lot of cover.

“That, plus the genetics of our deer, makes for some big, mature bucks.”

Those bucks have always fascinated Thurston. He marvels at how far the Kansas deer population has come in such a short time.

“When I was a kid, you just didn’t see deer around here,” he said. “I saw my first deer from a school bus and it was a big deal.

“The bus driver slowed down so we could all get a good look, and he talked about how rare it was to see one.”

Not anymore. Kansas is known nationally for its big-bodied, wide-antlered bucks, and Thurston knows it as much as anyone. He is one of the stars of the national television show “Drury Outdoors Bow Madness” for seven years and he travels the country pursuing big game. Still, he knows some of the best hunting in the nation lies right out his backyard.

Thurston met Terry and Mark Drury in 1999, when an Emporia outfitter asked Thurston if he would take them hunting. Thurston agreed and took them to a fence row where he had seen a big buck.

Thurston circled around and made a drive down the fence row toward where Terry was sitting. Sure enough, he pushed the big buck in Drury’s direction and Drury took the buck down with his muzzleloader.

Thurston and the Drurys became friends and it wasn’t long before Thurston was part of their television show. He was the humor guy, a role he quickly embraced.

His nickname became Bow Sadness after he encountered Murphy’s Law of Bow Hunting on several filmed hunts. But viewers got to see Thurston’s serious side, too, when he arrowed several huge bucks in episodes.

Thurston took a buck with a huge rack that scored 194 on the Boone and Crockett measuring scale. And he has taken other big ones, as the Wall of Fame in his clubhouse will attest.

The key? Knowing the buck you are pursuing, and paying attention to detail.

“You have to play the wind, know the cycle of the rut, how the different fronts are affecting the deer and what phase they are in,” Thurston said. “We make it look easy on television. But it takes a lot of work.”

This story was originally published October 3, 2014 at 8:31 PM with the headline "TV celebrity Dan Thurston has a deer paradise right out the back door."