Ryan Koelsch Starts Bowhunting Big Bucks and Selling Real Estate
Editor’s Note: 30-year-old Ryan Koelsch of Saint John, Kansas, had a problem, “My work was interfering with my deer hunting, and this problem was created by Mossy Oak.” Koelsch has been a Mossy Oak Pro for 5 years, starting to work for Mossy Oak Properties after graduating from college. “When I graduated from college, I had to go to work and spend a lot of time learning the real estate business. I quickly learned that just before deer season and during deer season was when hunters were looking for properties to buy to have a place to hunt big deer in Kansas. Of course, that was when I needed to be scouting and hunting for deer. To make a living as a realtor, I had to give up most of my hunting time to find and sell property, creating a major mental struggle for me,” so I started bowhunting in the early season.”
I love to hunt. Since I live in Kansas, I know the big-buck potential that our state offers to in-state residents and out-of-state hunters also. Not only does Kansas produce some tremendous sized whitetail bucks, the western half of the state also has an abundant mule deer population. So, some places in Kansas home both productive whitetail and mule deer hunting in the same place, although Kansas has built its reputation with sportsmen for producing giant whitetails.
Since I’ve been in the real estate business, I’ve learned there’s a lot of Kansas property where a person can for a reasonable price get land with pheasants, quail, three different species of turkeys, including easterns, Rio Grandes and hybrid turkeys - a cross between the eastern and the Rio turkey, big whitetails and mule deer and possibly waterfowl. I was excited to get in the real estate business with Mossy Oak Properties. I’d been bowhunting since I was very young and took my first deer with a bow when I was 13 years old. Bowhunting enabled me to learn a new method of hunting and solve my problem of not having enough time to deer hunt during deer season, since bowhunting season is early.
I’ve always loved the outdoors. When people ask me about the opposition to hunting and fishing, I tell them, “When I was in diapers, I walked around with a bow in one hand and a fishing rod in the other hand.” Realistically my dad started me shooting the bow when I was 10 years old. So, selling real estate for Mossy Oak Properties allows me to work outside and spend much of my time looking at lands that people want to sell and trying to find land that people want to buy. I feel fortunate to have a job that enables me to work outside in the woods and the water, where I can see a lot of game. But when I didn’t have much time to hunt deer, I had to learn how to find big bucks, how to pattern big bucks and how to spend the least amount of time required to take a big buck. As I pursued these goals, I learned a much-more effective way to hunt big bucks with a bow.
Tomorrow: Ryan Koelsch’s Tactics to Hunt Bucks and Trophy Whitetails
