Help! Big buck lost

That photo is as bad a photo as I have seen.

It is amazing how tough an old buck can be. Cutman gave you good advice about the dog in the downwind position. Do you have coyotes? If you hear them - go to them. He will smell like death and they will find him before he dies. Look for buzzards also - they are a clue to a dying animal.

I hope you get to lay hands on his antlers. May your luck change in your favor.
 
I have yotes around here but not as much as I’m used to, I bought the house I live in 3 years ago, about 20 miles from where i grew up. Where I grew up there were packs and packs, during dear season you’d hear them howling half hour after dark every night. Here pretty much never but theyre still here. I’ve actually seen 2 different sets of tracks while I’ve been looking for him and I changed my strategy and started following them, they lead to a a dead mouse once, the other kept going over the hill way farther than this bucks range, but both were a single yote, not several. Also don’t have many turkey buzzards. I’ve been listening and looking for crows because here they’re the tell tail sign here. I’ve followed groups of them all over but right now they’re going from gut pile to gut pile. I got one during bow, a buddy of mine got one while helping me search. I told my friends that came to look they can fill their tags on my land, luckily only one did lol that’s the only payment that works during deer season, otherwise they’d be in their stands
 
That photo is from 100 yards with a phone, zoomed in several times. I should’ve taken another photo in the swamp when I was 30-40 feet from him but my phone died trying to text my wife for bullets and when I saw him nodding his head then put his head down I figured it was only a matter of time. Next picture I figured I’d be holding him, not what it turned into. But in that pic if you can actually see him, you can see the size of the his rack in reference to his body and he’s a monster. I know there are bigger white tails in different parts of the state and country but in my county a buddy of mine holds the 5th biggest with a buck scoring 155, I’m not going to even give you a guess in score because that would be stupid but he’s much bigger than his
 
That is great advice though, after 5 days into it a sign of a predator or scavenger was as good as a sign of him. Every time I hear a crow or see yote prints I’m following them
 
Still alive. Found beds with blood and bile again even had a little bit of stomach contents in it, bloody urine, bile. Seams to be leaking more now than before. Guess I’m just going to have to keep looking


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What is your terrain like? Can you set back on a hillside and glass for a couple of mornings and evenings? It sounds like you know the deer's core area, maybe you can put eyes on him and get an idea of what you are dealing with or do a stalk on him. I bet he is weak and not completely alert...
 
Can’t unfortunately, that would be nice, the woods are far to thick here, too many pines, and we have hill and valleys but they’re gradual so you can’t see too far, and the thick woods don’t help with that even when you can get on top of a hill


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I admire your persistence.
One thing that had me shaking my head was the fact that you only took three rounds of ammo with you into the field. "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail" (Benjamin Franklin)
 
As bad as the situation is, the bright side is you’ll learn from this and do everything in your power from now on to keep this from happening again. I know you’ll find this deer if you keep after him. Wish I could physically be there to help look for him. Good luck


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The fact that you keep finding his beds, blood, and bile should give you quite a bit of hope. He is going to die, and if you have is core area narrowed down like it sounds like, you will eventually find him. My biggest fear would be pushing him out of his core area that you have narrowed down. However, it does sound like he is comfortable in this area, and is probably to weak to move any long distance at any 1 point in time.
 
This is the 1st time I've heard of a gut shot deer living this long. Are you sure it's bile that you are finding?
 
Tap said:
This is the 1st time I've heard of a gut shot deer living this long. Are you sure it's bile that you are finding?
Click to expand...
Yeah the OP should post up some pics of what he's finding in these beds. I'm surprised the buck is moving any if he's hurt enough to be dying.
 
It's been years ago, but I believe I read a story of a buck that lived like 10-14 days after a gut shot. It was a very minor hit, and infection killed him.
 
Yeah 2 weeks and two days, I didn’t get pics of the beds when the snow was fresh but I’ll show you what I got, it’s sometimes greenish or brownish but smells like a gut shot deer I’m not sure if it’s actually bile but it’s definitely some sort of gut liquid, and the stomach contents I found looks like half digested cud I came across a gut pile from one my buddy shot and all that’s left of it looks the exact same as what I found


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