The Ones That Got Away

[dogghr]

An article in recent OL mag got me thinking. It was stories of deer that hunters had failed to take. So thot those on here might have some good ones to share, even if you do still lay at night thinking of them.

The first I'll share. There was a time in bow season that to see deer on a hunt was a huge plus. And to see a buck of any kind was such a bonus. Deer numbers were very low and bow season was a true dedication. I wasn't very old and was hunting a ridge top with my dad that we had packed into for the day. A long, steep and hard 2 hour walk but good area. As I sat with my used 46# recurve on a fallen tree against a massive aging oak, a great 8 point materialized working a scrape just 25 yds form me that I didn't even know was there. I understood scrapes, but didn't really understand at that time the idea of licking branches. As he worked the branches, oblivious to anything else, I drew the Hyatt and released the Bear tipped cedar shaft. The arrow just nicked the underside of the buck and of course he exploded down the mountain. I spent the rest of that season bowhunting that buck on that ridge but never saw him again. That was quite a few years ago and I still think of that sit often and can still envision him as if it was yesterday. Seeing one or two mature bucks in a season back then, makes you appreciate todays hunting.

The other no tag moment. I was rushed by family obligations one Thanksgiving morning during hunting season. So I went out long before daylight to stand ground beside a cattle barn adjacent to a alfalfa field. The idea , I would check out the field and shoot if any decent buck was there, and if not head on home. As the sun rose, I glassed the 20 ac of alfalfa but saw absolutely no deer. Dissappointed, I walked along the edge of the old wood sided barn and as I peaked around the corner to check the smaller adjacent field, I could see thru the cattle stall board fence the horns of the biggest buck I have ever seen. The stall was built with 1x6s with 3-4 in spacing, just enough to see the buck. I slipped over against the fence where I stood, and the fence was too high to shoot over. Standing on a fence post that was laying on the ground, I tried to draw a bead with my rifle on the massive buck. The post kept rolling around and I nearly fell. I made a shot of some sort, but missed the buck completely. I was mad and dissapointed and sulked thru Thanksgiving dinner that day. Still remember that vision of him also.

I'm sure you guys have a few stories as well. Give me something to think about as I start my all day sits this week.

 

[George]

I think that we all have a few of those tales to tell, here's one.

The second day that I ever got in to a tree with a gun in Iowa I had a biggun come up from behind me. But first, I was sitting there with my Knight MK85 54 caliber with a falling snow. The deer came up and I had to lean out to obtain a gun rest, He was facing me at 30 yards so I put the cross hairs on his heart and slowly squeezed the trigger till I had about 40 pounds of pressure on the trigger. The snow fell on the exposed bolt, melted, and refroze the bolt in to place. By the time I freed the bolt the buck was on to me and heading for the Black Canyon of my north forty. The following year he was found dead a mile away on State land. I scored him a net 208 non-typical.




G

 

[j-bird]

I had a "one that got away" a few years back.

I was sitting on a point of a ridge overlooking a cut corn field. It was firearms season and I was sitting there with my mossberg 500 smooth bore 12 gauge with iron sights. My son was just 300 yards away in another stand and although I couldn't see him I knew he could see at least a portion of where I was hunting.

It was mid morning and things where pretty uneventful and way off to my right I see a young yearling buck tending a doe and she appears to be heading my way. I was fairly excited, but the buck wasn't what I was looking for. As they slowly walked towards me along the edge of the field they stopped and looked across the field. Well Mr Mossy Horns had seen enough across the 15 acre field and he comes in to break up the party. He came across in a blur and when he stopped he was/is the biggest buck I have ever seen while hunting. This deer would easily surpass 150 and may have been 170......I was pretty pumped now!

The younger buck backed off, but never went away and the doe never stopped walking. The big buck would bluff the smaller buck back as the three of them got closer and closer. This was back before everybody had a cell phone but we used hand radios to keep in touch with my boy since he was still an inexperienced hunter. I called my boy, "Tom can you see what I see?" My boy replies back, " Holy #$%@ Dad!" I told him, "Hold on to your a$$ I'm gonna start shooting". The big buck was 60 yards away or so and I pulled up - took aim and BOOM! The recoil of the gun started the pump action so I finished and chambered another shell. I looked out and all three deer just stood there. What the !?!?! BOOM - again. The deer move a little but they seem rather un-phased. OK - maybe I'm low so I aim higher and shoot yet again - BOOM! Again nothing and now the deer are stirring a bit. Now I 'm getting frustrated and the deer are acting like they are going to bolt. I chamber another round and shoot again, and again. The deer are just about to bolt and I go to chamber the last round in the gun.

I'm not sure exactly what happened but some how, some way the round caught the retraction claw and flings the last live round I have out of the gun and up into the air. To this day I see that round tumbling end over end in slow motion as I reach out for it in a desperate attempt to recover it. It slowly falls to the ground in the leaf litter..... "Are you kidding me? Are YOU F'N kidding me!" I figure I have nothing to lose now, so I climb down the ladder and fully expect the deer to run. I get down quickly and I am looking for a needle in a haystack for that last round. I actually found it and as I hurry back up the deer are still there. What? How is that possible? I focus to load the round straight into the chamber in the gun and I look up to take the shot and I see tails trotting off! What? NNNNNoooooo!!!!!

I sit there in this fog in my mind trying to make sense of what just happened. I hear the radio "Dad?" "Dad....you ok?" "Dad?" I replied back to him "No Tom, I'm not Ok - I missed, every time....I missed." Tom calls back, "You got any ammo left?" "Yep, I got one round...... why?" I asked him. "Oh, OK, I won't say anything then......you may shoot me, cause WAY TO GO - YOU DICKED THAT ALL UP DIDN'T YOU....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!" I never came closer to shooting at my own son then that moment!!!!!

First thing I did was went home, drove all the way to Cincinnati, Ohio to Bass pro and bought me a fully rifled barrel with a scope mount and more slugs. I spent the afternoon kicking the crap out of my shoulder getting that gun ready. I was black and blue from the range time, but I was not EVER going to let that happen again. To this day that gun has never acted up again and I have killed some nice deer with is, but never of the size of the one that got away. If there is one thing I have learned in hunting is that you have to learn from your mistakes......or your bound to repeat them and then you REALLY feel stupid!

 

[Fish]

Great thread idea, dogghr.

I was in my early twenties and had hunted hard all year for a buck. Heck, i had lowered my standards to shoot nearly any buck. Despite repeated close calls throughout bow season and gun season, i never fired a shot.
Our muzzleloader season began in mid December and dad and i headed to the woods that first Saturday evening. A light snow, but one with those big heavy flakes, was falling. I told dad that i was shooting any deer that night. He was hunting not far away and left me saying he hoped he would here my muzzleloader roar.
I nestled into a blowdown in an area i hardly knew. The snow falling was a perfect moment. Sometime long before dark, i looked up and saw a mass of antlers walking straight at me. I could not believe my eyes. Was this really going to happen? After all the hours id spent trying to kill a buck? I readied myself and in the falling snow that buck stood broadside at twenty yards. A slam dunk. I aimed, squeezed, heard the roar of the gun and saw nothing but smoke. Last i saw the deer was about 100 yards away. And he was running hard.
After trailing and re-trailing i confirmed that i had completely missed. I sat on a stump in the snowfall and shed tears. It was too perfect. What i would have given to have told dad, who thought i probably knocked off a doe, that i had killed a monster buck. And fellas, ive killed some big deer. He was a dandy.
Unable to understand the miss, i shot the gun several times and realized i was shooting a different bullet than when i had sighted in the gun. Everything was high. I put in the right bullet and the gun was perfect.

That deer will always be a part of who i am as a hunter. Never give up. And make double sure of your weapon.

 

[Familytradition]

My most memorable one is already posted in my Dugout thread, but I'll tell it again for those that do not know. This buck too shaped the Hunter that I am today. I had an ugly palmated buck that we had watched on camera and from our stands for a few years. A palmated rack ranked higher on my list than a drop tine or any other type of oddity. I blame an old calendar that received one Christmas with a gnarly old palmated buck on it. I patterned this deer with cameras and put myself right on him. He came out of the standing corn, snort weased, made a scape, and ran off a puny buck. He walked right under neath me and my stand rattled a little. He spooked a bit, but mostly just took a quartering away angle and stopped at 30 yards. I snuck an arrow in. He took off. I waited an hour before getting down, which was easier than normal thanks to cell phones and the fact that I was waiting on my dad to come help track. We tracked him about 300 yards with good blood. One of those tracks that you just know he is laying over the next hump. He finally came to a cut corn field and the blood vanished. We walked all over the next 2 days. Looking for crows, buzzards, and coyotes; any sign of him. This was extremely difficult for me as I had already lost another buck earlier that year. I was down and out. I did get to know his ending however. The neighbor shoot him during gun season. He is a serious Hunter too and he told me he has no idea how that buck survived my arrow. He said I way high, but not terribly. He said I hit at least one lung, but infection made his curiosity go away. The other buck we found dead later that year as well. I had to be within a few paces of him when we tracked him that day, but the thicket was an unforgiving mess and we couldn't see him. I really wanted that buck and hurt to see him on someone else's wall after I was so close. I blame mechanical broadheads at least somewhat and will not use them. I hate to be that guy; I too have seen what they can do, but I am convinced that they didn't open on these deer and one the year before. I have killed many many deer with a gun and lost 3 good bucks with a bow. I still do not have that first bow kill; I have some of goofiest stuff happen to me while bow hunting.

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[catscratch]

Lol, great stories!
I've got several but I'll just start with one. I might add another later.

It was Christmas morning several yrs ago. My wife had family in town so we stayed Christmas eve with her parents. She said I could hunt in the morning if I was back at the house an hour after daylight for the kids to open presents (don't tell me your wife doesn't dictate hunting on Christmas day!). I hunted behind a little pond at the base of a huge hillside. At what I thought was the last possible moment (I forgot my watch and didn't know the time, it was cloudy so I didn't have the sun to go off of, and I was scared to death to screw up Christmas morning at my wife's family place). I crawled out of the stand and snuck up to the pond damn... I peaked over to see a line of deer marching down the hillside right at me. One by one they walked past at about 50yds. The first one was a spike, all were bucks, there were thirteen of them in all with last being a massive 13pt... they all walked directly under the stand I had just crawled out of.
After the parade of bucks I hot footed it to the car and drove back to the house, determined not to make the morning worse by being late. I walked into a house of people still asleep on the floor, couch, spare beds, and recliner... It hadn't been an hour yet and I was back early!!!

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[g squared 23]

This had to be back when I was in high school or college, definitely not an accomolished bowhunter (still not), hunting on the family farm at a time when my relatives were focusing on other properties and I had this 180 to myself.

I was sitting at the mouth of an isolated 1+ acre field planted in winter wheat. At the base of the field, a doe with a monster tall 6x5 buck pop out and start feeding a mere 80 yards away. Wind was perfect, and those deer just had to pass through the pinch of the field out into the larger adjacent field, putting this huge buck within 25 yards of my stand.

Rewind to my walk into the stand: this was my first time in as I had hung the stand the day before, but there were huge scrapes all over this area, including right under my stand. So I pull out some cheap $h*t muth******ing deer pee, and pour the entire bottle into the scrape, hoping to draw in a huge buck (uuuuuuggggghhhhh).

Back to the the past's present, I'm waiting for the 6x5 and his girl to make their way past my stand as they continue to inch closer. It's GOING to happen!!

Then right in front of my stand, a large group of does pops out of the woods, trailed by an enormous, long nosed doe. The other deer start feeding, but not this b****. She makes a beeline for the scrape under my stand, takes about 2 sniffs, and starts losing it. Blowing and carrying on, and eventually running away leading the rest of the deer, including my huge 6x5, away forever. Then goes downwind and continues blowing until dark.

This was back before we used trail cams so we never saw him again, but I estimate that deer to be in the 160s as a typical. If ONLY I hadn't bought that stupid stupid cheap ****ing deer urine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Incidentally I also had a 140" 10 point walk past just out of range, so it was simultaneously one of the best and worst hunts I've ever experienced.

 

[g squared 23]

Well unfortunately I have another story to add.

Last Friday, I decided to sit a tiny piece of property that the inlaws own. I had actually shot a decent buck there a week earlier, so even though it's less than a 10 acre woodlot, I had busted some does from their beds on my walk out, so I was trying to set up to spank one.

So I'm doing all of this half heartedly as I dont care that awful much, but I aint going shopping either. So I decide to take a stand and sticks in on my back, and set up around where I saw those does the week before so I could try and shoot one with my bow.

I get in right at daylight as I'm not that serious, but I'm in a great little travel area albeit only 60 yards off a gravel road, and 200 yards from the inlaws' camper (I can see my damn car clear as day).

So I'm kind of late as mentioned, I didnt really care and hit snooze too much, but MAN do I hate walking in late. So anyway, I'm sitting until about 8, and all of a sudden, mother nature calls. Actually, she is SCREAMING, and it's fixing to be a mess; so I get down and quickly as I can stumble to my car for some TP. It was an awful 200 yards as that thing was prairie dogging worse and worse with every labored step. After narrowly escaping that ordeal with an unsoiled pair of pants, I for some reason decided to get back up in the stand. "Cant kill 'em at home" I tell myself, so even though my optimism is not at an all time high, I climb back into my perch by 8:45.

As I'm looking around, I actually see some decent rubs, but it is sooo thick. The autumn olive is out of control and I dont really have many if any shooting lanes, but I can see this entire funnel from this tree, which is why I chose this tree in the dark.

I decide to have my bow in my lap as my brother is always getting on me to "be ready". At 9:30, Out of the olive 30 yards away, I actually see movement. As it comes closer, I swear it's a 2.5 y/o buck that has dropped its antlers. But I realize it is just a morbidly obese, HUGE doe. As she comes closer, it's probably the biggest doe I've ever seen. I get ready, because this is what I'm here for!

Then i hear something approaching as I watch her backtrail. I assume it's her fawn, and almost draw on her. Then I see the rack....

I still dont know how big that deer was, but I saw G2s and 3s that are 10 inches long, with a definite G4 on the left. He was also 19-20" wide. His freaking bases were HEAVY and so dark and gnarly, they looked like they were covered in black topsoil. So I stop counting points, and I start looking for a lane.

Instead of walking by my stand upwind at 5 yards like she should, the overnourished doe walks right under my freaking portable. I can literally see her through the bottom of the stand. They both stop, and he's at MAYBE 15 yards, facing me, with brush between me and him. She figures it out and takes off. I draw but find no opening for an ethical shot, and he runs off forever.

I wanted to cry of course. I guessed that deer in the 150s, and its certainly the biggest deer I've seen in over a decade. It still felt good to be that close to a monster. Especially on a tiny <10 acre woodlot, and also after comedically getting down to relieve myself earlier in the morning.

 

[dogghr]

Well unfortunately I have another story to add.

Last Friday, I decided to sit a tiny piece of property that the inlaws own. I had actually shot a decent buck there a week earlier, so even though it's less than a 10 acre woodlot, I had busted some does from their beds on my walk out, so I was trying to set up to spank one.

So I'm doing all of this half heartedly as I dont care that awful much, but I aint going shopping either. So I decide to take a stand and sticks in on my back, and set up around where I saw those does the week before so I could try and shoot one with my bow.

I get in right at daylight as I'm not that serious, but I'm in a great little travel area albeit only 60 yards off a gravel road, and 200 yards from the inlaws' camper (I can see my damn car clear as day).

So I'm kind of late as mentioned, I didnt really care and hit snooze too much, but MAN do I hate walking in late. So anyway, I'm sitting until about 8, and all of a sudden, mother nature calls. Actually, she is SCREAMING, and it's fixing to be a mess; so I get down and quickly as I can stumble to my car for some TP. It was an awful 200 yards as that thing was prairie dogging worse and worse with every labored step. After narrowly escaping that ordeal with an unsoiled pair of pants, I for some reason decided to get back up in the stand. "Cant kill 'em at home" I tell myself, so even though my optimism is not at an all time high, I climb back into my perch by 8:45.

As I'm looking around, I actually see some decent rubs, but it is sooo thick. The autumn olive is out of control and I dont really have many if any shooting lanes, but I can see this entire funnel from this tree, which is why I chose this tree in the dark.

I decide to have my bow in my lap as my brother is always getting on me to "be ready". At 9:30, Out of the olive 30 yards away, I actually see movement. As it comes closer, I swear it's a 2.5 y/o buck that has dropped its antlers. But I realize it is just a morbidly obese, HUGE doe. As she comes closer, it's probably the biggest doe I've ever seen. I get ready, because this is what I'm here for!

Then i hear something approaching as I watch her backtrail. I assume it's her fawn, and almost draw on her. Then I see the rack....

I still dont know how big that deer was, but I saw G2s and 3s that are 10 inches long, with a definite G4 on the left. He was also 19-20" wide. His freaking bases were HEAVY and so dark and gnarly, they looked like they were covered in black topsoil. So I stop counting points, and I start looking for a lane.

Instead of walking by my stand upwind at 5 yards like she should, the overnourished doe walks right under my freaking portable. I can literally see her through the bottom of the stand. They both stop, and he's at MAYBE 15 yards, facing me, with brush between me and him. She figures it out and takes off. I draw but find no opening for an ethical shot, and he runs off forever.

I wanted to cry of course. I guessed that deer in the 150s, and its certainly the biggest deer I've seen in over a decade. It still felt good to be that close to a monster. Especially on a tiny <10 acre woodlot, and also after comedically getting down to relieve myself earlier in the morning.

You can cry, G. We would understand. I had a buddy that was leaning against a tree taking a crap one morning after seeing nothing, and out walks a great buck. While still squatting, he grabs his gun, and makes the shot. Cover scent luck I suppose.

 

[wbpdeer]

I chased a deer we called "Brows" for three years. The photo below is from a morning where I was around the hill at the opposite end of a cedar thicket.

For my county, this deer was a tank. Over a three year period I never saw him from the stand. I believe my son missed him with a muzzleloader one morning at first light.

This deer still haunts me. I had him under stands after dark, within 12 minutes of me leaving. Worst thing is I don't know what happened to him, if he died of old age or he got harvested on another farm.

Look at the time on the camera and you can just see light in the top of trees. We were about 120 yards apart. Might as well had been 2 miles.



I spent way too much money buying cameras to track his movements. He won me a camera from Trail Cam Pro in a photo contest.



A very unique photo. Just wish it had been more centered. In this photo I was around the right side of the hill in the top right of the photo in a hang on when the first photo in this thread was captured.

These two photos are different racks, the bottom photo is what he carried in the fall of 2012 and had not dropped his antlers yet. He added some tine length in 2013 and a good sticker.

Yea - he got away.

 

[Charleston Treeman]

Like the thread. Figured I would share. This is the story of the biggest buck I have ever seen in South Carolina.

It was Thanksgiving weekend in 96 and I was hunting with my father in Hellhole swamp in Francis Marion national forest. My father and I had been hunting this block of woods since I was old enough to hunt but we had only sat this area once or twice. I had set up just off a power line by a small area of flooded timber that was pretty much a pond. There were areas that stayed underwater all year and when we got rain it could be 8 feet deep in some places and we had been getting a lot of rain. So I am sitting in a borrowed climber with my hand-me-down 8mm Mauser dressed in camo I bought from the Army/Navy store waiting on a deer to come to the oaks at the edge of this flooded timber that are covered in acorns. The sun came up and I was freezing my behind off when two does came sprinting from around the far side of the flooded timber. They never stopped just kept running all the way across the power line. I never had a shot and was disappointed that I wouldn't get a deer. Then I heard an ungodly noise from the other side of the timber. Still to this day I have never heard a deer make a sound like this. It was a grunt/roar/scream that scared the crap outa me. Then through the flooded timber comes a monster buck. This deer looks like one you would see on a magazine cover. Symmetrical rack and stubby looking body snorting and grunting as he went. He is up to his chest in the water and by the time he gets to the side I am sitting, he is swimming. He makes it to the shore and climbs up into some cattails and all I can see is antlers. He spends about 2-3 minutes in there shaking off and making a racket. The whole time I never had a shot. Then he freezes and I think oh crap I am busted, but he is not looking at me. I heard some clanking and what sounded like whistling? Turns out, the old fella that lived across the road from where I was hunting was walking down the power line. He had a galvanized bucket in hand and a cane pole. The buck makes him and takes off back into the water and across the flooded timber blowing all the way. So naturally I am pissed cause he had to walk by my truck to get there so he knows someone is back there. I got down and we had words. Turns out he came through the woods and never saw my truck. Couldn't get stay too mad, after all it was public land. I ended up becoming friends with the old guy and he eventually gave me permission to hunt his property across the road. I took a lot of pigs off that land but never shot a deer there. The old guys son shot the buck I saw the day after Christmas that same year on his property. Weighed in at just over 200 pounds with 11 points (one of the brow tines forked).
Still hunt with my dad. He is over 70 now and can barely hear. I don't think he has shot a deer in 7 or 8 years. Luckily I am fortunate enough to have some land that I lease with some buddies so I am bringing him up this weekend and hopefully he can end his drought!

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

I had one that got away in 2009. Had him inside of 30 yards three times. I believe he was over 200" typical. The first time I had him come out into pipeline right of way about 120 yards east of me on adjoining property. I gave him a couple soft grunts and he came across the field on a string to me. I failed to get a shot due to a limb I left for some cover. He walked to the base of my tree and stood there for about 5 minutes before walking on north of me through the rose thicket leaving me with no shot. The second time I saw him he came in from behind me and I just didn't get time to get on him as he walked off. He was too close to even try to call to get him to stop. The third time I saw him was on Saturday of the Illinois second gun season. I had hunted 4 solid weeks daylight til dark and was exhausted. I sat in my climber in a thicket he had been passing through on his way to bed. It was about 30 yards from north to south and 75 yards east to west and ended at a CRP thicket. I sat until a little after 11 AM and as the sun came up I just could not keep my eyes open anymore due to exhaustion. I decided to climb down and sit on the ground for a bit and catch a nap before I fell out of the tree. I sat on edge of field up against a little oak and ate a sandwich and drank a bottle of water. Soon after eating I passed out. After who knows how long of being asleep I hear something rustling and pry my eyes open to see what is going on, I look up and to my surprise my buck is at my feet, and when I say at my feet I mean literally 5' away from me. So I slowly reach over to grab my gun laying on the ground next to me and bring the scope up on his chest. I squeeze the trigger and get a click, I kick that shell out and the buck spooks and bounds away from me about 30 yards standing broadside, I squeeze shot number two off and again I hear a click, again nothing, I kick out that shell say a few choice words and kicked the 3rd and final shell into the chamber. My buck ran from the north side of the thicket to the south side standing broadside again at 30 yards, I settled the crosshairs on him again and of course another click. So now I am furious and I reach in my pocket and grab the last two remaining slugs from that box out of my pocket. I finally get one to go off as he is out about 400 yards, so for giggles and I fired the 5th out across the field as well just to let him know he is now safe and I am out of slugs. So I go ahead and walk up the hill to my truck shaking my head and couldn't help but laugh a little. I then drive straight home and get on the phone to Remington to let them know that I will never by another box of shotgun slugs from them again as long as I live and will never recommend buying their copper solid sabots even to my worst enemy. Now maybe I would to my neighbors though . The long and the short of it is I got to see my buck of a lifetime one last time the very next day at 150 yards at last light and I chose not to shoot him. This buck was meant to grow old and die and not die by a weapon from me. He never showed around my farm again. I am assuming he cuddled up in the hole he lived in his entire life except for that 4 weeks of a special time I got to spend with him and died of old age.......or possibly laughter from my debacle of trying to kill him.

 

[wbpdeer]

Blizzard

I would have wrapped that gun around a tree. Illinois has giant bucks rarely found in the hunting world.

Thanks for sharing your story.

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

Blizzard

I would have wrapped that gun around a tree. Illinois has giant bucks rarely found in the hunting world.

Thanks for sharing your story.

Here is the only picture I ever got of him. It's a terrible picture but you will get the idea.

 

[dogghr]

Here is the only picture I ever got of him. It's a terrible picture but you will get the idea.

Wow, I almost dropped the F bomb when I saw that. Great story.
Awesome yet sad stories guys. It's what makes the hunt so exciting. I reflect on my failures as much as the successes. It can be fun but aggravating when the prey outsmarts/outlucks the predator. Keep sharing. I've got another I'll go thru later, but I'm not in the mood to cry. LOL

 

[wbpdeer]

Blizzard

That is a world class whitetail. Gosh what a tough break.

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

Wow, I almost dropped the F bomb when I saw that. Great story.
Awesome yet sad stories guys. It's what makes the hunt so exciting. I reflect on my failures as much as the successes. It can be fun but aggravating when the prey outsmarts/outlucks the predator. Keep sharing. I've got another I'll go thru later, but I'm not in the mood to cry. LOL

Oh believe me a few choice words were used that day. This was probably the saddest story I have ever had but believe me I have had many others that were just as upsetting at the time.

 

[Seabee]

That deer is 200" all day long, wow!!!


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[readonly]

I hunted this buck for 4 years. I got back from deployment in 09 and was hearing about a huge buck on the property. He walked up on me during bow season and I just choked. Put the 25 yard pin on him when he was at 35. The next year I missed a 150 yard free hand shot with the muzzleloader. All summer in 2011 he was hanging around the house. Didn't see him all season but picked up one of his sheds afterward. Trail cam pics in Nov 2012 were driving me nuts.

Then I bumped into him at the local cooler. A guy had just bought small open track behind our property and was hunting for the first time when this deer came across. They gave me the jawbone after they caped him out and he was 7 or 8 years old. This is the story of one of two heart breaks I've had with 160 class bucks. May never see another on my property in Virginia.