Let's hear about the buck that...

[trkyhntr]

GOT AWAY! I was hunting the second week of the rifle season. I was hunting on a bench on the side of the mountain and decided to go down on the flat below. I was sneaking along and looked out ahead of me and there was a deer standing about 80 yards away with it's head down. I pulled the gun up and was looking through the scope and thought, man that's a big deer! I was kneeling down watching that deer. Then it started snowing. I kept watching it thinking, that damn thing gotta move sometime. Then the snow started coming down heavier. The flakes were the size of half dollars. There was snow building up on the deer's back. I started to look like a snowman. I kept watching and finally the deer started moving. It was walking out across the flat and I kept the scope on it to see if it had horns on it. Finally right before it got to a huge oak tree there was a decent opening and I saw it had a huge rack on it. On the other side of the big oak there was an opening. I thought to myself, you get on the other side you're dead meat! Well, I waited and waited and waited and that SOB didn't come out the other side!! It was snowing like hell, so I got up and walked down to the oak, went on the other side, and looked around and didin't see hide nor hair of that bugger. Hell, the tracks were even snowed over!

[timhicks]

Well ,it started like this I got a new place and alot of great deer had been taken from here, people would give the skin off thier backs to hunt here. It was a freind of the family and he said yes you can hunt. I was pumped, I started bowhunting and had a stand about 8 ' up in a tree. I had watched does and fawns and also a few nice bucks but nothing close or big enough to shoot. I was sitting in my stand the day after the time change when I saw movement to my right.. I am right handed .. why does it always got to be to my right I questioned myself?/?I waited and he came around and I guestimated about 30 yards, I finally got a good look at him but he had too many points I would get some on one side and he would move his head.. I was shaking like it was my first time to see a deer. My heart was racing and my chest felt like a hammer was just pouding on it. Well I drawed my bow and drew what seemed like eternity he turned just right and I released. I watched my arrow miss him and I was sick. He jumped back to about 40 yards and waited till pitch black dark. He just stood there and I just sat there saying please ,please come closer he never moved. Finaly after dark, I started walking out. I was walking through some tall grass and I fell off a side of a slough about 8 feet into some ice cold water.. I went in over my head bow and all. I managed to get out and walk to the truck .. My deer was shot about 200 yards away from my stand on the otherside of the creek about a month later.. It was a 29 point and I belived it scored 219. I lost out on that one... Tim

[loserchumpandfool]

i got a story posted under "dumbest things you,ve done".well here is another one.opening day of firearms season.at 9:30 about 10 deer came thru.i was trying to make out antlers but got busted by a doe rubbernecking.i knew she was about to blow and bust everything outta there so i shot her.deer went everywhere but she fell after a 60 yard run.walked back to my truck and drove it within a 100 yards of the doe and started the field dressing process.i had the body cavity open when i hear something to my right.looked over there and there stood a 6 point and a bigger buck i just couldnt get a good look at but he was bigger than the 6 point.they took off and i dropped my knife and grabbed my ruger 44 and my doe-in-heat can and let out a few calls.but they werent coming back.i had some trouble finding my knife in the leaves but when i did i got back to the dressing job.i got my hand around the windpipe when i heard a twig snap uphill from me and close.there stood a 130 inch 10 point looking at me.i dropped the knife and went for the pistol again.he ran about 40 yards off but i couldnt get a good shot thru the cedars.he then boggeyed on outta there.after about 20 minutes of searching for my knife i finally found it inside the deer up by her windpipe.that was the most interresting field dressing job i've ever done.1 shooter buck got away and possibly another one

[mrjbigfoot]

I was walking through a big open woods on a logging road that would take me across to the back edge of the woods where a crop field & a big thicket met up & deer always came out of the thicket and into the crops in the evening. I was just carying my bow with all the arrows in the quiver... I got about 1/2 way into the woods when this great big buck just stood up at 20 yards out, out of nothing . He apparently was just laying there in the leaves, and I didn't even see him. I froze & he just sttod there for a minute staring at me, giving me a nice broadside shot but of course my release was in my pocket & all arrows in the quiver. I started to ease the bow up to try & get an arrow out & he boogied... Never again, I always walk in with an arrow knocked & my release clipped on the string...

[trkyhntr]

Here's another one. About eight years ago I was working the graveyard shift. I was about to go on vacation. It was the first week of the fall turkey season which also is when the rut starts. I left work that morning to try a little turkey hunting. I had my bow with me also. I got to the mountain and it started raining. I was walking out a mountain trail and came upon an opening. It was where the Game Commission made a clearing to plant certain types of fruit bearing trees. I walked over to the edge looking around and noticed a sapling swaying. I looked closer and it was a buck rubbing it. I ducked down real quick behind a huckleberry bush. I belly crawled back to the trail and ran back to get my bow and grunt call. By then it quit raining.

When I got back to the clearing, I hunkered down to get to the bush and saw a buck standing on the other side of the clearing. It saw me too and snorted and ran off. I thought there he goes. I looked down at the little thicket and there stood that buck I saw! He was looking at the other buck running off. There were two of them! So, I just sat there behind that bush, got out my grunt call, and gave a toot on it and the buck looked up my way, but he couldn't see me. I sat there with my bow ready waiting for him to move. But he just stood there looking up at me. I'll tell you he stood there in that one spot for a full 45 minutes witout moving a muscle, just staring! In the meantime it started raining and I mean raining. It was pouring and I was getting wetter and wetter by the minute. It was one of those cold November rains. I thought, that deer has got to move sometime. But I stuck it out. Finally it stopped raining and the buck started moving slowly out of the thicket.

I thought, here we go. I stood up on my knees and started to draw the bow back and I couldn't! My shoulder froze up from the cold damp weather! I was starting to freak out and thought, i'll raise the bow up in the air and pull it back. So I did that and got it back, and by the time I got it leveled out, the buck saw me and ran!! He was the most beautiful 8 point buck I ever saw. Perfect rack with white horns. That made me sick!! After he left, I stepped off where he walked out and it was 18 yards away.

[bbbh]

It was buck only season in KY a few years back and warm as the devils kitchen for the first weekend in November. It was noon I had not seen a deer all morning so I decided to get out of my stand and do some walking. I walked to the backside of our property without seeing a thing so I decided to sit on an old long for a little while. I had sat there maybe 10 minutes when I looked sown and a 4 ft black snake was going in between my legs told ya it was warm out. any who about 10 min later I spotted a doe coming through the cedars and behind her she had 2 fawns. I pulled the scope up and thought boy I wish does season was in when through the cedars came another deer. I knew this was a good buck he came running with his neck stretched out and nose to the ground. The doe and fawns were only about 35 yards away and this buck came right up behind the doe with his nose right up her. I took aim and squeesed the trigger and deer went every where I watched through the scope as the buck jumped did the heel kick and took off. There was no doubt in my mind that this deer was hit and he would be laying dead just up the hill. I waited and walked over to where he was standing when I had shot. I could find no blood no hair so I started following his trail still nothing. So I went back and got my dad a a few other guys and we started looking there was no way I could have missed this deer at 35 yards with a 30.06 . Needless to say we found nothing after looking for the rest of the day. 2 weeks after season the guys that hunt the farm behind us asked if any of us shot a big deer on opening weekend because they found a huge 11 pointer laying the next morning after I had shot at the buck. They had the rack scored at 187 and 5/8. I almost cried.

[midrivers]

Sickening! Welcome to the site BBBH, good to see you over here. The illness for has occurred on may occasions. But my first year bowhunting, I flung 4 arrows at 3 does under my stand. They didnt seem to know where the sound was coming from and really did not seem alarmed. Do I just kept shooting. After I had shot my 4th and last arrow, I just sat back down and watched the does trot off. I heard a blow from left and here was an absolutley perfect 10 standing about 40 yards away in the brush staring at me and my empty quiver!


He had undoubtedly watched me lauch arrow after arrow at those does and wanted me to be clearly and keenly aware of how badly I had *&(^ed up!!!!!!


I have never wanted a rifle in my hands any more badly than i did right then!!!!


That experience has tought me to always wait and see what is behig those does. Has actually allowed me to get a ocuple of nice deer too.

[timhicks]

Midrivers its funny how drawing on a deer in front of you will totally screw you up Dont feel bad the first two deer I shot jumped the string and I shot them both in the ass. They jumped the string , The next few got easier.. Practice didnt help when it came to a bunch of crazy shaky nerves.. Tim

[timhicks]

By the way they both dropped, in thier tracks didnt die the quickest but I built a fence around both of them,, man years have changed me// Tim

[midrivers]

Built a fence

Yeah it seems when I had all the time to hunt I had no money for decent equipment and hated practicing with the crap I had. I would hunt and miss deer like crazy. Now I am older have the good equipment I can shoot well and never seem to get the chance to hunt!

Gotta take what you can get I guess!!!

[sj]

I was bow hunting some private farm land in Indiana and had pretty much quit for the morning, it was around noon or so and I had stowed everything away to climb down i.e. put my arrow back in the quiver, put my release in my day pack and had fasten the rope on my bow but for some reason instead of climbing down right away I just sat there a few minutes just taking in a very nice late fall morning. I was just sitting there relaxing geting ready to climb down when movement through the very thick cover I was hunting caught my eye. I stered at it a moment trying to figure out what it was when all of a sudden I make out the biggest freaking deer I have ever seen in a woods personally and it is walking right down my path towards me at a quick walk. I try to get my stuff unpacked for a shot but he was walking too quick and he gopt in on me before I could. Then he stops 8 yards away broadside and just stands there. This deer was a good 25" inside with good mass and decent (not great) tine length, not sure how many points exactly because I was so intent on getting my stuff out to get a shot off, at least 12 though maybe 14-16. He was so close that I couldn't hurry for being spotted. I finally got my release out and a arrow out of my quiver and nocked just as he walked in behind my tree back into heavy cover where I almost had a shot at him a couple of times but never did get the chance. 25" inside spread Booner at 8 yards broadside and I never did get a shot. Ruined the whole rest of my season. I was devastated. Farmers in the area seen him several times and one other hunter missed him point blank with a ML, they all called him the elk.

[Brd-N-Spr]

This one haunts me every year...I had just started bowhunting at the ripe old age of 15 and had a compound bow nothing fancy , I shot instinctive and got to be fairly good..so I thought. I believe it was the 2nd Sat of archery. I didn't put up a stand at the time I preferred more to still hunt. So I decide to stand by a tree and low behold I see a deer coming through the woods toward me. As the deer is coming closer I see it is a buetiful 8 pt. maybe 18 in inside sread , high tines. The deer has no clue Iam there. How nice is this ? The deer gets a mere 20 yds away and stands broadside. Just like the backyard target..This archery hunting is easy I think to myself. I pull back,concentrate on a spot and let go. Miss clean..The deer stands there. I somehow nock another arrow. I pull back let go. Miss clean. The deer is not sure what is happening and neither am I. The deer moves a bit but never gets outside of 30 yds..And the story repeats itself until I have shot all 6 arrows at this deer. After the quiver is empty the deer continues on his way..never really spooking at all. I still to this day have never seen a deer let alone a buck act like that. Wish I would with my expierence and equipment now 17 years later..I still think of that buck every year when in the stand !

[timhicks]

Brd now thats a rough one right there ,, I would say if this was a contest, I would say you would win arrows up. Tim

[bbbh]

Okay here is another one we werew gun hunting in Ohio I had to work 3rd shift the night before opening day. I got off at seven drove 4 hrs to get to deer camp. when I got there every one was coming into camp for lunch. I said you guys eat I'm gonna go kill a deer! I always say you can't get any meat sitting in camp
I was sittin at the base on this tree not more than 20 min when a nice 7 walks out at about 40 yards. I take aim and squeeze the trigger. I can't believe I just missed I saw a pile of dirt explode under him I shot way low the deer runs into a big thicket. I'll never see him again!!! Then 10 min later he walks out of thicket at 20 yards walking straight at me picking up acorns. This has got to be the dumbest deer I have ever seen
The deer is at 10 yards now still facing be but I'm sitting just above him he won't turn so he put his head down again and I shoot him right between the sholders, first time I ever saw a deer do a back flip

[Scott]

I think it was back in 1997, i was hunting on Big South Fork NRRA. 200,00 acres of federal property open to public hunting. The hunting is tough because of human pressure and terrain but if you get way back in there , you have a chance to see some real stud deer.
It was muzzleloader season.Because of the weather i decided to still hunt an old gravel road that weaved through several long fields that had hardwood draws coming up in several different locations and hardwoods surrounding them.
I was walking uphill on the road and just as i entered one of the fields i saw movement in the far back corner. The rain and sleet was coming down harder now and it was really hard to see back there, probably 300 yrds to the back of the field.
I finally made it out to be a deer walking in my direction. I raised my scope and tried to see it but the only thing i could see was a fogged up scope. Now i was about to panic. The deer was close enough to tell it was a buck and a good one at that! I wiped the front and back of the scope off and looked again. This time i saw it much better and saw just how big it was. He had a huge rack and was still coming towards me. My scope began to fog and gunk up from all the snow and sleet so i decided to try a shot. I put the crosshairs on his chest at the base of his neck and pulled the trigger. When the shot went off the buck just stopped and looked up. I missed and he was standing right there looking for the sound. I couldnt move now so i just stood and waited for him to turn around and go away from me, but instead he turned broadside and walked into one of the wooded draws before i could reload.
I never saw him again that day but 3 or 4 weeks later i was talking to a friend that had been hunting in the same area and he told me about a good buck his friend had shot. It turned out to be the same buck.The buck i missed and he killed was a typical 10 pt with an 8" drop tine on the left side.
I sure wish i had that shot back again...