There was a buck last year that was easily the biggest buck I've ever laid eyes on in the woods. He was about 20 yards away for about 3 to 4 minutes. Just hung up behind some thick stuff never giving me a shot. He had no idea I existed and wandered off with a last glimpse of his rack as he disappeared. My heart was racing for minutes after he walked off. I sat back down and just put my head in my hands wondering why it just happened. There's a buck, decent buck, wow really nice buck, shooter buck and then HOLY &%*# buck! He was one of those. I think I replay the whole thing in my head about everyday. There was absolutely nothing I could do different, but dang I can't stop thinking about what if he was over there 7 yards instead of where he was. I need a support group or something lol. Anyone have that buck of a lifetime that still haunts you to this day? p.s. I ended up taking a nice one, but damn that would have been IT!
Yep had one that would go in the 200's and I had cut the back of my hand with a saw and some tendions and had a cast on for opening day in Illinois in 2005. That buck walked by at 40 yards which on any other given day I could make easily but wearing a cast and useing a speical brace to draw my bow I only was good out to 25 yards and I let him walk and he haunts me every day..So your not alone in ur club...
The one that is on my wall. He's the biggest I've ever seen in front of me and I can still picture the events to this day.
Halloween 2009. Took a steep shot at 13 yards on the biggest buck I've ever had in front of me. Wounded, never bedded, and I have never heard of anyone coming across him. I'll never forget it. The entire encounter took 30-45 seconds. He was there and then wasn't. Haunts me. It's a shot that I can make, I just didn't that day.
Second week of the season, second week of October 2009. Public ground. I had seen no less than 15 deer and at about 5:45 I was watching some does and a little buck about 60 yards away in a clover patch. I catch movement to my right and notice a deer walking the path towards me. Then I glimpse some bone coming through the foilage, then more bone, then more. This thing had to be 170" and he was walking RIGHT down my "he followed the script" trail. As he approaches he gets behind the bush that I always planned on using for my draw back. I draw, he keeps coming. He gets to the shooting lane at 18 yds. I grunt, he stops, I touch the release and watch as my arrow flies about 3 feet over his back. Buck fever sucks.
I am not haunted by any bucks. Elk yes. And 2 fish, a giant trout & a giant smallmouth, neither of which I will likely ever hook into ones of that size again.
walking into the woods one day after school for an afternoon rut hut it was about 250 I'm walking down a beat up path that I've never seen a deer on before on this particular part of public land u have both parts of my climber over opposite shoulders and my backpack as well. i look up ahead and at 25 yards stood the biggest buck i ever saw and he looked at me and just stood there relaxing and put hi head down to grab another bite and then looked again and the next time he put his head down i unloaded all my stuff and tried to make a stalk but when i got to a spot i thought i could shoot him from he vanished..
2009...It was Nov 12th evening. I am standing over the edge of a marsh to a bean field in a tree stand (OK actually a pallet in a tree) that is no more than 6 feet off of the ground with good cover between me and the cut bean field. Deer walk the edge every night. As I scan the marsh there is a 140"+ 8 pointer walking straight towards me from the marsh....I had never seen a deer come this direction. In the stand I was in I would surely be busted and was. I attmepted to get him to stop as he flew past me at less than 10 yards and he did....in the middle of the bean field at 75 yards. The next evening I decided I would take a position on the ground behind some cover and hope that he would enter the field at the samw point. At exactly 5:15 here he comes again. As he got behind the cover I drew and waited. He had stopped and smelled the ground. Crap....I had walked in on his path...how stupid! He followed my path straight towards me with his head to the ground. He came around the bush and was within 5-6 feet of me when he looked up. I had no idea where to release on a straight on shot and truthfully I could not take that shot ethically. He bolted out of there. Last year I had one camera pic of him estimated at 155". This year I have many more pics, but none since 8/3. This year I call him cyclops as he has lost his right eye and was between (estimated) 165-175", but was in velvet so not sure. I have actually not had a camera or even step foot on this small (10-15 acre) marsh since 8/5. I will kill that deer this year or I may never get a good night's sleep EVER again.
I think most on here know the buck I'm talking about and the 3 year story that went with It. He's now dead, killed by a ML hunter last year. No lie, he gets thought about 2 to 3 times a week still.
http://www.bowhunting.com/blog/post/A-3-Year-Journey-with-a-Legendary-Whitetail-Buck-Named-Freak-Daddy.aspx
In 2008 I was within bow range of three truly great (125-135) bucks on the place I hunt. For one reason or another I could not get a shot off on any of them.....I suck.
It was 2007 MO firearms season. I'm from IL and never owned a rifle (shotgun only in IL) so I was granted permission in Grain Valley, MO to hunt a 10 acre pasture behind a house. I was sitting there early in the morning when at about 500 yards I see this freak of nature walk out of a wood patch, and he starts walking my way. The wind was in my face, so surely I will get this easily 200 class buck. All of a sudden he stops 300 yards at a pond Levee. He stood there for a while and then lied down for a nap. All the while, I can just see this ridiculous rack pointing to the sky. I hadn't planned on sitting all day, but I had no choice since there was nothing but pasture between us. I contemplated sneaking over to get a shot. However, I did not have permission to hunt there and it was three properties over. Plus, a house sat on the other side of this pond. He eventually stood up and walked back to the woods if came from. The next morning, two hunters were sitting on that levee waiting for the buck but he didn't return. I wish I would have snuck out of my stand and knocked on the door of that house to ask if I could hunt there. Stupid me!
I think more about the 140" that I hit and wounded in 2009 then the 171" I killed and recovered last year. If I knew what I know today and with that buck bedding primarily in my parents 10 acres behind the house I would have taken a much different approach and probably killed him. I picture the morning, the way he came in, how he quartered away from me at 25 yards, and then how I shot him right in the hind quarters. Ouch for him and an even bigger ouch for me. The deer lived, but I pushed him off the property and a gun hunter on the farm a 1/2 mile down the road killed him about 2 weeks later. I saw the buck and was sick to my stomach. A perfect main frame 10 that would have scored in the 140's. It haunts me and it was my first deer that I ever shot at with a bow.
