After finding that buck I was hunting dead, and actually skimmed across the back, I had a feeling come across me for the first time relating to a specific deer. I have been thinking about putting a thread up about this "emotional connection", but to be honest, I felt a little weird about it. When I saw Coveymaster's post about the one that he was hunting and was killed by a gun hunter, I figured I wasn't as much a freak as I thought SO you big buck hunters ... am I whacked or do you feel the "loss" I am talking about (though I am not doing a great job at explaining) I can't imagine chasing a specific buck for years and having it happen ... tho I am going to find out ... I am hooked on this Big Buck chasing thing... I need help.....lol
wow PT...What time are the Bill's playing today? LOL jk jk! Seriously though, I do feel a connection with certain deer that I pursue. I watched my 2 target bucks all spring/summer/early fall and did kinda feel a "loss" when I harvested the first one. it was kind of like a..."ok now what?" type feeling.
Yes. Two years ago I killed a buck I had four years of history with, 5 sheds, hundreds of pics, multiple encounters and a miss. When I killed him it was a weird feeling. Although I would have had similar feelings as coveymaster had someone else killed him, killing him and knowing the chase was over, no more sheds, pics, hunts made me have very mixed feeling holding him. Hard to explain.
I don't think it's weird at all. When you spend as much time as you do on finding the deer, patterning them, naming them, feeding them, it's only natural to gain some respect and admiration for them. Especially if they bust you for multiple seasons, you realize they're not a "dumb" animal. When things don't end as expected, and you don't get a "do-over" it's disappointing. There's probably a few hundred life lessons that could be taught from that experience. I think most would be learned on a Sunday morning.
It happens and I don't think it's all that odd but then again that's probably what a weirdo would say, lol. My buck represented (in my mind) a pinnacle of achievement in deer and land management, far more than just another big buck mount....after hundreds of hours of work and thousands of dollars spent, he was just a proof of achievment. Being taken by another hunter really doesn't diminish that and there are still dozens of brutes around on the hoof and a lot of up and coming brutes. It's hard not to notice the void when they are taken. I am both happy the guy got him and at the same time irritated at the circumstances that prevented me from taking the deer. Still, spending so much time in one animal...a person can't really help but pour part of your soul into it...it's why we do what we do.
Having only had experienced the feelings of finding out someone else had killed a buck I was after all I fan say is disappointment was the main feeling I had. That and questioning if there was something I could have done different or maybe there was something I had did wrong. This happened last year and for about a two week period I kept having encounters with what would of been my biggest buck with a bow. Everytime I'd see him he was always just out of range. Once shotgun season rolled around I found out a neighbor had shot him and that was that. Seeing as this is really the first year I've had cameras running all year and have seen the bucks grow from nothing through hard horn I can say I understand how one particular animal could consume someone. But until I out one down that I've been tracking all year I can't really say how that would feel.
Bye week :D I have to a point ... But memories of "What if" still linger...and I want them to....at least right now So much about this post that I love .... Hope it happens, Bro....hope it happens...gonna die trying... THIS....soooooo much this...
I can have a hard enough time getting an emotional connection to people... I can't picture becoming 'connected' to a deer.
I have never targeted a buck during the season to find out someone else killed it but two years ago I had an 8 pointer that I watched all summer long into bow season that I knew I wanted to harvest! I hunted only for this buck had tons of pics of him, several close encounters during early season he was once 38 yards from me in one of hay fields and I just was not comfortable taking the shot and then he just disappeared for two weeks. I left Jersey to go out to Ohio for a week I came home on Saturday night and I was in the tree Sunday morning @ 0715 on the dot I hear a buck grunt and in he came 15 yards perfect broad side shot I release the arrow and he jumped the shot and I hit him high as he runs off all I can see is the nock and my 4" of vanes sticking out my heart sank as he ran away because I knew it was not a good shot. I waited about an hour climbed down and headed home talked to my dad and decided to give him a good 4 hours before we started tracking. We went back in and began tracking we followed blood for about 200 yards to a dirt road and then all sign vanished. I spent the whole next two weeks grid searching the woods where I thought he was headed and found nothing so I hoped he survived. About a month and a half goes by and we had some guys in hunting pheasant on our commercial shooting preserve flag me down and said they found a nice eight point buck dead in the woods where they were hunting. They took me in to a giant laurel patch that was 150 yards past where I shot him in the opposite direction from where we had tracked him to. He probably traveled a total of 500 yards in a giant loop. When I climbed in the laurel bush to look at him my arrow was still in him he had broken off the broad head side of the arrow. I did tag him and make a European mount with the skull but I felt sick about how things ended with this deer and always wished I would have thought to go in the other direction to look for him. So I guess you do get attached but it is probably different for everyone!!!
Put this little collage together while waiting for the Packers game to start. I could write a book on all the deer we have invested in and lost or were killed by others. This is why i love hunting boys, these we had closure on: These are a mystery still: And even though these deer are all gone, this keeps us going:
Tony, you are a sick sick man................. Sorry to tell you there is no cure, it only gets worse
It all started with the big boys I saw last year that I couldn't shoot because my tag was filled... one of them I believe was the buck I found dead.. This year hunting a different property that hold several big bucks... prolly half a dozen... It's really Pat's fault... he was the one that got me in to these game cams..
