While hunting, what's the biggest buck you've ever seen? What was the story? Did you kill him? The picture below is of the biggest buck I've ever seen while hunting. The picture isn't from one of my cameras, it's from the neighbors camera. I had this buck come through in the 2009 season. I saw more mature bucks in '09 than in any other season so far. I saw 7 different bucks between 130" and this guy. There really wasn't much of a story with this guy. It was a cold November afternoon and I got to my stand. I climbed up to my stand, got harnessed in, was hoisting my bow up, then I heard chasing, grunting, leaves crunching. I turned around, saw antlers. I knocked an arrow, got to full draw on the buck. He was running at full speed, broadside to me about 35 yards out. He was on a hot doe, and I grunted, bleated, whistled, yelled, and he wouldn't stop...he just ran out of sight. But here he is, the biggest buck I've ever seen while hunting. Had him at 35 yards, just couldn't get him to stop!
I saw a buck that looked like the one in your picture several years back, but I was young, rifle hunting with a dad saying shoot over and over, and didnt get a shot off. About a month later a guy kills a 196" non typical in late muzzleloader less than 800 yards away as the crow flies. Same deer? Idk, but the deer I saw I described as an "elk" at the time, and that would be a mighty big coincidence.
Nov '09: We had to take mandatory weeks off at work due to the slow down. I chose to take the first week of gun season off. It was Tuesday, POURING down rain in the morning, so I stayed in with the kids, went to lunch in town. It stopped raining during lunch so I head home and decide to get up in the stand for a bit. Wasn't in the stand 20 minutes when I caught a deer out of the corner of my eye coming up behind me. It was a little 6 pointer I had seen many times already that season (gun only). He goes running through infront of my stand and on into the thicker part of the woods. However, behind him, I caught a glimpse of nothing but antler. I could tell he was big. He started coming my direction when my grandfather decided to fire up the wood splitter. The buck went instant alert, turns and starts to make his way for the fence (property line). I give him a grunt, he hesitates for just a second, and I drill him with a .50 cal muzzleloader round. The buck runs about 30 yards and crashes, right at an opening in the fence by a lane. However, it was all my grandfather and I could do to drag it to the lane (about 20 feet). 2 days later my friend took at 130ish buck out of the same stand. It was his biggest deer as well. My stand was set up in at the edge of a clearing on top of a hill with a creek that ran along the base. His deer came up on the hillside from the creek about 10 feet in front of the stand. Mine: This guy measured out, B&C at 154 1/8. Not sure where he tipped the scales at, but after it was all said and done I returned home from the processesors with 160 lbs of meat.
Saw a buck I know would have gone easily over 200" in Saskatchewan in 2007. I watched my wife miss a buck in 2006 that some dude shot 3 weeks later that grossed 204".
I was hunting in Illinois with jmbuckhuntr in 2009. Early November. I had seen quite a few deer that morning. I look over at an adjacent ridge and see a doe. Sh was about..... Oh.....100 yards I guess. Maybe not quite that far. As I was watching her I see antler tips behind her. As he gets to the top of the ridge he comes into better view. Huge is the only word I have. Well I fell apart. I mean completely fell apart. Had I just been patient I believe the doe would have come down the point and past my stand, bringing him with her. But I grunted at him. What happened next is like nothing I have witnessed. He came about halfway down the point (about 50 yards away) and proceeded to just tear the crap out of several small trees, displaying his dominance. He turned and pushes his doe back down the ridge away from me. Lesson learned. I don't know how big he really was. I don't even know how many points he had. In my mind he was well over 200" though I am very sure he wasn't that big. Probably upper 140's to mid 150's would be more like it but I honestly don't know. I was so worked up I thought I was gonna pass out anyway. I just know he was big, the biggest I had ever seen.
I've seen 3-4 pretty big deer the last couple years but these are the ones I have pictures of and have had close. The heavy 9 I had 50+ pictures of going up to the start of the season but didn't get to see him until 11/10. He came into a cut corn field about 120 yards from my stand and absolutely cleared the field except one doe. He pushed that doe all over 40 acres of the field for a half hour before stopping to feed himself. While on the run he got to within 30 yards but gave no shot, while feeding he stayed at least 60 yards away. I never closed the deal but it was one of my best nights in the stand. The big 8 was a similar experience but this time I was sitting in the woods, he came into the field about 30 minutes before dark dogged a couple does around and then fed, he made it to within 40 yards of my stand. He came to the edge of the woods, actually exactly where this picture was taken, but he didn't drop down into the low spot where I could have gotten a shot. Close but no cigar.
While hunting I'd say the biggest deer I've ever seen has been in the 160-170 range. Seems like most guys here in IL like to think they've seen a 200 incher at some point in time, but I question that sometimes. I've hunted for nearly 20 years now in some pretty good spots and never seen a 200 inch deer. Either I'm blind, doing something wrong, or hunting the wrong spots apparently. The past 5-6 years I've seen very few bucks that would even go 150. Maybe 3-4 in total.
Count Chocula was the biggest I've seen on stand. Made me, and my dad and my hunting buddy look downright stupid for nearly 2 seasons.... ... nearly.
In some of the local forest preserves there are! Saw two Booners the other night along with a handful of other bucks 140+ out in a hay field about 200 yards off the road. When they live in places where hunting is off limits they grow that big all the time.
I hunted this buck HARD for 2 years straight. He was a mid 160's buck. Saw him 5 times In 2009. Hit him In the shoulder blade at 12 yards In which I didn't get much penetration, he lived. Saw him 4 more times In 2010. Had him as close as 12 yards but couldn't get an arrow off, too thick of stuff. The other 3 times he was with In 30 yards, a tad too far for me. He later got shot by a Muzzleloader hunter last year at the end of November. The sad thing Is I heard the shot, 4:02 pm was the time. I had that crappy feeling It was him when the neighbor to the east an 1/8th mile fired his ML. I still think about this buck allot.
november 1st didnt kill him but had a 140 dark bodied buck come then abunch of dinks after a doe but then i had a 165+ come 30 yards but it was in the thickest stuff he could find and i had no shot
Don't have a picture of but he was well over 200 inch's and I have others that had seen him one being a a well know owner of a tree stand company. The story goes that Todd from WKP and i leased some land in Illinois knowing this buck was close to our land. The day before opening day of the season a friend wanted help hanging a couple more stands and while helping him i cut the back of my hand with a browning saw to the effect of 80 stich's and a repaired tendion. Well i couldnt draw my bow with a cast on so Todd designed and made me a harness that fit over the cast from my elbow and hooked to my release and then lowered my poundage down to 60 from 70#. Well I resighted in my bow and went out hunting that night, Well needless to say I had Mr.Big walk in at 40 yards and I was only shooting and practicing with the new contraption out to 25 yards and I decided to let him walk seeing he was heading towards Todd stand location and me not wanting to wound him with a bad shot. Well Todd never saw him and I didn't shoot and we never saw him again.. Now Being a Michigan boy new to Illinois bucks I can tell you he was huge and over 200 inchs. They tell me they were guessing him as the new world record and to this date i can tell you he was big he was all 200 inchs but that is about it..
The biggest buck I've seen was last year while hunting in southeast MN. It was the last evening after a week of horrible weather and just before last light I saw a buck cruise up out of the bottom through some thick stuff and angle away from me. The closest he got was 35 yards. I tried to grunt to get him to come back but he had somewhere he wanted to be and it wasn't where I was. He was probably in the 170" range.
Back when I was about 15 years old I missed a monster typical with gun, I figured he was about a 180" typical 6x6, my dad seen him too at 12 yards but had a bunch of thick crap in the way of his body and couldn't get a shot. He was amazed at how dark and heavy and wide his rack was. Bowhunting my biggest buck I seen was a buck I was after in the 2009 season, Mr. T- he was a main frame 5x5 with a little kicker on his right G-2. I found his sheds that winter and he went about 175 typical booner. 2010 season I shot at my biggest buck with bow and harvested him 164 1/8". I would have to say my 2010 season was the best yet for seeing big bucks, including the one I got, I seen 4 over 160", one of those was about 175" typical 6x6 different deer than Mr. T, same farm though. The biggest I got a quick look at was with Mr. ****ie tunes filming me, a secret deer, he was a typical 5x5 190's.
Biggest buck I have ever seen on hoof was last years buck I harvested. Saw him for a total of maybe a minute before the shot. All I knew was he was BIG!!! Went straight into kill mode and the rest is history. Grossed 172".
2009 Youth Gun Season.. My wife's cousin had been telling me of a group of big bucks he had been seeing on his father in laws farm and that he, Mr. Patterson, didn't care if we hunted there. When I say farm it's not what you think. The man had chicken farms scattered on 20-40 acre lots all over the county. Chris (wife's cousin) didn't hunt much but I trusted him when he said the bucks were huge. Youth season came around and I decided to take my son over to one of the 40 acre lots across the road from where Chris lived. All this place consisted of was a 40 acre field completely grown up in brush, blackberry vines, and honeysuckle, with a small ravine running thru the middle of it. I actually felt stupid out there deer hunting. About an hour into the hunt, I told my son that we were going to ease up to the ravine and peek down in it. You could see all the way across and thru it from far off but not down in it. As we eased up to the ravine, I saw a doe take off down the ravine and another animal headed up the other side. The first thought that came to mind was, "I didn't know Mr. Patterson had horses out here". The bucks shoulders were wide and strong. I then noticed the rack...wayyyy out past it's ears and long, long tines. I told Dalton big buck, shoot it. He was focused on the doe and I had to get him turned on the buck. The buck ran to the top of the other side of the ravine, maybe 90 yards straight across, turned broadside, and stopped. Looking back, I know I rushed Dalton on the shot because I kept saying, "big buck, shoot it, shoot it". He took a free-handed shot and the buck just stood there for 4 seconds and then bound away. We went over and looked for blood but I knew it was a clean miss. We later went to the bottom of the ravine and shot the doe...lol. Here's a few pics of two bucks that were killed a week later during regular gun season, one by Chris and one by his buddy. The deer we saw was wider than either of these. Gun hunters....gotta love em. The top pic is of Chris's buddy. He was driving out to see Chris and saw this buck behind a chicken house at around 300 yds. He pulled into the yard and started shooting. He hit it in the neck the third shot. Chris killed his from his front yard, six shots from a open sight .308 before he hit it. I was upset but knew these two bucks racks would fit inside of the one we saw. I only bowhunted the place three times and saw bucks every time but never the one we saw that first day. I actually let a nice, solid 8 pt walk because I was convinced it was meant to be for me to kill the big one. Yes, I said I let a buck walk...
