Hey guys we all have had an animal that has eluded( the legends)us or just plain got away from us do to many reasons. Tell me about the one(deer, elk, turkey, ect) who got away and why, and what you have learned from it. And does it still haunt you?
And please add why he got away and what you learned from it and changed so others can change the way they approach a similar situation.
Thanks, Tim
I'm glad you posted this. I was stalking on my lease in Menard Tx. and stalked up on a big nice buck bedded down. I was so cold and over bowed that I could not make the shot. I learned a lot that day. I learned to practice in my hunting clothes and to make sure I could shoot the bow when conditions were worse than my practice conditions. That's been 15 years ago and I still think about it all the time.
Two seasons ago, I went into my spot of open hardwoods when i realized that I forgot my safty harness. The tree that hunted out of had a large boulder at the base of it with a rotted tree trunk between them. I decided to hunt from the base of he tree, using the boulder as a blind, & the tree trunk as a seat. I wasn't set up for more than 20 mins when I saw a large 8 walking right to me. I lost sight of him behind the boulder. from the angle that he was walking at I figured he'd appear at about 10 yrds to my left with a nice quatering away shot.
So I readied my recurve to my left side waiting. i could hear him walking through the leaves. I noticed that I was hearing him better with my right ear.....I slowley turn my head to the right when he appears from behind the boulder to my right at 8 FEET! I distinctly remeber looking at the pours in his nose, and looking through is rack.He stood there for what seemed like 15 mins but was probably no more than 30 seconds. needless to say that my heart was in my throat.
Im sure that what spooked him was either my heavy breathing, or my heart pounding. he turned and ran off.
I chased a nice WV 10 point last fall. Seen him several times pre-rut but didn't really go after him as I was "saving him" for my son that gets so little time off work. My son missed him (overshot) the first evening I put him on him.
The next evening I went after him but couldn't close the deal as I couldn't stalk closer than 40 yards. That was on a Saturday and when I got back after him the next week... he disappeared. The rut was on and he went traveling.
We seen him during and after rifle season went out and had hopes of one of us taking him with the bow (only way we would even attempt) during the late season.
After all seasons were out... and we hadn't seen him since ML season... with no pics of him showing up on the game cams... we started wondering what happened to him. (I just called him "him"... and my son knew which buck I was talking about).
Early in January, with all deer seasons over... a neighbor described him to a T and said a fellow hunting over a feeder on the last day of ML season shot him. BUMMER!!!!
What I learned was... get after them as soon as you can. Don't wait for anything or anybody. Their patterns change and you just don't know when they will disappear from your area.
Nice thread!
One? :banghead: LOL!!
It was 12 years ago we had a huge white tail buck (Tully Lake Buck) in our area, several of us had seen him but only at night in the beam of our head lights but very few seem him during shooting light. November 3rd 2000 I got out of work late that evening and when I finally got up into my tree stand I had only about 30 minutes of shooting light left.
I wasn't in the tree stand 10 minutes when I heard a grunt from the swamp and here he was coming straight at me. He came and stood broadside to me at 18 yards staring out in the corn field straight ahead. I pulled my 60lb Bracknberry back, anchored, picked a spot and let her fly. I watched as those all white banana feathers raced to its mark, when I heard the wack and watched this giant run off. I just stood there in disbelief, what just happened? As I stood there trying to make sense of everything that just happened I looked up and there was my arrow suspended in midair.
I had center punched a ½ inch maple branch that I could not see in the low light, and there my arrow hung like it was suspended in time. My heart was broke; I could not believe that I had the biggest buck in my life dead to rights only to watch him trot away. Never seen him again, two weeks later my neighbor came over and told me Tully got hit by a car just down from the house. He was a 12 point and measured 24 inch inside spread with a 12 inch G2.
What did I learn? To make sure to clean out all shooting lanes of any branch that could possibly deflect an arrow.
It's happened twice now with two different species (elk and turkey). First time was back in the late 80's in Montana. I was hunting the back side of Lone Mountain in Big Sky and had elk bugling above me in the timber. There was a large clear cut (about 5 acres) to my left and behind me. I was on a finger of cover that extended up into the dark timber and above a service road about 15 to 20 feet from where I thought the elk would come down through and past me like a tree stand. We bugled back and forth for about 20 minutes and the elk were slowly working down the timber towards me. Just when I thought things were going to get interesting I heard a bugle over my shoulder from knoll in the clear cut. Here stands a 6x6 at 50 yards looking for the 'elk' he just heard a few seconds before. I can't move as the only cover I have is the 3 foot pine tree in front of me that I thought I would be hiding BEHIND when the elk showed up. After about 30 seconds, he turned slowly and walked down back over the knoll. I quickly repositioned a few yards away in better cover for that bull and bugled again. Nothing. I waited for a 5-10 minutes and bugled again and only got a response from up in the timber. I slowly crawled to the top of the knoll and saw the 6x6 entering the timber at the bottom of the clear cut. It was starting to get dark so I backed out.
I had a turkey do the same thing when I was calling for a friend one year. We had gobbles coming from 100 yards out in front in the woods but not coming closer. I left my friend and went back about 40 yards and started calling again, but didn't really set myself up for a shot. After trading back and forth with the gobbler out in front of my friend I heard a putt, putt over my left shoulder (I was using a slate and peg call). A second bird had snuck in behind silently and pegged me.
Moral of the stories.....be ready for a second participant when engaged in hot calling of critters.
Oh yea...i learned not to set up so close to the wall of a blind to were i cant change positions, $ not to forget my harness!!
His name is Nightmare, and he is a stud whitetail. Started 4 years ago (2008) on a perfect October morning-I had been hunting quite a bit (my dad allowed me to take a few days off school to hunt) and I nodded off! About 9:45 I woke up to see a nice wide ten pointer about 70 yards away on a trail that, for a short time, is 20 yards from my fathers permanent stand! I grunted and bleated but he didn't even turn his head back. Next year (2009) I didn't see him at all during bow season, and only caught a glimpse of him during muzzle loader season but didn't have a shot. The following bow season (2010) I had him at 15 yards sometime in early Nov but he had been fighting and busted his left main beam off after his brow tine! I decided to pass him up, and I am glad that I did. My buddy that was hunting with me called me crazy, but I almost felt like I had caught him at a time when he wasn't at full strength. I never did see him last year, but also didn't hear of him getting taken or hit by a car. As long as he didn't lose a ton of mass, he would have been B&C gross easily, so needless to say I am really hoping to get a shot at him. I am thinking he has to be at least 7 years old by now, and pretty well entrenched in his habits. I believe the problem with this guy is just simply not being in his core area, and not hunting "smarter" (watching the wind, trying not to disturb the area too much, being diligent with my scent minimizing etc. I have read a lot of books, and also have been studying topo maps of the surrounding public land to try and pin down where exactly this dream buck has been escaping to. Wish me luck in my quest to take him (my first bow buck and first trad animal-unless I get a tom) this fall.
Hurts too much to even think about it.....
It was a buck in PA for me - I hunted from dark in the morning until about 3pm 2 Novembers ago in an absolute downpour - I love hunting in rain - well at around 3 I was soaked and freezing so I crawled out from the big pine tree I set up under and headed back to the house. I was there for about half an hour when I started to get the itch to head back out, so I figured I'd just go for a walk/stalk with about an hour and a half of light left. I put my soaked rain gear back on and headed towards a small scrub field in the middle of the woods at the top of the mountain (a PA mountain) across from our place. I had a heavy uphill wind so I walked around and past it so I could look down in to it. The field is surrounded by new growth saplings and you can make out deer moving in the field before you bust in to it and scare them. Well from the top I look down and see what I think is a turkey in the field so I stalk a little closer and see that it's a deer - the first one I've seen all day. I drop my pack and nock an arrow and start on my hands and knees towards the field edge. I make it just to the edge, behind a wall of thorn brush, only to see no deer. I hung there for a moment thinking I spooked it when a huge 8 pointer (for PA) walked out from my left, about 10 yds. in front of me and shook off water like a wet dog - it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Well now I can hear my heart beating in my ears, I'm actually going to get this buck; I just have to shimmy to my right a little bit and I'd have an open shot at him feeding. As I start to move my arrow is catching in some twigs in front of me so I think rather than move the whole bow and arrow around them I'd just break them at the base, muffling the sound with the meat of my hand in the heavy wind and rain. So I break one and you would of thought I fired a .22 because the deer looked up and started trotting towards me to investigate. Realizing I was busted I dropped as low as I could, elbows between my knees and chin almost on the ground, and stared at him - 5 yards away bobbing his head up and down looking in to the thorn thicket I was in. I took him all of 5 seconds to get out of there and I slumped back on my butt and watched him trot away. One of my best and worst hunting experiences. My lesson - be patient and get in the woods, no matter what. I stuck with the spot and took a great 8 pointer from a stand inside of the thicket on the edge of the same field 2 years later as he slunk back to a bedding area on a November morning. Full circle.
It was a hog in Georgia.....on Greg Campbells place........saw him a long way up the trail....set up and waited for over an hour....a true 250 pound boar....after all the others worked by , he finally walks by at 8 yards....I felt like I full drew, I felt like I picked a spot, but the shot was high....he jumped, grunted and walked by a tree and broke the arrow off....obviouslly, not hurt at all, he follows the sounder off to better places.....how, how, how could I have blown that shot ??????????? :banghead:
Ulysseys, you gotta write more stories!
That is an excellent read!
Killdeer
Big non-typical white-tail on Election Day (Nov. 3, 1981). I had come in from working with private landowners to improve habitat on their farms. I threw on hunting clothes and hustled to my tree stand. I climbed a tree I called the "crow's Nest". The farm was 1,100 acres on the Indiana/Michigan line in Elkhart County Indiana -- "Steinbicer's".
It was an evening hunt. I was looking toward the south expecting my quarry to come from the impossibly dense button bush swamp about 80 yards away where the woodlot I was in met the marsh.
The buck walked out about 30 minutes before dark. I don't know how many points he had -- lots of them. I was measuring about 75-100 deer a year as part of my job in those days and I'm sure this buck was 200" plus. The rack was a very dark grey.
He was walking right towards me and I couldn't decide whether to get ready on the left or the right. I was a RH shooter in those days. I just kept facing him hoping for a left walk-by. He walked by on the left, perfect for a righty.
I couldn't draw as he walked towards me because he would see me -- I was only 12' in the tree. He stopped directly broadside to the left. I could see his eye-lashes. I chose not to try to shoot for fear he'd see me. I waited until he had moved 5-6 more steps and then I drew. He had stopped in group of saplings within the larger forest. He was staring ahead about 40 yards into a picked cornfield.
I didn't shoot. My only shot was steeply angled away. I would have to hit him just forward of the hip and angle towards the opposite shoulder.
The buck walked on and I never saw him again...that I know of.
I don't regret not shooting but I do remember this buck well.
For me any deer is a trophy, I respect them that much.
I was hunting some state land that gets a fair share of hunting pressure. On these lands I try to find the nastiest place to get to. Hoping everyone else avoids these areas. Sure enough I was onto a deer that was using some real nasty cover for home turf. Not a single tree in sight that could be used for a tree stand and I wasn't about to walk around with a tripod. This was going to be hands and knees hunting. peeking under bushes and trying to work through some nasty wild rose.
I kept the wind in my face and crawled through that stuff. I hadn't given any thought to how I was going to get a shot, but I had to give it a go. I knew the deer sought this refuge when the hunting season took full swing, I knew they were in there.
Well as I crawled up a low rise, I got this feeling something was watching me. Sure enough I hear a snort and there 5 feet from me, bedded down covered by a bush was a doe. I don't know who jumped first but we both gave each other the look of "Oh Jolly". It was priceless fun.
I learned next time to find where they entered these areas and get myself there before they did. I tried to position myself between food source and security zone. And I never crawled in there again.
1972 and I watched a big 12 point buck follow a line of smaller bucks on a path that would miss me. They suddenly bedded down and lesser bucks were sparring and bedding while the big boy rested. All at once they got up and took a diagonal right towards me and I had nice bucks pass withing 10 yards of me. I waited for the big guy who was at the end and was about 30 yards out and I let fly with my 50# Damon Howatt Super Diablo and watched the Bear Razorhead hit the shoulder bone and bounce out of the buck.
I blew the shot on the biggest buck I have ever seen. Do you think it haunts me? Like it was yesterday.
It is actually not one.....but two for me. I have been hunting in South Africa twice and have made a terrible shot which resulted in a lost blue wildebeest twice. I do not have aclue what caused the first one and think I was just too excited on the second one as it was the first animal i got a shot at on the second trip.
The good news is I really want one bad now, so it looks like another hunting trip to Africa is in my future!
Bisch
turkeys with my bow , dang those stinking turkeys
Whoops, I forgot to tell what I learned from that NT encounter. I learned that sometimes the shot doesn't get any better.
I've had to relearn that one a few times since so maybe I didn't learn anything?
Palmated 11 point,he even walked the full length of the front porch of our cabin one day during a snow storm
The deer that first haunted me was one nicknamed Slewfoot back when I was very young and shooting the rifle. Yes, he actually did have one misshapened hoof. I saw him a few times and observed his prints often. This guy was HUGE! One evening, I missed him several times - emptied the gun and never touched a hair. That was humiliating and disappointing, but it convinced me that I needed to learn marksmanship and woodscraft. I dug in and did the work necessary to lean about deer hunting.
This carried over into bowhunting. I still don't kill many deer (often I just don't drop the string), but I can scout out a good stand site as well as being able to sit still and be quiet in the woods.
Recently, though, a large buck has eluded me 5 times. I have had him in bow range each time but due to the angle or the amount of brush in the way, no shot could be made. But he haunts me in a good way. I have not been busted by him ever, which is remarkable because this is an older and wise deer. Each one of these encounters would have been a gimme with a rifle, but where is the fun in that? Maybe next season...
The winter of '85-86 was brutal, and that November was either the coldest or second coldest on record for Nebraska at the time. It forced deer out early and they stayed in the fields late after sunrise. My brother and I began seeing a great 6x5. I have his sheds from the year previous and I think they score about 155. He was definitely bigger in '85.
He had luck on his side, though. I had him directly upwind (20mph+) within 15 yards facing me but no shot when he must've gotten a backdraft and literally "backed up" into the field and walked down further to hop the fence. He never looked at me but his eyes just got wide and you could tell he knew something.
Another time I had him about 12 yards but no clear shooting lane. I honestly think had I been shooting a stickbow that year (and shooting it well), I could have had him on this encounter but it was a short-lived opportunity and one I couldn't pull off with my compound. My brother missed him low at about 20 yards that year. Another time I separated him from a doe he was dogging in fresh snow. Today I'd have followed that doe's trail downwind a quarter mile and set up and bet he'd come back along the trail. Didn't even think of it at the time. Figured the gig was up.
It DID bother me a long time, but not any more. I learned a lot that season (my 5th year of bowhunting) and it whet my appetite for more.
There have been some others. Like the 200"+ NT in Iowa I was close to, the 160ish buck in NE I was within 15 yds of on the ground but no clear path through the willows, the...
My first year bowhunting, I tagged out on a 305# dressed mature 8 pt in Southern Minnesota... But, that isn't the one or one's that haunt me... It is the numerous bucks I passed on the next year waiting for something bigger to draw down on...
Ended up eating tag soup that year... My overinflated ego got in the way of reality... But taught me a really good lesson... Don't pass on what is offered... I did take a nice mature 10 pt buck the year after when I was 16 and another mature 8 pt the next year when I was 17...
To this day, the first deer I took when I was 14 is the largest whitetail I've ever shot... And every hunt I go on, the memories of my second year hunting come to mind when shot opportunities arise...
Cervus Canadensis; they drive me crazy. I know that some day, some unfortunate 6 point will collide with my arrow (hope springs eternal). Somewhere out there is a big bull with my name on him; if only I could find him. Until then, I am haunted by a big 6 point that I had at 5 yards, but the tree between him and me made a shot impossible. And he is just one of several that have eluded going in my freezer.
It was my first or second year deer hunting. My dad had laid down his guns and become strictly a bow hunter several years before. I was eleven or twelve and was following in his footsteps. My dad had been hunting a big - really big - ten pointer on our club land in Tennessee. He set me up in one tree and he climbed another about ninety yards away. I sat there, all eighty pounds of me, shivering with my trusty forty pound Pearson compound bow.
Sometime around nine o'clock I saw him, huge bodied with a massive symmetrical rack, coming across the ridge we were on. I stood up in my tree stand and waited. One of us was going to get a shot at him. But he took a path that sent him almost exactly right between us. He stopped there, me on trembling knees waiting, but he was about five yards farther than I was comfortable shooting. But I knew my dad probably had a long shot at him too. I think we were both waiting on the other to shoot and then finally I heard the familiar thump of the string on my dad's old wooden risered York compound and saw the arrow flash from one side of the deer to the other. He jumped and ran behind my tree. I heard him stop but I wasn't paying much attention. I was just smiling because my dad had killed that monster buck.
But, eventually when we got down, I saw what my dad already knew - he'd misjudged the yardage slightly and shot just underneath him. I couldn't help but think how the deer had run and stopped behind my tree. If only I'd known.
My first deer could have been the biggest deer I've ever seen.
Which ONE! :banghead:
Back in december I stalked a nice mule deer buck to 55 yards. I ranged him drew back as I was about to punch the release on my compound my buddy kicked a rock down the crevice this buck was in spooking him. The next day I set up 20 yards off of a well used trail 20 minutes in I decided to move because my buddy decided to sit 20 yards from where i was. I got across the canyon, look over and a heavy 4x4 walked through the lane I had been sitting. Lesson learned. Both of these would have also been my first animal ever.
There were 3 bucks in this poorly taken video. I've been hunting the big one now for 3 years across the street. click on the photo to start the video.
(http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u301/kirkll/Hunting%20pics/th_monsterblacktail.jpg) (http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u301/kirkll/Hunting%20pics/?action=view¤t=monsterblacktail.mp4)
Actually too many to think about but the number one is still the monster mulie from 1979. Watched him on 3 seperate occasions and even took a friend with me so he could see that I wasn't kidding about the size. I finally got a strange wind one morning and stalked the "knob" he would feed on going to his bedding area and had a 10 yd. wide open broadside shot at him and second guessed my instincts and shot over him. I can still see my arrow skimming his back against that morning sky!
Turkey's every last one of them! 15 years and still have'nt got it done, seen a bunch missed a couple, just not working out, YET !
Two years ago I lived in Kansas and hunted the whole month of november. On nov 11th I saw an 8pt that would go around 160-170 and I rattled him in at about 9:30. He came all the way across a bean field to about 35 yards and stood for at least 5min before he turned and walked all the way across the same bean field. I was so pumped and happy to have seen him but depressed at the same time. I stayed on stand till 12:30 and couldnt take it anymore. I threw my antlers on the ground and started to get my gear ready. When I was ready I lowered my bow down and climbed down. I put my gear on and was about to untie my bow when I heard that noise of deer walking in the leaves. I turned and saw that big 8pt walking right to me. I couldnt get my bow untied, that deer walked to within 10 yards of me. He gave me that rare second chance and I blew it twice. I never did see that deer again. On the bright side I did kill a 140in 8pt that year. My first deer that qualified for p and y.
It was 7 years ago in WV. We were doing an early November bow hunt for deer. I was sitting in a deadfall, there was a road that swung around the top of the hill behind, dropped down the hill to my right about 20 yards away and then eventually dropped down to the next level and another road.
The wind was blowing from my right to my left. I heard something walking down the hill on the road. I looked over my right shoulder and saw a large, swaybacked, 10 point buck walking slowly down the road. I waited for his head to go behind a large tree and I reached and took my recurve off the hook on which I had it hanging.
There was 5 very large trees strung out from my deadfall to the road to my right. When the deer's head went behind the first one I stood up and slowly turned to my left. The buck kept walking until he got to the bottom of the hill and then he stopped and stood broadside to me.
I estimated the distance to be 28 yards. I drew the bow, focused on his spine directly above the crease at the elbow of his shoulder and released. The arrow went under his belly line about 4" below it and a couple of inches behind his front legs. I MISSED the largest deer I've ever seen in the woods. My son was about 75 yards away in a treestand about 25 feet up. He saw everything.
I was stunned, I sat down and I felt like crying. I realized I should have sounded an URRRRP to stop him just as he cleared the trees. I would have had a 20 yard shot. When my son climbed down, came over towards me and as he looked at where I was sitting I asked him how far it was from where he was standing to where I was sitting, he said "37 yards".
What did I learn? Range distances to trees around you and don't shoot at an animal that is 37 yards away!
Bill
A few years ago I introduced my brother to traditional archery. He practiced hard and put in the effort. On labor day we hung some stands on some private property that only we had permission to hunt. (this is in PA) His stand was on a little saddle, and mine in a fork on game trails. At the time neither seemed like the better of the two. That would change. We never entered that strip of woods until that halloween week.
Loving to hunt and appreciating the whole experience it is not uncommon for us to hunt within forty yards of one another. So the first day in the stands prepared for an all day sit..... we wait. Several bucks were seen out in the corn fields chasing does. At noon a doe comes running between us followed by a respectable 8pt PA buck. Fifteen incher..... My brother gets a four or five yard shot and puts a wooden shaft tipped with a Wensel head through the buck and he takes three leaps forward and dies within thirty feet of my brothers stand!! So awesome. His stand at this point is where all of the activity is. We dress him out right there, not thinking about the entrails or anything, and drag him out. I go back in and sit the day out. Some activity around his stand, and mine but close encounters at his. See the deer we were there to hunt get bumped out of the corn by a guy sneaking in from the major highway three hundred yards away!!! Trespasser!! Frustrated at this point.
I give the spot a days rest and go in that sat. Its total chaos!! Guys everywhere!! All of them sneaking into the bigger woods, getting dropped off on highway from willing accomplices. I'm pissed at this point but know there are two state champs running this property. The strip that I am in is small..... really small .... and overlooked by everybody..... but its thick. REALLY REALLY thick. I am analytic by nature, and I started to think too much about the gut pile under my brothers tree, the human scent, the dragging etc.... think to myself "a five year old trophy buck isn't going to walk down that trail with the guts and the scent".... so I climb down out of his tree, and ascend into mine. At one oclock I hear a grunt.... and some running.... then that deliberate walk.... here he comes.... walks right in the path of the now dead 8pt and actually walks over the gut pile...one window to shoot through the tangled jungle I'm in...... not going to happen..... now just out of my range.. he's dragging in both horns green briars and plants... his horns literally paving a path through the woods...... he would have been a four or five yard shot from my brothers tree!!! Not one to quit....I pull out grunt calls, six in all.... blowing on them, pulling through them.... nothing..... get to my last call as he walks out to 60yds.... and he gives me the satellite ear twitch.... I hit it again.... he turns and walks right to me..... twenty yards facing me ... looking through me! I can shoot...fairly well.... but would never take this shot.... and I didn't.... he wheeled around and trotted off, only to walk into some guys yard to watch him struggle to start his leaf blower!!! It seemed like an eternity... I can assure you it was... I live with the night mares..... if I had my old Oregon bow would have been a chip shot(don't have any regrets.. just a fact).... he got hit by a car the following saturday and hangs in the PA game commission office... 164-165" over 24" wide... state record.... the largest I have seen with a bow in my hand in any state! A magnificent animal. He was hit by a car and the guy plunged an arrow in him, then purchased a license and tried to enter him into big buck contests! Got caught and the deer was taken from him!! Interesting tidbit.... the buck had two arrow heads buried in his neck!! I guess not all guys have the same restraint!!!
As far as the one buck it would have to be the Goast 2010. This uck Was a probable state record. As near as I can tell from trail cam pics a 7x6 0r 8x6 with incredible width and mass. The old boy was tatally nocternal and I never once saw him in the light nor even capture a pic in the light. Tried every trick in the boo as far as I know. Wanted the ol boy real bad. but he didn't get huge by making mistakes. To my knowledge he is still out there. I talked to one guy last year that says he caught a glimps of him last year. But I never got any more pics of him on the trail cams.In the one pic he is about twenty yards form the camera, broadside and you can see the rack is as wide as his body is long.
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c326/bornagainprimitve/7x6trimmed-2.jpg)
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c326/bornagainprimitve/7x6trimmed.jpg)
(http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c326/bornagainprimitve/trail%20cam%202010/MDGC0141.jpg)
For the bull that hgot away. There was one the same year as the the buck. I was finding trees shreaded higher then I could reach. Trees big enough that they were not just bent over. After several weeks of cat and mouse, late afternoon, while working quietly down a drainage. I saw some movement. A cow about 60 yards ahead. The wind was right I sat still while watching and getting a game plan. Then the bull stepped out. He was a toad! A very heavy horned Rosevelt with a cluster of crown points at the top of his rack. If you know Rosevelts and how they crown out at the top then you know what I mean. The crowning points looked a good 12 inches. and his sword times and eye guards were massive. As I looked in awe, a cow stepped out from the other side of the tree that I was behind. She never detacted that I was even there. She jumped a log and grazed right on by. I dropped into a creek bottom between me and the bull. worked to withing 30 yards. He was busy ripping up a tree. Unfortuanately he started waking straight away and out of range. I coaxed with everything I had but the shot never presented.
My ex wife!
Turkey, missed high, out of a pitblind dug by me and a hunting partner. Just grazed a couple feathers. Famous last words from my buddy as I was drawing back, "remember to pick a spot low", lol, J
The one i put my brother in law onto last season. He shot him with a rifle.
I had a close encounter with the wiley character earlier in the year. He came in to ivestigate a grunt and rattle sequence and I got a good enough look at his headgear to know he was a cut above anything I had ever seen.
He seemed paranoid about everything he did and he almost never ran where he was going. Constantly checking hi back trail, scent checking, throwing his head around. A buck this size in the praries is rare.
I wish I could have closed the deal on him but it's tough in the flat stuff.
Dang there were a few. The big buck that played peek-a-boo from 15 yds, I saw him approach then he was hidden from view by a large tree. I was sitting on a log, just finished sharpening a Bear Broadhead, my Bear bow was resting on the log, with arrows in Bear bow quiver. I reached for the bow, without taking my eye off the tree, when the buck peeked around the tree, I could see his left antler, ear and eye focused on me. I'd been had.
The big bull elk, that I bugled, in the deep timber south of Mtn. St. Helens (before the eruption), stayed with his harem of cows and was moving away, I decided since the wind was favorable, I would follow and either get close enough for a shot, or make him irritated enough to respond to my challenge. Eventually they moved from the timber and blow-downs into a logged area, that was reforested 10 - 15 years earlier. The stand of firs and heavy ground vegetation was never thinned. I had gone less than twenty yards, and was about to challenge the bull, when the bull let go with a blood'n guts squeel from the other side of a fir. I froze and my mind went blank. The fir boughs went to the ground, I couldn't see him through the tree, he was completely hidden from view, not 5 yds. away. I waited, knowing if I moved in the brush he would hear me. The hair on neck stood up as I got ready....then he was gone and I was alone.
The Mtn. Goat moved lower on the cliff until he bedded on a small ledge, as I watched from a several hundred yards, the white body stood out from the dark grey basalt rock, I watched and tried to plan a stalk. After ten minutes of surveying the terrain, I decide to try a stalk up a ravine, there wasn't much cover and it was necessary to crawl in spots, to stay out of sight. Eventually, I reached the base of the cliff he was on. There was no possible approach from above, It was a sheer wall several hundred feet high. I made my way along the base, praying that a rock would fall and scare the billy, or land on me. The ground was getting steeper the closer I got. Finally, I reached a a point that was within 10-15 yds from the billy. I had visually marked the spot from across the canyon. It had taken me one to two hours to reach this spot. in front of me there was a rock outcropping, I would need to move around, to get a shot. He would be roughly 10-15 feet above me as I moved around the outcropping and would instantly see me. The footing wasn't great as the base dropped away toward a small lake. I was prepared to move and was ready to take a shot as he stood up; suddenly, I felt cold, as the mountain air rushed past me. Instinctively I knew it would carry my scent to the billy, and start to move, when I heard a loud thud as the billy jumped off the ledge and disappeared another outcropping. I headed back to camp on the other side of the lake.
Mine would be a muledeer in New Mexico.
I killed a good 300'' 6x6 bull elk on the 1st evening hunt and had 5 days to do something.
Well one evening going into our hunting area.We where surprised by a batch of muledeer buck.17 in total w/ the 13 of them being 145'' or better.
On the way out that evening,we slowed at the area where we saw the bucks.We spotted a forkhorn by the trail and off in the near distance stood this narly old swaybacked buck w/ a monsterious fork w/ a bunch of junk at the base of his left antler.The opposite side,he displayed another massive corkscrew like mainbeam w/ again a bunch of trash at the base.I instantly named this deer (Odd-ball).As I was mesmerised by odd-ball,I noticed some brush below odd-balls belly begining to rise.Well what appeared out of a unbenounced drainage ditch,was a HUGE 7x7 buck that was easy 190+''.
Needless to say.I got a muledeer tag.I played cat and mouse w/ these bucks for 2 days w/ them winning on every move.After a morning whoopen I was at the camp when my hunting partners busted in to inform me that the big 190 , odd-ball and a doe where bedded off the trail as they where comimg in.
A plan was laid down.As we drove past the bedded deer.I told my partner to drop me off several 100 yrds past them.I would get set up so that he would walk down the trail and bump them to me.I was to give a bugle when I was in position and told him to wait 45 mins after the bugle to proceed.
As I approached the area where I felt the deer where bedded,I found odd-ball thru my binos about 100 yrs upwind.I progressed slowly and cut the distance between me and the deer to 20yrds or less,w/ the 190 buck being the closest to my position and looking away from me.I took a quick glance at my watch and had 2 mins. before my buddy was to start down the trail.I then processed the situation and decided to put arro into that 190 while he was in his bed.As my hand reached to pull a arro from the quiver.The deer jumped up!W/ the odd-ball buck running and stopping w/in 10 ft from me and the 190 stopped at about 12yrds!The deer's attention was towards the trail and their pause was just that a pause,because the next second they where GONE.
I also hunted that deer the next season and got video of him as well.A rifle hunter killed him that saeson and I was told he scored 212''
I still cant talk about it
Thanks killdeer - the woods will write crazy cool stories if you keep your eyes open.
OK! There is a big plot against me! I just wrote this long story about an stinky long necked saddle back old cow elk that haunts me year after year and she did it again! My server crashed and I lost the whole story,she wins again I guess! :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
Certain threads you poke in on surprise you regarding just how great they are...this one is one of them. Great stories.
This is a wheelie story but stick with me, it's good. Year 1987ish. Was hunting in southern zone NY. A bow only suburb 50 minutes north of NYC. We where weekend hunters and had permission on some good private property. The deer in this are were know to get big. A few years earlier I shot an 8pt that dressed our at 195. Anyway... Was hunting a small saddle 75 yards away from a thick cedar swamp. I'm up in a huge oak looking into the swamp with the saddle to my left. I catch movement and sound in the swamp. A huge buck appears moving directly toward the saddle. He's making a ton of noise as he is quarting toward me.
As he closes the distance I can see he is a huge bodied 12pt. Huge. His left back leg is completely dead. Only attached to his body by his fur and skin. All bones and muscle are not attached inside the skin. He is basically dragging this dead leg... thus the racket. He keep walking toward me an closing distance heading right or the saddle. Closing 30 yard... Closing 20 yards. At 15 yards he turn and now is going to walk directly in front of my stand @15 yards broadside. I let him get a little passed me, draw, hold, sight pin on and release. As the arrow passes the sight window he jumps, rolls onto his back away from me. Rolls over 360 degrees! When he gets back up he has a rack full of leaves. It looked like the Matrix! Where's my arrow. In one motion he rolled and turned so the side facing me is the opposite side. He lopes away the best he can with 3 good legs, back to the swamp. Still don't see my arrow. The arrow went under him as he rolled away. Stuck in the ground. Biggest deer I have ever seen in the woods 12pt over 250 pounds easy i bet the spread was well over 22-24". 15 yard broadside shot. Still haunts me to this day some 25 years later.
Sorry, my hunting haunt is not bow related, so I can't tell it here. :nono:
Hunted one Indiana "beast" we nicknamed "Moose'. Hunted him for six years before he just disappeared from the face of the earth. Never found any of his sheds, as he frequented a swamp and the creek bottom that flooded every spring. His home was the swamp, but he came out ocassionally to cruise the creek bottom. First saw him as a five by five, probably 2 1/2 yr old. Saw him three times during hunting season. Once at 12 yards in a thicket that a muzzle loader would not have been able to push a ball through to him. Once in year 4 at what I though was 35 yards from the wood line out across an open bean field. My Damon Howatt 65# recurve shot right under his belly behind the front leg and I watched him run for about a mile without stopping to see what happened. Stepped it of at 42 yards. Last time I saw him was 24 Oct 1989 and he was eight by eight. Them he was taken of the planet. One other hunter knew about him and we guessimated he would go 210+ inches. Nice IN buck. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: