Three years ago my dad shot over the top of a buck that he nicknamed "The Ghost Buck". He got the nickname because, according to him, he just appeared all of a sudden. Dad is very hard of hearing so this doesn't surprise me!
That next spring dad found his sheds about a mile from where he missed him.
Fast Forward to the following year (2015). A friend on our lease got alot of pictures of what we believed to be the same buck and to our surprise, he grew quite a bit from the previous year, he was now approaching the 170" mark. Dad had one encounter with this buck last year in 2015, but did not ever get a shot. My friend, who had all the pictures of the ghost buck, actually shot him but the deer was never recovered. He was kind of unsure about his shot and where he hit him but swore up and down that he killed him. A week later, driving to my stand, I saw the buck chasing a doe in my head lights on a wheat field, not to far from our property. I watched this deer for several minutes as he dogged a doe in my head lights and I confirmed it was the same buck he had pictures of and shot a week earlier. The deer went undetected the rest of the season and even though Dad searched and searched for his sheds, they were never found....at least by us.
Here he is in 2015
Last Friday evening I received a phone call from my dad asking me what I was doing Saturday morning, judging by the tone of his voice, I knew he had shot one. Dad said he put an arrow in, what he believed to be, "The Ghost Buck". Dad was unsure about his shot and wanted to wait until the morning to track the deer. Dad described the arrow entering in front of the bucks front shoulder and angling in. The deer turned toward my dad as he shot and that made the arrow enter in front of the shoulder like it did. He was hopeful that his arrow angled in enough to catch the heart but he wasn't sure. The cedar arrow did break off in the deer and we believed it to be stuck in the off shoulder of the deer.
Saturday morning we took up the blood trail and trailed him for close to 75 yards and the blood trail just basically dried up. Thinking in the back of my mind, if dad would of hit the heart, this deer would be dead. I grid searched our property looking for any sign of the buck and came up empty. On my last section to look, I was crawling through brush and heard the unmistakable sound of a deer get up and take off. I could hear his antlers hitting limbs as he took off. The stuff I was in was so thick I couldn't see 10 yards, so I could only guess as to what it was that I jumped. I searched the area where I thought he got up an found no blood.
Dad was 30 or 40 yards in front of me on the road when I jumped the deer and he caught a glimpse of the buck and said it was big, since he only caught a glimpse of the deer, he couldn't confirm whether it was "The Ghost Buck" or not.
In the next couple days, Dad continued his search walking several miles and keeping his eyes out for crows. We came to the conclusion that his deer was still out there and the shot wasn't fatal. We began to believe this deer had 9 lives!
Tuesday morning I got a text and couldn't believe my eyes, It was a picture of my dad, sitting behind a brute of a buck. I knew exactly what deer it was, Dad had found his Ghost buck. I immediately called dad and he confirmed what I already knew. Crows had alerted Dad to the bucks final location which was only about 100 yards from where we jumped him a few days earlier. Upon inspection, Dad believed the buck bled to death, his heart was intact and the arrow was still lodged in the deer. Unfortunately, coyotes got to this deer and it had been dead for a couple days. No meat was able to be salvaged.
Even though this story has a happy ending and the deer was recovered, Dad's vision of how he wanted to harvest this buck and how the buck actually died were not exactly the same. But this is an example of reality, this is real life hunting. You are not going to watch every deer fall from your stand or be able to follow a spray painted blood trail right up to your animal. Things like this happen and you can only learn from them. I'm just thankful dad stuck with it and didn't give up hope. Persistence paid off for my Dad and I couldn't be happier for him.
Topic: Dad's 3 year quest for the "Ghost Buck" (Read 1176 times)
