Going for broke tomorrow!

[GCook]

Well you know he's dead and he got eaten so now you have that rack to help you remember the day, the choices and lessons learned and the friends who were their to help.
I lost one the last day of season three first year on this lease, 2014.  Last spring the lease owner found it while turkey hunting.  That rack will always be there to remind me.

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[SAM E. STEPHENS]

Been there , sorry bud..

,,Sam,,

[kennym]

Well damn!! Hate that, but you persisted and found him. Great job on that!

[Bisch]

Well, it sucks that it turned out that way, but at least you got the horns. In the grand scheme of things, nothing goes to waste! It just didn’t go to what you had intended it to!!!!

Bisch

[Dave Lay]

Good job sticking with it. Closure is good eventhough it wasn’t the outcome you wanted and worked so hard for..

[KAZ]

Indeed, not the result you hoped for but you did see this through to conclusion... None of us are perfect and many things are outside of our control. There is a delicate balance at times of when to pursue an animal and ultimately we have to use our best judgement with the resources, knowledge, experience, and time we have...

There are no guarantees that waiting longer on the initial pursuit wouldn't have ended up with similar outcome considering the predators in the area. I commend you for using a "string tracker" in that kind of watery swamp area. Very tricky to trail in that environment.

We've all had tough decisions like this to make, and sometimes the outcome is not as we'd prefer. Apart from sleeping in the woods at the last known blood/bump for hours on end waiting for morning or the yipping of predators this will always be a possibility. Except for perfect shots, perfect blood trails, deer always falling in sight, etc., etc... Back to the No One OR life not being perfect.........

Hold your head-up, learn what you can to make future decisions the best they can be, and appreciate the blessing of the encounter and finding the animal/closure. That's a great buck and looking forward to the rest of the story!

[Fattony77]

Well you know he's dead and he got eaten so now you have that rack to help you remember the day, the choices and lessons learned and the friends who were their to help.

Well said. I'm sorry that the bellies that were filled weren't your family's. Maybe you can get back in there and get one of the hogs that stole him away from ya....

[Lowrider]

Fine buck so sorry this happened. Happened to me one time. A very sick feeling for sure.

[Garman]

sorry to see this, BUT it has happened to all of us sooner or later. Most of the time sooner.

[Crittergetter]

The final chapter...

My buddy Darren made an hour and a half drive and met me at the boat ramp at 7:30 this morning. With high hopes we made the hour boat drive to get to my spot. Upon arriving we started the track from point where I had jumped the buck yesterday. My dog worked the trail just like I expected till we found another bed About 300 yards from where I had jumped him. But it puzzled me that there was no blood in the bed.  I kept letting the dog work and we found a few drops of what appeared to be fresh blood!  This confirmed my suspicion‘s that the deer had lived through at least most of the night. We continue to track and  we saw buzzards in a tree along the edge of the water.  We visually checked as the dog kept working past this point.  We kept working for several hundred yards until we had to turn back because of flooding.

[Crittergetter]

Darren had mentioned that my dog appeared to act differently after we passed the point where the buzzards were. I simply hadn’t noticed because I was being drug through the thicket and he was working into the wind so I let him keep going. So we turn around and head back to that point to do another thorough search.
And sure enough my dog finds him on the edge of the drainage. I am assuming he missed him the first time because of all the sent that was scattered in the area from the hogs and coyote’s that had been feeding on my buck.


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[Crittergetter]

It was a sickening feeling finding him this way and knowing that he had suffered through most of the night.
So at that point I did the only thing I could do and tag his head and head home knowing I had made a few mistakes but thankful for some closure



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[Crittergetter]

He was not the deer I thought he was. Ended up being a nine point because the tip of his main beam on the right side was broken off. I am thankful to at least recover the rack. I guess that is better than nothing at all.


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[Crittergetter]

A few pics of the return trip
I really really really want to look into seeing what the logistics are of having one of these floating cabins on the river. That would be an awesome place to camp and hunt and fish from throughout the year.


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[Crittergetter]

Thank you all for the moral support. I hope that everyone else can learn from my mistakes and hopefully help someone else in their recovery if they ever find themselves in the same situation.


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[Bvas]

Well $**+. Losing any deer sucks. At least you know the final outcome.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Sorry about the outcome Randy. I applaud your diligence and am glad you have closure.  Thanks for sharing.

[arrow30]

like everyone else said...it happens..we do our best, congratts! 

[Terry Green]

GREAT story none the less!!!

Lots of lessons for us to note. You did your best at the moment...and you got the meat off the doe you lost with the buck.

Congrats and thanks for sharing!

[Trumpkin the Dwarf]

Sorry to hear about the buck. Good for you on going back in with your pup and getting closure. I'm sure the boat ride was not exactly short!