Time to fess up. As most of you know I can't remember missing since 1976 (ha). I just came home for a couple days to try to clear my head and get some solid sleep. That and the fact it's pouring out with winds to 30 MPH. For those who haven't heard, Wednesday evening I missed a monster. No excuses. Last April Biggie Hoffman drove out and helped Gene and I hang some new stands for this fall. It was a new area we'd never sat before and we named it "Side Saddle". It's set up for south, SE or SW winds. I actually got into it rather late about 3 PM with winds 15 MPH out of the SE. The winds kept swirling but I thought I'd give it a chance to settle down. I hadn't seen a deer yet, didn't hear any snorts but didn't like the inconsistency. At 4:50 the wind was now steadily out of the NW (180 degree shift). I had another stand 250-300 yards away at the top of the ridge and still had a couple hours of light, so I decided to move up there assuming the winds would be more stable at the higher elevation. I took the camera arm down and had the camera in my hand. You know how when you're leaving a stand prematurely you always are glancing around just to make sure something isn't coming? Well, I look over my shoulder and see him walking the creek bank at 50 yds. Gulp! I hand held the camera and filmed him for maybe 30 seconds when he came up over the creek bank and starts for me. I continued to film him a little more in the brush. Got him shaking like a dog after a swim although the creek only has 6" of water in it. Then, here he comes. I actually said into the mic, "Sorry.. gotta go guys". ha. Then I almost lost it when I couldn't get the camera into my back pack while trying not to turn my back on him. I came close to throwing the thing and finally hooked it onto a small twig and it held. GThen I grabbed my bow from the hook. Now he's about 25 yards but a frontal angle and still in the brush. Then he steps out and makes a scrape still only giving me the frontal angle. If he turns to his left he'll walk by the pinch at 12 yds., but he turns right. Then it hits me the wind is going absolutely right to him. You'd have to see the set up to fully understand but I'm on a pinch point that's a header of a little, dry tributary running down to the main creek (6" of water max). So now he's walking away but still screened by brush. He's too close to wheeze but I have no shot. I considered letting him walk off about 50-60 yards and then wheezing to bring him back (by the way, the day before, Gene had a 150 incher walk by at 65 yards. He wheezed once, the buck stopped and then continued away. He wheezed a second time and it turned on a dime and walked right in. In fact, he filmed it all including the buck standing right under the stand, actually filming through the grill of the platform.) But in my situation if I let him walk off and wheezed he'd start looking/sniffing and would absolutely bust me because he was straight downwind. So now he walks over to another scrape that's the size of the bathtub at the honeymoon suite at the Hilton. He's standing broadside with his head up doing the overhead branch thing. I decide to take the shot while he's still relaxed. Then I notice a single, straight hardwood limb about an inch or less in diameter running perfectly horizontal right down the center of his body. That, plus the fact he's dead downwind was what mentally got me. If I aimed below the limb it appeared a little too low so I tried shooting above it. Obviously, I over compensated and the shaft flew right over his lungs and missed him clean. When he peeled out he looked like a really fat guy trying to run. He's absolutely huge. He ran across the creek and up on the ridge and then the bad news... started snorting. He never saw me but ended up obviously smelling me. You guys will hopefully all get to see him someday because I'm sure we'll use the short footage in our next video production, but I think he's a 200 inch buck. He has eight points on his left antler and looks like six on his right. BOTH of his G2s are clustered into three long points each, and in fact his left G2 has a cluster of three plus an additonal sticker. Let me put it this way, a robin could build a birds nest in either of his G2s. He has great mass and long mainbeams and his body looks like a brahma bull. I absolutely know he'll field dress well over 250 lbs. When I watched that arrow fly over his lungs I felt like hurling, therefore, we named him Hurly. Because he was spooked from that stand I figured my only chance to get him there would be if he happened to run a hot doe by next week with his mind on her rather than the incident. So late yesterday morning I quietly slipped in there and scouted it more thoroughly. I found a string of seven of his scrapes between what I know are two bedding areas. You'd have to see the terrain to fully understand but there's a series of little dry tributaries coming in from different angles and I feel confident I have his travel pattern down now. The only thing I'm concerned about is unstable winds. I found the perfect positioned tree about 75 yards from the original. It was a bugger to hang but Gene and I went in yesterday at mid-day, quietly hung the new stand and got out. Oh yeah, we also hid three trail cameras on his seven scrapes so hopefully we'll get a photo or three. This rain should help wash out our scent and hopefully the front will push on through by the weekend and I'll resume my hunt. Stay tuned! Best of luck to all... including myself. BW
Topic: Uncle Barry missed a monster (Read 2295 times)
