Awesome stories everyone!!! Great idea for a thread Steve! These experiences are truly what it is all about. The fact that we are hunting with equipment that requires fairly close range shooting allows us to get more than our fair share of these kinds of encounters. Some end up with meat in the freezer and a taxidermy bill and some do not but all of them are incredible!
Like many of the above stories mine involves the biggest deer I have ever seen on the hoof. I am lucky to own 230 acres of mixed riverbreaks and cropground with a friend of mine. Most years we seem to have a fair number of does, fawns and small bucks residing in and around but very rarely is there a big buck residing on our ground.
I suppose it was 15 years ago give or take that I experienced the exception to this rule. Our property consists of about 100 acres of cropground "on top" surrounded by oak and cedar ravines. The cropground on top is divided by a ravine. I first noticed the buck when I jumped him when I was spring turkey hunting. He was in velvet and had not had long to develop but already had incredible brow tines.
As the year wore on, I learned that the big guy was living in the middle ravine with two other bucks. I had the opportunity to watch them on dozens of ocassions in the summer and late fall as they exited the middle ravine and fed in the hay field east of the ravine. In a normal year I would have been out of my mind about the second biggest buck who was a 5x5 that had to be in the 150's.
But the big boy was just unreal! He was a typical 6x6 that matched up perfectly. His brow tines had to be at least 10" and maybe taller. The rest of the tines were proportionately tall and well matched. The main beams stretched out wide and then curved back in.
By way of comparison this buck would have dwarfed the biggest deer I have shot with a bow which is this one.
I had watched these 3 bucks enter the hayfield at the same place all summer and early fall and I had a stand hung that would give me a 15 yard shot and was perfect for the prevailing wind. As often happens the closer it got to the bowhunting opener the less they showed up until they disappeared entirely. I am sure they had gone nocturnal but had no way to confirm this as this was before trail cameras were common.
I hunted all of October and the 1st part of November without seeing the big boy or any good bucks for that matter. It was the middle of November and snow was falling, it was cold as he## and the wind was blowing at least 30 mph. I
was in a tree stand down in one of the ravines trying not to freeze to death or get seasick from the constant swaying of the tree. All of the sudden I see a buck through some thick brush with its nose down trotting stiff legged like they do when they are real rutty and chasing a doe. I could not see the rack but I could see it had a huge body with a sway back and huge swollen neck. I let out a couple grunts on my grunt tube but due to the wind I could tell he could not hear me. I waited for about 5 minutes after he got out of sight hoping that he might end up coming back my way. Out of desperation I grabbed my rattling horns and really crashed them together hoping that he could hear it over the wind.
I have never had horn rattling produce such immediate results before or since! That big fella came charging in like he was on a string. He came to a skidding stop 15 yards from the base of my tree... perfect right? Nope, there were two things wrong. First, he was staring straight up into the tree and had me pegged. Second, I had not had enough time to put down the rattling horns and pick up my bow before he made his dramatic entrance. Yup, it was the big 6x6. There we sat in a stand off until he whirled awy and was never seen again.
I really believe that this would have been a 200"+ typical. I have a matched set of sheds from buck that I saw live on the hoof the day before he dropped that was measured by an official P&Y scorer that grossed 190" and netted 179" and that 6x6 was markedly bigger.
What an experience!!! As far as I know that deer died of old age as it is impossible to keep it quiet if a deer of that caliber is killed locally.
Topic: Once Upon A Time- Monsters that got away ! (Read 844 times)
