Tell me about the one who haunts you.

[Sam McMichael]

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...

[Wary Buck]

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...

[Bowhunter4life]

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...

[centaur]

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.

[eminart]

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.

[KSdan]

Which ONE!    

[AZWarts]

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.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

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.

 

[longbowman]

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!

[Todweelz]

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 !

[wckid2]

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.

[WildmanSC]

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

[6.5x284]

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!!!

[Keenan]

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.
 
 
 
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.

[Recurve50 LBS]

My ex wife!

[jbat73]

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

[Knotter]

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.

[Hud]

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.

[overbo]

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''

[Plumber]

I still cant talk about it