The one that got away…

[huntfishwork]

And it was totally your fault. I’d like to read some stories about the big one that got away not because he busted you but you busted yourself.
It was my first season using a saddle. I map picked a spot on public and hiked in early in the morning. I got in a tree well before light and waited. About an hour after the sun got up I saw some deer moving below me. Another hour or so went by and I saw some more deer below me feeding up the mountain. Decided to get down and move over closer to the deer. As I got over there I bumped what looked like a good buck from his bed and I almost decided to go home then. It was a long hike up the mountain so I talked myself into staying. I setup right over the bed which was on the edge of a thick area of blowdown’s that had grown up in briars, pines, and other junk. A couple of hours go by with no other movement so I eat my lunch. I had just finished eating when I hear something in the thick stuff. Out of the thicket comes a nice 8 pointer, followed by a bigger 10, and a small 6 all inside 20 yards. It was a perfect saddle scenario with the deer between me and the tree and they are moving to my strong side. It’s a sure thing! Then all of the sudden the 8 runs right to the base of my tree and stops. The other two bucks follow. Now I’ve got one of the biggest bucks of my life inside 10 yards directly behind me and I’m twisting, turning, squirming, and cussing trying to get turned around in this stupid saddle to take a shot!!!! Needless to say it only took seconds before they smelled me and located me. The lack of practice cost me a chip shot on a really nice mountain buck. I have purchased a bigger platform that I can turn to stand and shoot if needed but it won’t bring that one back.
Long story short when I was much younger I watched to much TV and I thought I was gonna kill monster bucks with my bow in North Georgia. I watched the biggest buck I’ve ever seen in a hunting situation walk right by me at 35 yards through some thick stuff. I could’ve shot him a 100 times with a gun and there I was in the middle of the rut with one week of vacation and a bow in my hand. Can’t say I’ve carried a bow to the stand during the rut since that day ?.

 

[Son]

Some years ago I had surgery, wasn't suppose to be climbing, bending etc. But I couldn't resist, I managed to climb a ladder stand and sit down. Figured I would rattle a bit and see what would happen. A buck responded but he passed by me out of sight, but I heard him. He came up behind me and I couldn't turn, so I just sat there hoping he would come around to the front of me. Right below the tree, I could barely see it was a monster for our area. He winded me, turned and ran off blowing. His turn was so violent he threw dirt on me and I was about 12 feet up. That's the only big buck I know of that beat me in such a manner. Just imagine all those old bucks that beat you that you never knew came around. Yep, that happens.

 

[slow motion]

Jones County. About 20 years ago. Opening morning of rifle season. Sitting in a tripod stand on the edge of thick planted pines transitioning to hardwoods. Beautiful chocolate racked buck. Never made out if he had brow times so 10 point without. 12 point with. I'm facing the oaks. Doe comes flying in from the pines with him right behind on my trail in and behind my right shoulder. Kept my eyes on them but never turned because I was sure they would run right by the direction my rifle was already pointed and I would drop him right below my feet. 10 feet from death the doe took a right and so did he. The chase stopped about 20 yards from me and I could still see him but through pine limbs and needles. Kept a grunt call around my neck back then and tried it. Watched him turn his head back and forth looking for the source. Then he just turned and walked deeper into the pines. Never saw him again.

 

[rugerfan]

I think it was 2005 or 2006, only a couple of years into hunting public land, I was in the stand well before daylight. Daylight came and went, saw a couple does on the ridge above me in the thick stuff and had convinced myself that I was in the wrong tree to get a clear shot at anything that would have come out. I had just lowered my rifle down to the ground, turned around on my climber to start my decent when one of the largest bucks I have ever seen appears in the clearing in front of the thick stuff where the does were. I am talking inside 15 yards. As I am scrambling to get the gun back up to me, he sees the movement, blows and takes off to never be seen again.


I was able to tell that he was a main frame 8, with some trash around his guard horns, a drop tine on one side and a kicker point on the other side. I packed up and went home in disgust that day.

 

[Whitefeather]

October 25,2017 in Indiana…. I had this deer quartering away at 32 yards, working a scrape on the 1st afternoon of a 4 day hunt. I saw him coming up a trail in a wood lot between a picked corn field and a planted CRP. He skirted the field edge and went to a licking branch. I texted my buddy and told him shooter at 50. He finished at the licking branch and walked into the woods to work the scrape. I ranged him, drew back and was at full draw. There was one little branch between me and him that would occasionally blow over the vitals. The little voice in my head kept saying “if you hit that limb…. he’s gone forever and nobody will get him. You got 3 more days to get him…” After what seemed like an hour, he walked off. My buddy was sitting about 400 yards to the north in the same block of woods. After he walked off, I texted him and said big 10 with lots of junk headed north. I also remember telling him I think I may have screwed up by not letting the arrow go. I WAS AT FULL DRAW and let him walk.
45 minutes later I got the text.
“I just shot that big 10 with junk”



He’s hanging in my buddies’ basement. Scored 182”.
I had no idea that deer was that big because the body was so big it threw me off.
About 45 minutes later…. I did kill a real good consolation prize but, I’m still kicking myself for that. I never let my buddy forget how I passed that deer up.

 

[slow motion]

This one in LFTT from 2020

 

[fireman32]

I’ve missed my chance on a couple, but the one that haunts me walked out back in 2006. I’d carried a bag chair in, found a decent spot by a logging deck and sat down. I heard a limb break to my right and instead of slowly looking that way I jerked to the right and he saw me. Not sure how many points he had, but his rack was considerably wider than his ears and tall. He was on my off side at maybe 40 yds and broadside.

 

[huntfishwork]

I’ve missed my chance on a couple, but the one that haunts me walked out back in 2006. I’d carried a bag chair in, found a decent spot by a logging deck and sat down. I heard a limb break to my right and instead of slowly looking that way I jerked to the right and he saw me. Not sure how many points he had, but his rack was considerably wider than his ears and tall. He was on my off side at maybe 40 yds and broadside.

One of my worst habits is moving before locating what I heard with my eyes.

 

[sea trout]

By my 20's I had shot a handfull of fine 2yr old 8pts. 80 to 100 inches of horn.
In my late 20's and early 30's I wanted to wait for bigger deer. If nice 8pts came out walkin calmly I could watch them and let them pass. When a rut buck was chasing does playin hard to get.... it would look HUGE to me and I would take a shot when it stopped.... and it would be another 90 inch 8 pt that I was very proud of and happy for but I wanted an older larger racked deer.
My mid 30's I joined a huntin club with 8pt and out to the ears rule.
My 2nd year there I had a buck come up a hardwood drain that I couldn't get a good look at then he entered the short pines. I could only see bits and pieces of him as he moved through the short pines and I could get a glimpse of nice rack here and there.
He stopped, and had his head up high using a licking branch. He was 50 ta 60 yards away and I had 30-30 crosshairs on him. I could clearly see neck and shoulder. As he worked the licking branch I could see sections of horn bobbing up and down through the pines branches and needles.
I was 99 percent certain this was a club legal buck. I had an EASY chip shot kill shot with my favorite rifle.
I just have so much memory of trying for a big mature buck and being burned by ground shrinkage I just wanted a better look. So I waited and watched.
With one motion he lowered his head and moved off to his left.
When he lowered his head and went left I saw the rack, at least 1 side of the rack had a g5.
With that turn to the left I never saw him again. I waited for a long time that day and then continued to hunt that spot but never saw him again.
That was the only living buck in my life I've ever seen a g5 on.

 

[mguthrie]

I was hunting the back side of a ridge in a pine thicket a few years ago. Every deer I had seen came from over my left shoulder and worked their way down the ridge. I could see to my right but hadn’t had a deer come from that way in 5-6 hunts. I decided to turn more to my left one morning to see the deer coming down the ridge. That’s when it happened. I heard a limb break over my right shoulder. When I turned to look there’s a 140’s 10 point walking into the pines. I grunted and could see movement coming through the thick pines. After a minute or so, I see a buck trotting up from the bottom below me. He came up on my left and stopped in a shooting lane. I threw up to shoot and realized it wasn’t the same buck. It was a BIG 8 point. I proceeded to miss that deer at 50 yards with my rifle. I new it when he ran off. I never saw him or the 10 again.

 

[Tugboat1]

A few years ago I found a perfect spot on a steep embankment next to large river swamp. Years before a large tree had fallen and where the root ball had been, there was a deep depression. The tree had long since rotted away.
I moved some logs to the front, added limbs and brush brush and created what I considered the perfect guerrilla blind in the perfect spot with a good view of the bottom.
The first morning I hunted it I heard leaves crunching and a sho nuff swamp donkey came into view from the left. He reached the embankment just below me to my right and I knew he was headed up. I couldn't see him at that point but just waited for the opportunity. A minute later I caught a glimpse of a deer through a gap in the logs I had placed in the front of the pit.
I made the rookie mistake of raising my head slightly and just in front of me there was a doe and and just behind her at the bottom of the embankment, directly in my line of sight he stood.
It took a fraction of a second for him to turn tail and trot off. I watched him clearly for a hundred yards.
I later gave up what I call the " snake pit". I was hunkered down in that hole and heard the leaves rustling over my shoulder. I turned and looked at a copperhead a foot and a half away at eye level. Can't bring myself to sit there again.

 

[Todd E]

BF Grant First Gun Hunt
Im set up in a bowl in the middle of a THICKet.
Bow in hand. At noon, a chase found its way to the bowl. Youngster dogs a doe by me. Minutes later, they loop back by. I hear a deep grunt. I cast a light grunt to my rear. He snort wheezes and comes to 15 yards. Its so thick all I can see is bits and pieces of a big rack. He snort wheezes again. I turn my head to the rear, and let out my own. He just stares. Will not budge. Low and behold, here comes the chase again. I draw and get ready. He proceeds to go down the ditch and cross 45 yards away and joins chase. Heckuva 10 point.

Puzzled me as to why he wouldn't just come straight to me. When I got down and walked to where he was standing, I realized he had a decent clear view, at ground level, to my tree and beyond it.

Boy did I botch that one. He knew there was no buck standing there.

 

[Shane Dockery]

2 years in a row. Last year and this year hunting in Texas. Both 1st morning hunts, both times each was the biggest buck I've ever seen live on the hoof. Both times rushed the shot. Last year, shot underneath at 100 yards big 10, this year shot WAY behind at 145 yards really big 12. Luckily, still connected later on in the week with very nice deer, just not as big as the first shooters.

 

[mallardsx2]

When I was 17 years old I drew back on a 160" 11 pointer he was getting by me and I didn't let down to get around the tree. I tried to lean back and get around the tree and the bow cammed over and the arrow popped off my string and threaded its was through he runs of the latter like a plinko chip.

The deer lit out of there like his tail was on fire.

7 days and 5 minutes later, I clipped a branch and missed that same buck from the same treestand. I got a fist full of hair.

I have never forgiven myself but I have gained a lot of experience since then and I am waiting for that opportunity to present itself again for round three..

Unfortunately that deer got killed on the first day of rifle season. It had 11 points and scored just over 160"....