The One That Got Away

[grampy]

Every hunter has a story about a deer that for whatever the reason never got shot at. And lives in our minds,still wondering,what if....

 

In the early 90s my buddy who owns the farm we hunt,kept telling me all summer and fall of this huge wide racked buck. I never saw him during that time when I helped out putting in hay. 

 

Now it's near the end of bow season and my buddy shoots a real nice buck and I am just not seeing any bucks at all and that is very strange for this property. He has been seeing multiple bucks most every time out. And he keeps telling me about this "really wide 10 point" and to stay out there.

 

Bow season ended and now it's the first weekend of gun. And I decide to hunt this upper woodlot that is mostly open hardwoods heading down hill. As I'm coming in from the top I see a doe and two smaller bucks down below me. they are moving from my left to right about 100 yards away but I have no clear shot. So I start moving to my right looking down hill and find an opening. And waiting for the deer to hit the opening I hear a slight noise behind me and up to my right. I turn and look over my shoulder and there looking right at me is that "really wide 10 point". My gun is pointing almost 180 degrees away from this buck and we are staring at each other and I know if I move at all he is going to be gone. So I start in SLOW motion turning to get a shot. At the same time one of the deer below blows. The big buck spins around and is running away with a tree directly between us as I watch him run over the top of the hill. I never forgot the sight of that "really wide 10 point" going over the top without a shot being fired. What if..... 

[landtracdeerhunter]

Looking at all these deer heads on the wall, it's all about the ones that were " almost" that stick in my mind the most. I wouldn't even know where to begin, LOL.

[dbHunterNY]

had a couple when I was a young kid but nothing to that big.  probably a shorter tined, 17" wide, 7 pointer was the biggest.  had a 100" 6 pointer my cousin ended up getting.  to far in the woods and just over the bank to get a shot.  he shot that within 15 minutes of it passing by me.  bigger have gotten away from me but I took them later in the season.  hunting out in northwest OK I watched a bedded 140" buck out in the middle of a field from a spotting scope tagged out several hundred yards away with a friend in a blind at the field edge.  it got away.  saw a big one jumping through a CRP field in KS that was very huge but I wasn't there to hunt.

[BizCT]

Not a deer, but a mt lion in Arizona. 1st day ever hunting them. Ended up getting a a nice Tom on Halloween day 11 and several months later. But I always think think back on this big one. Below is from my Feb 2012 post:

Day 1 = In the afternoon, we decided to try for a 5 ½ - 6 year old (130-150lbs) Tom that would have made the Arizona state record books (14” skull minimum). After a very tough 10-12 miles on foot (4K-9K elevation), we ran out of light before catching up to the big Tom. Track probably was 2 nights old and not 1 night old. Therefore, this lion was much farther away than we initially thought.

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Edited March 6, 2015 by Biz-R-OWorld

[grampy]

Looking at all these deer heads on the wall, it's all about the ones that were " almost" that stick in my mind the most. I wouldn't even know where to begin, LOL.

Exactly right. No matter how successful I have been, my mind does go back to the ones that didn't come home with me, for what ever reason.

[wildcat junkie]

I shot a couple of times at a BIG 4-point in 2001. I fumbled W/my rifle on another occasion.

 

In 2004 I shoot a HUGE 4-point. I was going to sell the cape to the local taxidermist until he showed me the scar that was evident on the inside of the cape. I decided to mount the 4 1/2 year old buck since we had so much history. After he was mounted the scar was evident on his neck. It wasn't easy to spot on the wet cape.

 

So this guy got away for 3 years.He had me patterned & gave me the slip many times leaving only tracks for me to step over on my way out. But when I did something different than my usual routine, staying under the roof of my tri-pod waiting out the steady rain, he slipped up on that rainy election day in 2004.

 

You can see the dark hair that grew over the scar on his neck.

 

 

[NFA-ADK]

Cold day back in the cold river with a crunchy layer of ice and about seven inches of snow calm and overcast.  I come across a really long swamp and think "this is it!."  I get down on my stomach and try to slide down the snowy hill but I make some noise.  As I finally get a partial view of the swamp a nice buck jumps up and bounds off.  I went to the other side of the swamp and he had a nice track worthy of following but very hard to sneak up on.  I gave up with the excessive noise and still hunted back to camp.  Mother nature actually saved this deer!  This snow was noisy as it gets! 

 

Another year in the same area I tracked a nice one about 1.5 miles over two mountain tops before I had to turn back.  We where leaving that day and I was an hour late but could not help myself.  Was hard to leave the track getting so close! 

 

I tracked the only day of snow we had at lost ponds and found one buck track.  The next morning I set up the perfect ambush but my 3 friends ended up dropping off one by one on the way to the spot.  I finally get to the area late and see 3 doe and a buck and missed him! 

 

FF 3 years later and I do the same thing with another deer after tracking him the day before and set up a perfect ambush and mess up the shot!  ARG!

 

OK I am done talking about my misses for a while!

 

 

[Red]

I first started bow hunting when i was 16 and didn't have any family members or anyone that bow hunted at the time to tell me to sit back after shooting a deer. One morning my first season of bow hunting i was on the ground hiding behind some pine trees watching an old crab apple patch unfront of me i had a rag with rinks 69 hanging 7 yards infront of me. Just before day light i had a 4pt walk past at 12' in front of me then 2 minutes later another 4pt and 6pt came down the same trail and stated to fight at 12' infront of me very cool sight. 30 minutes after day break i could hear some leaves crunching i look in that direction and 30 yards and closing is this massive deer at this point i think he's a 10 pt but could be bigger he walks right up to my tinks soaked rag and butts his nose in it i count 12 points im shaking and waiting for a chance to draw i get the opportunity draw back wham i got him but a little far back my nervous got the best of me he just stood there looked stunned wobbled a little bit and here comes the mistake that has haunted me for 18 years i knock an arrow draw back and start running at this deer trying to get a shot he takes off crashing into everything there's blood every where like the first was painted with a paint brush. I looked for days and days from sun up to sun down and never found that beast. I still looked for his remains for a couple of year's after it happened.

november 3rd 2008 i didn't see anything on the morning hunt which was odd for that stand so i left for lunch a made it back to the farm that i was hunting at around 1 i get heard up and knock and arrow and slowly stalk my way toward my stand its about 1500 yards from where i park i need to smell threw 2 over grown hay fields to get to it half way threw the first field i can hear a deer running i stop and try to pin point its location when i spot a doe runing with 6 different bucks behind her grunting like crazy the bucks range from a 4 pt 6pt 8pt and the other 2 were some were in that range i would have taken any one of them i hunkered down they chased her in and out of that field and apple orchard for well over an hour every time i crawled to get closer they ended up running pay the Kat spot i was in the closet i got was with 30 yards but never a shot oppurtunity finally when they went into the orchard again i jumped up ran threw the field hit the small orchard and they were gone i sneak out of the orchard and into another field staying tight to the hedge row that splits 2 fields and up stand this big tall wide 10 pt Buck on the opposite side of the hedge row both staring each other down this aren't on for almost a minute he was broadside Clearview of his entire body but he was at 60 yards there was nothing i could do but watch and admire him. he ran straight up the field crossed the street and out of site i never seen that buck again.

[wolc123]

I can clearly remember two that got away without a shot.  Each was due to a gun-failure caused in part by state-mandated rules that handicapped the hunter and increased the odds of a deer getting wounded or getting away without a shot fired.   The first was a "unicorn", buck with 4 points on the remaining antler.  The missing horn didn't bother me, as I am primarily a meat-hunter who cares little about antlers anyhow.   He was a heavy deer, at least 2-1/2 year old and would have provided lots of meat for our family over the winter.   He walked under my stand, in mid-December, right at the end of late-muzzleloader season.   Back then you were not allowed to use scopes or in-lines.  Kind of like today, where you are not allowed to use crossbows for the first few week's of archery season, or rifles in some zones during gun-season.  Some practical jokers just like to make it more of a challenge for folks to gather meat I guess.

 

I pulled back the hammer on my side-lock 50 cal., lined up the iron sights with the top of his shoulder, and pulled the trigger as he passed  below.  The #11 cap went off and he bounded off.  I kept the gun aimed, hoping for a "hang-fire", but the main powder charge never lit until I put another cap on.  By that time he was long gone.   The previous weekend, I had a hang-fire while shooting at a grey squirrel, right at dusk, but was able to decapitate him by keeping the gun aimed until it went off.  Now we can use in-lines and scopes and muzzleloader hang-fires/misfires are largely eliminated. 

 

My second failure to fire, was a large doe, This time in early December right at the end of gun-season.  I was hunting a zone where rifles are still banned.  It had rained on Saturday and I didn't do a good job of cleaning and oiling my old, bolt-action slug-gun prior to the Sunday hunt, when the temperature dropped well below freezing.  I saw the doe walk into a patch of cover, well out of range.    I got down out of my stand and circled around downwind.   As I approached the spot slowly, I saw her there, between a couple small trees, just about 20 yards away and looking right at me.   I slowly positioned my gun, putting the crosshairs on the top of her heart.   Nothing happened when I pulled the trigger.  The firing pin was froze back hard.   It wasn't until I brought the gun in the house later and thawed it out that I could get it to fire.   I cant imagine something like that happening with a rifle, and once again, it was a long, more expensive winter for us, forced to get meat from the store.

 

Those losses due in part to equipment failure and politics, not withstanding my own incompetence, are the ones that bother me the most.     I do feel very blessed to have been able to take both the largest bodied buck, and the largest racked buck (separate deer), that I have ever seen while hunting.   I have also been thankful later on many occasions for not being able to get a shot at a particular deer.   They say "some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers" (Shout-out to Garth Brooks playing in Buffalo tonight) and he surely proved that to me twice this past season.

 

The first was a small-bodied 4 point that snuck in on me as I was sound asleep in my ground-blind on the second last weekend of archery season.  When I awoke to the sound of his footsteps, just 15 yards away, he was staring right at me.   I tried to slowly raise my crossbow and get a shot to no avail, he bolted off before I could get it in position.   The story had a happy ending however, as I caught a mid-week break from work and was able to take his bigger brother to fill my archery buck-tag and a significantly bigger part of our freezer.  I just pulled the last of his liver out for lunch today and it was delicious.

 

The second lost shot opportunity was another, even smaller-bodied 4-point that bolted off before I could stalk within shotgun range on opening day.  Had I been able to plant him there, my tag would have been filled and I would not have had the opportunity to take the largest-bodied buck I ever took the following weekend up in the Adirondacks. "Real-guns" are legal up there.  Thanks to that "moose" of a deer, we probably have enough vacuum-sealed venison for a couple years, and my father-in-law got the mount he wanted for his new cabin.