Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Bucks that still haunt you

I have a few but the one that stings the most is a huge split browtine buck that was within 20 yards during archery season in ’95 or ’96. I had a stand on a bench in back of my buddies property at the time. It was like a sanctuary there. He had 45 acres in between 3 pieces of property that aren’t hunted and some of the deer trails cut 2-3 inches into the ground. My stand was in a stand of beech near an opening in a stone wall where 2 trails crossed. Leaves were still up as it was the last week of September. I spooked a couple deer on the way in that morning but was committed to that stand due to the wind so I climbed in anyway. It had rained the day before so it was really quiet and with the leaves up I couldn’t see very far. I was standing up looking in back of my tree about 8AM when I noticed a small buck passing to my left maybe 10 yards from my tree. He wasn’t anything I wanted to shoot and I started to turn to my left thinking there might be more deer coming. As I did that my boots which apparently had a little mud on them made a slight noise and the little buck looked up at me. I was mostly screened from him by the foliage below and I knew he couldn’t see me but was now on high alert so I glanced to my left and there was a monster split browtine buck that had just come thru the stone wall and was staring at the little buck. It might be the biggest deer I’ve ever seen in CT in body size and he had a rack to match but the little buck wasn’t calming down and his body language was clear to the big buck that something was wrong. He turned and took a few steps back down the trail but stayed there at a little over 20 yards but I didn’t have a shot at his vitals. I glanced down and the little buck had calmed down and took a few steps to his left and hopped over the wall and both bucks walked off. The whole thing probably took less than 5 minutes but seemed like a half hour. It was a heartbreaker having a buck like that in close and not even getting a shot. I know I talked about it a lot that fall. My wife got sick of it. It’s hard to explain to someone who’s not a hunter..