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

Over the years some bucks that were encountered during a hunting season still haunt me. A couple examples. Was tagged out when I was fortunate to snap a picture of these two bucks in the Missouri Breaks.

Yes, I have one in particular that I think about often.
Mid-November archery hunt in SE Kansas on a chunk of walk-in ground.

I was set up in a hedge row with my back against a river, wind in my face, overlooking a series of scrapes and area littered with leg-sized scrapes.

About 8AM, I looked out into the ag field and the largest, most spectacular buck I've ever seen (still) was making a beeline to my locale. He closed the distance to 75 yards and for no apparent reason, did a 90 degree turn, fought his way through seemingly impenetrable brush - and just like that, walked out of my life.

A 12 point I saw several times. He was always too far or just on the other side of the fence. Sometimes it just isn't meant to be.

I was in IL and set up on the edge of a field when a nice 150" deer and a GIANT 200" plus non typical came out at the far end chasing a doe. They chased her for 15-20 min around the crp strip at the other end of the field. She then bolted across the field with them in tow. She ran right under me. The 150" deer came on a string and stood under me at 24 yards facing away. I had never killed anything bigger than 120" at the time. I drew back and settled in but that 200" deer started coming and I let down. The 150" eased off and the 200" kept coming. He got about 80yds out and started rubbing a small tree. Then he turned and went back the way he came! I truly think he may have 230" or bigger. Absolute monster and biggest deer I've seen alive. Still have no idea why he didn't follow the other deer. Doesn't make any sense.

Lee

Yep.

I was 12 years old. One of the biggest 10 point bucks I've ever seen. Still to this day. It was standing in the woods just off our yard. I got up at sun rise to pee and could see it out of the bathroom window. I woke my dad I as loaded my gun and he asked what I was doing. I told him...quickly as I loaded the gun. He wanted me to shoot through the window. lol

As soon as the weatherstripping "broke" the door frame, he was gone.

Big mule I saw in whitetail season 5 days in a row. Wouldn't say he haunted me because I wasn't drawn but sure spent some time looking for him the next year for my buddy.



Wore out a pair of boots looking for this guy over a couple year span. He went downhill last year pretty bad so I think his time has passed. That one haunts me a bit.

I've got a few bucks that haunt me but two stand out. One was the tallest mule deer rack I've ever seen or seen pictures of, with low forks and extremely long tines. He wasn't wide as mulies go and the extreme height looked odd when he turned toward me, but he would score well into the book. I watched him at a range of 100 yards for ten minutes, with a deer tag in my pocket and deer season open, but I was on a hike with some yuppies and hadn't carried my rifle along in case it might offend them.

The other was a true blacktail on the Olympic Peninsula in mid-November. I was on a cliff top in old growth timber watching a big ugly racked fork horn nuzzle a doe below me, when I noticed a deer 25 yards to one side of them, mostly hidden in brush. A huge dark mass of sticks stuck up above the brush and looked like antlers but it was too big to be a blacktail rack, more the size of a mule deer, plus I figured that if it was a buck it would be sniffing the doe. I watched it a moment then turned my attention back to the fork horn, trying to decide whether to shoot him, when the huge rack moved and disappeared. I glimpsed the buck twice more but never got a shot at him. That was years ago, before I started carrying binoculars when still hunting woods.

Saw a giant typical 10pt in Iowa years ago in the middle of a corn field too far to shoot that was way larger than any deer I've laid eyes on. I've seen some dandy 160 type bucks, maybe a bit larger, and that 10 just flat dwarfed any whitetail I've seen alive by a very large margin. He was just unreal, abnormal mass and ridiculous length.

Plenty of heartbreak in this thread - nice to know I'm not alone.

Misery loves company.

Knowing what I know now...I'd have shot through the fuggin window.

I will not ever forget that big, dark racked, Canadian looking mutha!

Oh piss.........!!!!!

Three or four that I have proof of, a lot that I don't....

You'll need Wi-Fi and you'll want to set the YouTube settings to HD

245-250 inch deer...




240" buck



Wide trashy buck



And this one stings the most

About 25 yrs. ago, before the timber companies ever leased their land in Central Louisiana, I hunted a "stand" I called the Gas Well. Beautiful place where 4 hardwood ridges converged and the deer would come across the little branch bottom to go to a thicket on the next ridge. Killed several deer there, but the main attraction to me was the beauty of it. I usually carried my climber in to the stand, as one year I hunted out of a ladder stand there and a guy I finished school with found the place (didn't know whose stand it was) and killed a buck there.

Anyway, found some large scrapes going up the ridge where the thicket was where they laid up at. I just slipped in there that morning, fixed a makeshift blind against a large beech tree about 25 yds. from the scrapes farthest I could get and still see what I needed to see. As it was breaking day, I heard him coming up the side of the thicket. I rested my Ruger Ultra Light 270 on my knees and picked out the opening where I was going to lay him to rest.

I no longer heard his steps as he just appeared in my opening. I saw the large rack (for our area on public land) and I rested the crosshairs behind his shoulder and gently squeezed the trigger. All that was heard was a sickening "click" I began to gently slide back the bolt to see if I had even put a round in the chamber. I had. While I was trying, as quietly as I could, to chamber another round the big buck disappeared just as he had emerged...quietly.

I had always shot Rem. Core-lokts without incident. I went and shot the rest of the box of cartridges and 5 or 6 of the rounds didn't fire. I went to call Remington and when I looked at the box, I saw that they were then made in Arkansas instead of Connecticut. I called them and they admitted they had some trouble with some of their cartridges and they sent me a check for $35 which did not cover the cost of the deer!

Story didn't end there (in case anyone is still reading the story!). I came down with the flu before I could get back in there to hunt. As I was beginning to feel better, my brother called me and wanted to know if I was up to getting out of the house for a ride in the woods. Yes! We stopped at a convenience store in town to get a coke and the guy who had found my honey hole a few years prior came up to the truck window. I rolled it down and he said "You remember that place by that gas well I killed that buck a few years ago?" Before he could say anything else, I said, "Let me guess. You killed a big buck there." "How did you know?" I said, trying not to let my feelings show, "If my cartridge had of gone off instead of snapping on me, you would have never seen him. I usually don't miss at 25 yds. broadside."

He told me the deer was a 7 pt. with a 17 inch inside spread. Around home when there was open land, that was a nice deer. I saw the pictures later and good, long tines. It was years before I trusted Remington cartridges again. Have never had another problem and have always blamed Walmart as I suspected they would sign a contract with them that if they moved that part of their operations to Arkansas. Would love to know if that is what happened.

Several years ago I was hunting a Monday morning. I had limited time, because I was working swing shift at the time. I had hunted some gated timber company ground in the morning. I was riding my 4-wheeler the 6 or 8 miles back to my pickup. Snow was about 12-15 inches deep. I was scooting right along down this old ridge road, came around a corner and caught a glimpse of a doe high tailing it across the logging road. I immediately parked the 4-wheeler and walked over to where she had crossed. There was another bigger track that had already made it across the road. I followed them down over the ridge. I made it about 100 yds down into the timber and the doe came running up out of there and passed by me at about 20 feet. I figgered that buck was running her around but I couldn't see him any where. I looked and looked but nothing, so I walked about 10 yds to my right to an old skid trail. There standing down the trail about 60 yds was a big old 5 point, I new instantly he was a booner. The split second it took for my jaw to hit the ground and then my rifle to come to my shoulder he was gone.

That spring I looked for his sheds with no luck, put up a camera in the area nothing.

That summer, I went into my local sporting goods store and there on the wall above the register was my buck. I would have recognized it anywhere. Apparently, about 3 days after I had seen the buck, a guy shot him from his pickup while road hunting Thanksgiving day.

The buck netted 172 and some change.

This one. He showed up with 5 days left in the season on my place. I had pics of him for month and a half every night. He was totally nocturnal, and I never saw him again.....

I used to hunt on our family's old homestead near Washingtonville, Ohio. I got into a thicket out on the end of a long point one time and got all turned around. Right out on the end of the point, it dropped off into three finger hollows. I'm standing there looking around, trying to figure where the heck I was, and I realize I'm in an old orchard. The apple trees were all busted up, but still making some fruit. I found a line of scrapes running out on the edge of one of the hollows. These were BIG scrapes-and deep. A flash of white caught my attention. Sure enough, a big buck went busting out of there. I chased that guy all fall, through gun season, ML season, right up to the end of archery season. Saw him several times. No idea how big the rack was, but I'd guess at least a 10 or 12 pointer. I never did get a shot at him.

Saw this guy right up until 2 days before archery season, video taped him on 2 separate occasions, never saw him since. I'd guess him in the mid 190's

Wow what a buck RBO.

Ya he was a gooder for sure, that's about a 330lb Alberta whitetail too, to give you an idea of the size ratio.

Hunting in a large cutover with a .270 so I could shoot faaarrrr. A bad azz buck is being chased by a couple dogs and comes fast, across the holler. The buck is on a course that will take it within 40 yards of me. I wait to shoot, so as to make a good shot on a running deer. Well, I neglected to notice how tall the weeds are, and I also neglect to turn down the power on my scope. As a result, I never get a shot. I would have been better off with a shotgun instead of a flat shooting rifle. If I had been carrying a shotgun with buckshot, instead of a rifle, that buck would be on my wall right now.