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Today I noticed two of my funnest deer hunt�s antlers were nailed to the wall side by side. I don�t remember seeing a thread about one�s funnest deer so I started this.

The one with the broken points gave me buck fever so that�s always fun. I was glassing over a plateau with grass about eighteen to twenty inches high. I saw some antlers a ways out but couldn�t make out if they belonged to a legal buck. Switching to the rifle scope to take a closer look must have attracted the deer�s attention because two bucks arose from the grass. Immediately I sat down. The deer started toward me. After turning the scope up a little I still couldn�t determine the legality of either of the bucks. Finally when I turned the z5 all the way to 25X I could see the one had three points on side. They were small, but they were there. Apparently this guy was a fighter because tips were broken on both sides. I have no idea why buck fever hit, but I had to wait for a moment to settle down before I could fire.

The one with the big spike had a third point growing up beside the spike which broke off while it was tumbling down the hill after the two shots. I had been practicing working the bolt without taking the rifle from its shooting position. This buck got up and presented a trotting broadside shot. I fired. It didn�t go down so I worked the bolt and fired again without loosing my sight picture! Practice pays off. This time it went down and disappeared by falling at least a hundred feet down the hill, piling up against a tree. What makes this one one of the funnest is the practice worked and both shot�s bullets hit so close together there was one entrance hole. On exit was behind the shoulder. The other was in front of the shoulder.

What�s your story?

One of my most fun had antlers about the size of those in your pic. I was sneaking up an old logging trail in the pre-dawn, carrying a vintage Winchester Model 64 with a receiver sight.
I was doing some periodic glassing and I saw a buck standing, staring at me, only his head and neck visible from about 85 yards.
It was way too dark to shoot, so I slowly eased into a sitting position to see what would happen�he caught me pretty much in the open so there was little other choice.
By my watch, neither one of us moved a muscle for 23 minutes while it finally got light enough to use my sights. Put the bead on his white throat patch and was done!

Most fun - two weeks ago:

Dang Scott, You've got to get out in the sun more often

Just call me pasty.

I spend a fair amount of time outside in the summer but unlike days gone by I no longer let the sun bake me.

Older and a little wiser I suppose.

Slowly but surely turning into my dad - which ain't a bad thing.
Eyes and hairline are diminishing right along too.

I would have to say the most "fun" deer was my first muley with the bow in the ND badlands. It was just a spike but it was an awesome hunt!
I don't have pics of it on the computer though.

Next most fun and memorable, due to it being my largest deer and had a lot of sentimental reasons behind it, was this one:








I had just lost my best friend in a plane crash at the end of June that year. He, his boy and myself have all scored on bucks from the same tree stand in the past. This particular year my buddy's boy shot a dandy with his Dad's new bow that he never got a chance to use. I then got this one out of the same tree 2 weeks later.

It kind of felt like someone was helping us out in the luck department.

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Just a few hanging around our Home.

Here's mine--some back ground: My younger daughter was 26 years old and had finally graduated from college after a checkered academic career. She had a real job and had ditched her no-good boyfriend of several years. She called me and said that she wanted to hunt with me that fall--it had been a few years since we had hunted together.

This buck was glassed up on the third day at about 900 yards, just as the sun was getting ready to go behind the mountains to the west. We had a flat on the Jeep and I was changing it. My wife found the deer in the spotting scope, bedded with a bunch of about eight bucks. She told me to take Donelle and get the deer and that she would finish changing the tire.

We took off back down the slope until we were on the far side of the ridge where the bucks were bedded and then hustled up the back side of the ridge. My daughter had been smoking for several years and the tobacco habit and the elevation were getting to her pretty badly as we climbed. We stopped at what I estimated was about 200 yards below the deer and peeked over the ridge. They were still there.

I pointed to a rocky outcrop about halfway up to where they were and we dropped back down and worked our way up to the rocks. I whispered, "As soon as you see the deer, take a rest on a big rock and shoot the biggest one." It worked like a charm. We poked our heads up over the rocks and the deer were still bedded about 70 yards away. She dropped to her knees and rested her forearm on one of the boulders as the deer got to their feet. The big one had just got his feet under him when she shot. He went right back down.

It was getting pretty dark when my wife finally got up there with the camera and the battery gave out after one flash shot. It remains the best planned and executed stalk that I can remember.

Great story and great buck! Was that in New Mexico?

Yes. In the north end of the Animas range. Thanks for the kind words.

Mudhen,
Great story and memory!

Largest buck I've killed was the second day of bow season, had seen him two days before the season opened with two similar sized bucks. I shot him late int he afternoon and then waited an hour to start tracking, it took til midnight to track him down as he'd run more than a mile through some thick swamps. Started to drag him out and discovered he was laying on a yellow jacket nest. Since I'm allergic I had to go back to the car and rig up a suit with rain jackets, trash bags, and duct tape before I could go back and move him off the nest. Got to bed around dawn.

Last year, Lorelei never showed up. I guess this is as good a time to write her farewell. This all started back in 2010, and lasted until 2012. I'm still a little hazy on the start of it. I do remember spooking a doe early in 2010 on my way to my stand. She came back after sunrise and searched for me. That might have been my first meeting with her.

Over time, Lorelei got to patterning me. When I would get into my ladder stand at Campground, she would show up and play a hide-and-seek game with me. She would appear from a variety of directions, and stand behind a tree with her butt and her head sticking out and snort at me and then take off. Later, this evolved into coming right to my stand.

Then the really freaky stuff started. On one occasion, she came by my stand at a pretty fast clip. She stopped. Looked back, and then took off again. A short time later an 8-pointer showed up. I shot him. She came back, saw the dead buck and looked back at me and snorted wildly while hopping back and forth in . . . I'm not sure now if it was fear, glee, or what.

After she cleared out, I came down from the stand. The buck had piled up in some weeds and I missed him the first time through. I spent a half-hour combing the woods for him only to find him piled up in the fence line, right where I shot him. I called for the truck, dragged him out, and then went back for my gear at the stand. The doe was bedded next to my duffle bag and gear.

By the next season, I had her named. 'Lorelei' comes from a German drinking song, Der alte Dessauer

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This was one of the tunes I had for getting folks up in the morning at deer camp that year.

She kept visiting me through 2012. The last time I saw her, Angus and I were hunting the Midway ground blind on the last weeken of rifle season. She led a small 6-point buck to us. As I remember, she came to visit me at Campground, and I saw her checking for me in the binos. She then disappeared and showed up at Midway, crossed in front of Angus who was hunting the North side. Then she came round the south side where I was sitting and stuck her head in the window. The 6-pointer was a few feet behind. After making nearly a complete circle around the blind she wandered out into the field with the buck in tow.

Angus and I discussed taking the buck, but figured it was better to go in empty handed and let him grow up a bit. That was the last time we saw deer that year, and we both ate tag soup.

Now that is a fun story.

My funnest deer hunt involved my wife. Up until we got married her big game harvest was limited too whitetail does. This took place the first year we were married. I wanted her to get a buck real bad, so I took her up on a pretty high mountain that usually has a few mule deer running around. I figured a young mule deer would give her a pretty good opportunity, 2 weeks prior she had buggered up her knee pretty bad. Anyways, we headed up the mountain on the 4-wheeler right at day light. The first few spots we stopped and glassed produced nothing. We were headed up to the top of the mountain, there are some big rock slides up there with thick brush/timber all around. We came around the corner and up this big timbered draw there was her buck giving a big doe the "hey baby" look. Got the wife off the 4-wheeler and she hobbled over a few feet to where she had a clear shot. Boom, the buck took off from a clean miss. She was pretty bummed out. I told her everyone misses sometimes, and she would do better next time. At this point it had been 2 or 3 minutes since the buck had run off. Just then he came sneeking back in. This time when her 300 barked he hunched up and took off. She was shaking and smiling so much she had to sit down for 5 minutes before we could go get him. When she had settled down enough we found him about 50 feet away, perfect lung shot. That big grin on her face didn't go away for 3 or 4 days.

Oh and that little mulie buck was a 2x4 with 2 acorns on the 4 side and the 2 side has a big kink in it.

Mine happened up at camp in Pennsylvania. Our mountain back behind camp rises out of the bottom and there are a series of benches that run across the face of the hill. I have a stand on the lip of the first bench. Good trails in every direction. Normally the deer are either coming up the hill from below, or running down off the top when they bump into other hunters. I've got hollow to my left with a little spine running up towards me that the deer climb, a trail to my right that's been used for so many years, it's pounded into the mud about 6 inches deep as it comes up through the laurel patches, and there's 3 trails up the hill from me crossing the bench. I watch this small deer come up the hill threading it's way towards the laurel on my right. Never made horns until it hit the laurel. I keep waiting for it to step out from the cover and it never does. I'm figuring it turned and walked away, or maybe bedded down in the thick stuff. Now I'm thinking...pitch a rock over there and see if it stands up, or what? I don't want to give my self away, so I figure I'll just sit tight. Maybe if a doe walks up, he'll get up and follow her, if he's bedded down over there. 20 minutes later, here comes an old doe up the same trail. Sure enough, the little forkhorn stands up to chase. One clean shot,but I totally lost the sight picture. Knew I hit him, 'cause I saw him flinch when I shot. Now the search begins. Went to where I shot and found nothing. No hair, no blood, no scuffed up leaves, nothing. I went back to the stand three times to verify I was looking in the right spot. By then, my brother shows up. We found him about 10 feet from where I was looking. He crumpled in a low spot on a logging trail going up the hill. My brother darned near stepped on him before he saw him.

Another fun one was my first flintlock deer. Pa. law dictates that ML's used during primitive weapons seasons must be flintlocks. I took a doe shortly after Christmas one year. It was an absolute ball. Those flinters are a whole different kind of gun and very challenging. Everyone should try it once. It's very addicting.

My most funnest deer was with my children on opening weekend. I was divorcing at the time and during the "interim" phase I could only see them once or twice a month. I was able to get them that weekend and I thought it would be a good chance to burn up a doe tag with them.

We drove to a place we had never hunted. Knocked on the door and got permission and were told where to go. As we drove down into a big coulee, we spotted a herd of mule deer and I pressed on the brakes, put it in reverse and backed out of the coulee.

I told my kids to quietly exit the vehicle and leave all the doors open. They did.

We low crawled (side by side) toward the edge of the coulee and juuuust as we reached the edge, the herd spooked and hauled ass up the opposite side.

One doe paused and looked back when she reached the top. I guessed her at around 200 and held accordingly. I remember actually being a little nervous due to the four eyes I had burning holes through that deer in anticipation of what was about to happen. If ever there was a time I didn't want to miss, it was now.

At the break of the shot the doe folded up and rolled all the way to the bottom of the coulee. Both my kids jumped up and yelled in excitement. There were cheers and high fives and "good job dads" going every which way.

At that moment in time I truly was a "great white hunter" due to my kid's affirmations.

We drove as close as we could, went down and gutted her. The kids played with hearts and blood and had one helluva a good time in general.

After it was cleaned my son grabbed one leg, I grabbed the other, and up the coulee we sprinted. My daughter had not been expecting this and we (unfortunately)looked down into the coulee and she was sobbing her savage little heart out. I ran back down to assure her we weren't going anywhere and her tears dried right up. Held her hand and walked her ass up to the top and our day was done.

We had it bagged and tagged and were headed home before 0900 if memory serves.

It was not "their" first deer, but they were so involved in the entire process that in some weird way, it was and (in my mind) probably always will be. A truly great morning.




Travis