I am just scratching the surface on Deer compared to the really good hunters on here, but am also lucky to have grown up where I did. Beautiful places and critters all around.
Another pretty nice one I got to tag along on this past October...
Cripes, that is a toad! That right beam has got to be like 28" long. Nice work on getting that little dude his first buck... I bet he'll be chasing that one for a long time.
JG how long would you size up that buck in Tanner's first photo,in the snow field,before you dropped him?
It would take me all of 3-4 seconds to size that dude up with my bins before grabbing the rifle. How do you miss a buck like that the size of a 55 gallon drum? I'm sure you and I see eye to eye on this one...! Actually I seldom score a buck before I shoot.
Last edited by JGRaider; 01/28/15.
It is irrelevant what you think. What matters is the TRUTH.
Alright SKane, don't dare make fun of my whiteys......In reality I'm a dumbass when it comes to whitetail hunting. I've managed to kill a few in the upper 150's, but I managed to pass up this buck at 150 yds 'cause I though he was in the high 140's. My buddy whacked him 5 minutes later and he was bumping 163".....
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Then a couple of days later this buck lays down with a doe about 170 yes from my perch in the rocks, in plain sight, for 15 minutes. I made the call again that he was in the high '40's and passed. My other coonass buddy shot him the next day....but he had grown to 166" by then........
[img:left][/img]
It is irrelevant what you think. What matters is the TRUTH.
"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated." Thomas Paine
I shot a 31 inch 4x4 that same morning that looks like a dink compared to this one.
"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated." Thomas Paine
225 pounds field dressed, one year earlier in the same spot. 206 pounds, one year after the first post, in the same spot. Longbow on this one too. Not a bad 3 year string.
JG how long would you size up that buck in Tanner's first photo,in the snow field,before you dropped him?
It would take me all of 3-4 seconds to size that dude up with my bins before grabbing the rifle. How do you miss a buck like that the size of a 55 gallon drum? I'm sure you and I see eye to eye on this one...! Actually I seldom score a buck before I shoot.
Yup!
The buck in your video is like that, too.....shoot! Big boy.
Here's one from this fall, I'm going to steal starsky's opportunity to post it himself. Absolutely the biggest body I've ever seen on a Mule Deer!
Tanner
Damn, I look good in that picture.
Since Tanner stole my mule deer thunder, here's a whitey I shot with my old man on the plains with his 54 caliber Hawken. Junior year of high school, iirc...
Yeah I should and here's another from that time line as well. Had a great place to hunt in those days and believe it or not these were run of the mill racks for us guys.The big one green scored 170 ish if I recall but one of my pards busted a 190 a year later.Nebraska corn fed venisons ya know.
You better be afraid of a ghost!!
"Woody you were baptized in prop wash"..crossfireoops
Here's three northern Minnesota bucks. First is one my dad took in 1966; he was 5'10" so use that for scale. The second was taken at our camp in 1995 ... a monster, but he was not weighed . The 3rd is an 8-pointer I took in 2006 from the same stand the 2nd one was taken from; this one dressed out at 208lbs.
Probably the biggest one to wander through our IL farm. My cousin saw him a couple times over the years, always out of range. The neighbor arrowed it once as well, but he kept on truckin. Died of old age (best we can tell) last year and after drying, taped 206"
"You know why nobody panic buys 30-06 ammo? ... Because men with 30-06's don't panic"
Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else. -Ambassador Delenn, Babylon 5
I mean, the heck with the dinks....show us the big ones,whitetail,blacktail, or mule deer.
And tell us how you killed them.
Just a fun thread because big bucks are always interesting and fun to look at.
Alright Bob, I'm calling you out. Let's see some of YOUR pics!!!!!!
herschel I can't post pics...besides so many of them were shot before there was anything but colored prints and slides! I do have some on my old lap top that I have not moved yet to the new Apple.
I have killed some very nice deer but after seeing what you guys have posted here I'm not sure I want too show them LOL! Many of them have no pictures of at all
This thread went nuts....I can't mention everyone but wow pretty obvious there's lots of very good deer hunters here because people don't kill deer of the quality seen here by accident...fabulous....just fabulous everyone.
OK, I'll play; here's a few Colorado bucks on the hoof. I've never had the good fortune to bring a BIG one home, but am very fortunate to live in a place that I can see deer like this.
Love them big 3's:
Probably the best scoring buck I've personally witnessed:
And probably the biggest buck I've seen in person (sorry for the crappy spotting scope pic):
Looking through this thread, I am reminded of something that I'm sure we are all aware of...
That is, for me,(although the big deer are sort of special because they come less frequently and require a combination of effort and good luck), as years role by you think back and it occurs that it isn't about the size of the deer,but the places you get to visit, the hunts themselves and the people you meet along the way,some of whom become fast friends for years to follow.
All of this transcends the size of the bucks, which are really momentos of the experiences that brought you to them. In that respect,all deer,and all deer hunts,are special. This makes them all really big deer in our minds beyond the size of the antlers.
Love to see more picture posted. Keep them coming.
This is my biggest muley; not so big score-wise as he was on the down hill side of life's walk but he was pushing three hundred pounds. A grand old, western monarch. For some scale, I'm 6'0" and 215 lbs. He had 9" bases.
The second is my biggest whitetail of about thirty with traditional archery equipment. He also was a very big bodied deer.
The last was my biggest Nebraska whitetail taken at five hundred yards just after a blizzard.
Bob, the Muley as shown above was taken in SW Colorado down in a stream bed thick with cottonwoods and dead falls. Saw him go in about 9AM , came back about 3:30 and stalked into the wind until his rack was spotted above the brush and deadfall. Waited him out at about hundred yards until he got up facing us. 140-gr TTSX from stem to stern out of the .284.
I'd like to say I remember what rifle I used when I look at a set of horns, but I guess that's one of the downsides to being a rifle slut...small though...:)
As is the case with so many big buck encounters, the big ones sometimes live charmed lives. This buck had it all. His G2s and G3s were easily 15" and possibly 17" each. His G4s were the weakest part at around 5-6". The left brow was around 8" and the right was possibly broken at 5". Main beams wrapped.
This picture was opening morning of rifle season at around 300 yards. Unfortunately 250 of those yards were on the other side of the fence we didn't have permission to hunt on. Saw this buck 2 times and to my knowledge he was never taken. How big would he go score wise I don't know, but I think he was only 5 or 6 in this picture.
I always remember him when I am training and need motivation, not that plains hunting takes conditioning, he just fires me up.
We've taken bucks some nice bucks along the way, but it is always the ones that got away that seem to stick with me and I mean that in a good way. Always makes watching the sunrise fill me with thoughts about what could come popping over the hill.
Looking through this thread, I am reminded of something that I'm sure we are all aware of...
That is, for me,(although the big deer are sort of special because they come less frequently and require a combination of effort and good luck), as years role by you think back and it occurs that it isn't about the size of the deer,but the places you get to visit, the hunts themselves and the people you meet along the way,some of whom become fast friends for years to follow.
All of this transcends the size of the bucks, which are really momentos of the experiences that brought you to them. In that respect,all deer,and all deer hunts,are special. This makes them all really big deer in our minds beyond the size of the antlers.
Love to see more picture posted. Keep them coming.
Excellent post Bob, by far the best one I've read on the forum.
There are some absolute hogs pictured in this thread.....just amazing.
24HCF in its entirety, is solely responsible for why my children do not have college funds, my mortgage isn't paid-off and why I will never retire early enough to enjoy the remainder of my life.
Want To Buy; Form die for a 7mm Mashburn Super. .284 Hornady AMax 162gr. .224 Hornady AMax 75gr. 22-250 bushing die Bushing die that will work with the 7mm Mashburn Super A couple Glock 42 380ACP mags
Alright, I gotta post a few. They are all Georgia bucks that look like midgets to these Western bucks. My trophies aren't necessarily measured in inches or pounds. Starting more than 20 years ago
Spent quite a bit of time looking for a giant for a friend that drew the statewide raffle deer tag here in CO this year. Found a hammer in October but my friend and I thought we might wait to see what the late season provided. Here is the big deer we elected to pass..
Here are two 200" deer in the same picture...
Here is a picture of the big deer up close. He is at least a 14x13 with gobs of mass, inlines, cheaters, droptines, many brownies and character for days...
Video from the first moment I found him...
I had just gotten done hunting with a friend when we found that buck. In fact, this buck was in the back of the truck when I first found the above deer in the pictures...
Rob and I...
A few days later a friend of mine called me and had found a buck in a unit I had a tag for and as luck would have it the deer was on a piece of property owned by a good friend of mine and he helped me gain access. I still need to take a "gift" to the landowner for graciously allowing me to hunt his property. I was shooting a muzzleloader and my powder got moisture in it and I missed him at 50 yards. Went back 2 days later and shot him at 20 yards.
Here he is alive..
And here he is with my friend Kelby that found him...
Every time I have been behind the trigger on a big coues, something has gotten fuc&ed up.... either I miss (more than once had been the case), or, what happened on the biggest buck I've ever seen during hunting season, my mom's boss fuc$ed me by shooting at the smaller deer before we were ready.
Either way, here is my personal best. A gorgeous buck, decent size but certainly not "big".
I'll say they are. Size and trophy quality is relative to where you are but those GA buck are great shooters about anywhere! A big GA buck I bet takes as much hunting as a mature whitetail anywhere. Not easy to kill those bucks.
Every time I have been behind the trigger on a big coues, something has gotten fuc&ed up.... either I miss (more than once had been the case), or, what happened on the biggest buck I've ever seen during hunting season, my mom's boss fuc$ed me by shooting at the smaller deer before we were ready.
Either way, here is my personal best. A gorgeous buck, decent size but certainly not "big".
Casey: Great Coues! Would like to hunt one of those someday.
This thread is making me believe that I need to try whitetails...
BTW- if any of you guys ever get the chance to hunt deer with 30338 or starsky, do NOT let them take field pics with your deer. They are both just shy of 9' tall with boots on and make your animals look really small. Not their fault, I know, but I mean... c'mon...
GunLoony: Congrats that's a great deer;and for being a good Dad as well....best trophy of all.
Thanks BobinNH! Both my daughters hunt with me. My oldest is 20 and in college, but we try to make at least one weekend in the woods during deer season.
He came in about 5 minutes after I shot a doe with the only crossbow bolt I had. we watched him from about 15 to 20 yards for maybe a half hour. I killed him the following weekend with a rifle.
This thread is making me believe that I need to try whitetails...
BTW- if any of you guys ever get the chance to hunt deer with 30338 or starsky, do NOT let them take field pics with your deer. They are both just shy of 9' tall with boots on and make your animals look really small. Not their fault, I know, but I mean... c'mon...
Tanner
You definitely need to get on some whitetails. Like a good chess match.
But, what I really want is for you or Drum to get me on some of those beast mulies!!! If you start guiding, I call first dibs.
I hunted Conn. this year and sauntered over into eastern NY for processing....they are killing some damn nice bucks in that country. Caught me off guard actually.I hear access is an issue but the deer are there.
This thread is making me believe that I need to try whitetails...
BTW- if any of you guys ever get the chance to hunt deer with 30338 or starsky, do NOT let them take field pics with your deer. They are both just shy of 9' tall with boots on and make your animals look really small. Not their fault, I know, but I mean... c'mon...
Tanner
You definitely need to get on some whitetails. Like a good chess match.
But, what I really want is for you or Drum to get me on some of those beast mulies!!! If you start guiding, I call first dibs.
Drum is the guy to talk to about that.... I'm just a goon that gets to tag along on friends' hunts sometimes...
Great bucks everyone. I'm the opposite of Tanner. Now I want to chase mulies.
Here's my best buck and a hunt that will be hard to top. I have always dreamed of tracking and shooting a mature buck in his bed. I've been close a few times but was always spotted first. This year on 11-11 it started snowing about 3 hours before day break. At sun up there was around 3 inches of perfect white. 2 buck tracks and a couple hours later and it all came together. I took the first pic from where I shot if you look close you can see him in the center of the pic. 15 yards away, bedded and looking the wrong direction. I actually got 2 trophys on that trip. I had a sapling that I had to remove before I could slip 2 more into him.
Want To Buy; Form die for a 7mm Mashburn Super. .284 Hornady AMax 162gr. .224 Hornady AMax 75gr. 22-250 bushing die Bushing die that will work with the 7mm Mashburn Super A couple Glock 42 380ACP mags