One of my sons, who has shot several nice bucks over the years, had his sights set (metaphorically) on a nice buck during our early season.

But, which has happened to myself numerous times too, his excitement got the better of him.

So, any, "I shot the wrong buck" campfire stories?


Text exchange between us.

Shot a doe and the pass thru hit the little one behind her enough that I had to do a second shot to finish it off.
Remember that part about being aware of what is behind your target? I thank god every day it was another deer and not a Hunter I failed to see. It was one of those teaching moments you don’t want to forget and have it happen again

Buck he "accidentally shot." It's not THAT small.

Buck he was hunting.

Your gun season starts early

Nope, never have. I consider every legally taken deer to be a precious gift from nature. So in my eyes there is no such thing as the "wrong buck." If I squeeze the trigger then I have made the conscious decision that I wanted that particular deer. Too many of today's hunters are too wrapped up about antlers rather than the simple joys of the hunt.

Yes, I have messed up a couple of times.

I messed up big time in Illinois a few years back. 🤦🏼‍♂️😭
Sczchit happens.

Still a nice buck that your son shot!

'Yepsir' I killed this legal buck but thot he was another larger buck I JUST saw.





There was a nicer buck I saw cross a small opening. I don't know what happened behind the trees/brush but
this guy comes out angling away from me with his left side visible. BOOM, he falls out of sight to his right.

I hunt ON the ground & before I could make 3 steps, NICER buck crosses that opening. OOPS !

ATST I was and am glad I removed thisun from the gene pool. He had long eye guards. His L side was 3 pts which
made him legal but his R side only had 2 pts. Ark. law, 3 pts on 1 side = legal.

A successful hunt, you bet. I'm glad for 3 reasons. I scored and removed an inferior buck.
Nicer buck was left for another optimistic hunt.


Jerry

I remember S.

Yes Stuff happens.


Jerry

I got to cross the upper stretch of the New Fork River in my underwear to get this 16" wide 4x4 mule deer. He was 2nd in line when they entered the brush and a 170 class 4x4 was 1st. They must have switched places in there because the 16" wide was first out. I checked for antlers and shot. Oh well, he ate good. Excitement can get the better half of a guy and it was perfectly fine with me.

I did it once several years back...I had pics of a 150-155" 10 point Whitetail in an area all Summer and Fall with not another buck in the area even close in size just had pics of a few dinks, come rifle season (Late November) I get glimpses of a good racked buck chasin a hot doe back and forth across a clearcut down the mountain from my stand I naturally assumed it was him so when he stopped with an open shot at his shoulder i dropped him (about 100yd shot) .....When I went to retrive him I found a 120" 8 point that I had never laid eyes on 😂........Hb

Shootem all and take the biggest one LOL!

Was following a heavy 8 and a 6pointer as they worked their way across a brushy hillside. That big 8 was leading the entire way.

Found an opening with the thurty thurty and when that buck hit the opening I let him have it. Buck dropped and I watched that heavy 8 point stand there and sniff him then slowly walk off.

-Jake

Oh yes! I shot the wrong buck. It was November 2006.

I had taken a very large buck in 2007, the camp record. There was still a pretty good amount of venison left prior to season. The kids were still at home, so whatever they shot in Yute season went in. I took a decent-size doe Opening Weekend.
It is no exaggeration that I spent a half-hour cramming the last chub of ground venison into the freezer and then carefully checked the door to see that it sealed.

I just could not take another deer that year. In fact, I went out the next Saturday with the idea of "Not-Hunting." That is, going to the stand, fully kitted, and just not taking a shot. Everything was going well. I was enjoying the morning, and then what looked like a really nice buck appeared. You'll laugh when you see the pictures. They already laugh at me here for misjudging racks. From 70 yards away, it really and truly looked bigger. Honest!

It was a big deer, I forget the yield on it, but it was a major chore. I'm not going to spoil the rest. It's here if you want to read it:


The Shaman Backs into a Buck . . .

Getting the buck up to the house was a big enough problem. The big hurdle was that I had to get a new freezer in place before I left the next Friday to pick up the meat from the processor. Sears had a freezer on sale, but they kept blowing me off on delivery. It eventually arrived Friday evening, but they put a dent in it getting it off the truck. I got $60 off, but negotiating took even more time and delayed our departure for the farm.

The rack is still up here in my office as a reminder.

Every one of them, they all shrink when they are laying prone

I shot the wrong buck one time. It was walking and the way the sun was shining the horns were giving off a shadow and made them look way bigger than they were. The shot was a bang flop so I took off to get to the buck and when I got there, I thought "where did my buck go, I know he was way bigger than this"

Yep, the last 2 "mistakes" skylined themselves in my Binoculars and I made my decision more quickly than I normally would. No, I didn't shoot them skylined, and no, it wasn't the end of the world, just had some significant "ground shrinkage" but there's LOTS worse things.

The "wrong" buck cause they were much smaller when I walked up to them?..yep, sure done that a few times.

Did it TWICE when I was a kid. First deer ever was a spike (not legal) second time it was a doe (also not legal). Both times I saw a big buck and got excited then lost sight of them, then when I saw them again it was the wrong deer. I guess when I quit getting excited I'll stop hunting.

I did

I plead the 5th! Lol! One year in my WI deer camp, one of the guys returned to the cabin with a doe asking if anyone had a doe tag as he only had a buck tag. He "explained" that a nice buck was in his sights, but just as he pulled the trigger this doe jumped in front of the buck and took the bullet! Oh boy! Thankfully a doe tag was presented to him making it "legal", but he also wasn't invited back the next year.

Nope, it will start right on time- Dec 1st

This was a very interesting morning. I had a bachelor group of 3 bucks on me and it was just getting light enough to pick the best one when they took off from my clearing and went in the brush. This hog waded out into the clearing and stood there. I had enough light to drop him in my food plot. After the shot, the bucks came across another lane and I shot what I thought was the biggest one. He dropped as well. Then the actual biggest buck stepped out and thrashed on the dead buck for several minutes, tossing him like a ragdoll. I let the bigger one walk (we get only one buck per day), and never saw him again.

I can sympathize. That's prezactly what happened to me in my earlier reference above. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Oh, yeh. Through out the farms I have trail cams and while doing field work I get to know some of the Whitetail bucks. I had patterned a real nice buck and had a tree stand set up in his wheelhouse. Opening morning I was there and a few does moved thru but no buck. About 11:00 AM I heard a couple grunts then the tink, tink, thud of antlers. Shortly thereafter a big buck came trotting down the hillside to my left that the does came down and I could see enough of him that I was going to pull the trigger. I voice "meh" him and he stopped and I sent a 87 grain .257 bullet.

At the shot a second buck came down the hillside and ran right at me. When he came by me at about 20 yards I could see it was the buck I had patterned. WTF.

I was filled with anticipation climbing out of the tree stand, walked the 80 yards to where the buck was when I shot, found blood after a couple jumps he took and continued on the trail. It wasn't more than 50 yards and there he was. Huge buck, bigger than the one I patterned. Wrong buck but great buck.

Roundoak - something similar. Hunting with my adult son 2 years ago late in season.

I was only going to cull this year after several years in a row of nice ones. Since before season I kept seeing a mature large buck that looked awesome, hi and wide, straight on but was missing a tine or two on one side- genetic not from fighting.

On a foggy morning we saw 'him' trot into a treeline not far from us and I debated if I would take him if he presented. He popped out not 25 yards aside us and stopped cold staring at me perfect broadside when he heard my excited son say, Holy crap Dad shoot this big.....and heard my "pow".

Son decided to film and asked me to tell about the buck on way towards it after I spotted it under a tree . I got there and chuckled and said "well...." discovered it was a big ole symmetrical 10 point - nicest ever for me.

So - wrong buck in reverse story. Deer now watches tv in same room with me.

first deer I ever killed. Shot a nice 8 pt 3 times with my Savage 99 in 250. First shot killed him, but I was to excited to let him fall. I ran to the top of the knoll he had crossed, and saw a nice buck standing there. Dropped him with first shot. walked down there, 2 nice 8 pts laying there. that was back when we got one buck a year. dad was proud to check it for me.

Yes. Big Eddy and Jr, both being 4 bys, once bedded in the shady side of a boulder on the Idaho side of Hells Canyon. Eventually, Jr departed traveling about 500 yds around the end of the ridge. Stalk was on and in about an hour I made it to "peek over rock" that would offer about a 150 yd shot. Pushed the rifle over the rise, and the buck was right where expected. Dropped him, gathered up pack frame and optics, and started the hike over. About half way on the approach, Big Eddy stepped into sight from behind the boulder. Seems in the hour or so I was out of sight, Jr had returned.

There was great temptation to high grade, but likely someone somewhere on the horizon was witnessing the event.

A sometimes hunting partner was on a guided trip, and the guide took him on an extended approach to a fine buck. Guide peeked over, announced that he was still there, the hunter crawled up, and leveled the still bedded buck. A nice 3 by kicked a bit, as the monster rose and went over the rim. Guide was pissed as there was a contracted trophy fee for 4bys but none for 3 bys.

Yep, did it last year.

I was in a treestand, tracking two bucks that were running nose to tail, with the bigger buck following. I knew where they were going to cross a logging road, so I moved my scope ahead of them and waited. In a second, the first deer bolted across the road and then the second deer crossed, I pulled the trigger and down he went. To my surprise, within the second it took them to reach and cross the haul-road, the bigger buck took the lead and I ended up shooting the smaller of the two.

Nothing but love coming from here (and a touch of envy).

Egad! Big pig?, or small buck?

Come to think of it, on a guided hunt in Spain a couple years ago we got into a bachelor herd of Iberian red deer. Looking at them I swore I knew which one the guide said was the biggest bull (buck?), and it sure looked the biggest to me, but it ended up being we were looking at different animals. The one I took ended up being pretty old I was told. The guide said that for whatever reason they tend to loose their second points as they get older. I dunno.

I was happy with him regardless.

Our club allows two bucks per member. About ten years ago on opening day, one of our new members, the brother of one of our current members, was sitting in a tripod stand overlooking a three or four year old cutover. This cutover has some pretty good ridges and deep draws and really good cover for the deer.

That morning he saw a pretty good 8 point about 150 yards away and took a shot. The buck ran over the ridge and disappeared. A few seconds later our guy saw him making his way up the far side of the draw so took another shot. The buck stumbled but continued over the ridge.

Well our guy worked his way down to where the buck was for the first shot and followed blood over the ridge and found a buck just beyond the crest. He got to thinking that he had taken the second shot on a buck going UP the second ridge. Hmmmm?

By that time a couple of guys had worked their way over to him and they went to the spot where buck was for the second shot, found blood and sure enough there was another buck over the next ridge. Doh!

When the two bucks were compared side by side they were practically identical….same body size and the two racks were perfect matches. Possibly brothers. In any event his season was over maybe 15-20 seconds after it started. He was hunting does only for the rest of the year. He was a member for several years but eventually joined another club. On occasion when he comes back with his brother as a guest, that episode always seems to pop up in the conversation. 😁

Better question is who hasn't shot the wrong deer. I had a nice buck in front of me one morning at daybreak and I shot and it took off, walked up to where it stood expecting a blood trail and there lays a spike horn. I think back and only thing I could come up with was the spike was on my near side and had his head turned back to his offside maybe licking himself. No pass through or I might have had 2 and only 1 tag.

Yep, a rag horn 6 pt. that I thought my wife had shot.

I tracked on my hands & knee's for an hour only to find a chunk of leg bone & white hair. Questions resulted in; no way she pulled the shot. I could have retaliated but how do you reason with a faultless, perfect, ahh, woman.

So I tracked some more. Then I saw the 6 pt. I didn't wait to see it limp or anything, just pulled my 44 Blackhawk & put it down. Wrong dang deer, hers still limping away. Sad.

I checked her Rem. 243 with Nosler 95 partitions a few days later. I could have hit a chipmunk with it @ 200.

But did I bring it up?

Yup, wrong deer, it steps out on the cut line doesn’t look that big of a set antlers but really good mass. Boom. Small skinny antlers turned slightly on an angle looked so much better than reality.

Wrong bull as well, see part two or part three of my post in the Africa forum on my 2021 trip to Namibia.

Hunt enough and everyone will have the “wrong one story”

I knew a guy in PENN who shot a buck with a 7RM and killed the doe standing beside the buck also with a pass through, I wasnt there but thats what he told us happened

Yup. My buddy and I were watching two mule deer bucks, almost identically shaped antlers, but one was clearly larger. They were bedded down. When they stood up and started moving around, I got a clear shot and took it.

Then my buddy asked me why I'd shot the smaller one... Oh crud!

Ah well, I was happy with the one I got anyway.



Guy

Yep. Early in my hunting career…first time to see a youngish buck chasing a little early. He came in hot with his head down and I thought he was way bigger than he was. Learned a big lesson about ground shrinkage when I walked up to him.

Nope. But I have low standards. I've never killed a deer I wasn't proud of.

Moose.

I was going back in before daylight one morning, to camp and hunt over the weekend, when I heard a bull calling, "Thwup, thuwp, thwup". One can make this call with a metal can and string devise, but that's the only time I ever heard a moose make it, but I'd done my homework and knew what it was.. It was coming my way, and getting light, so I took my pack off, sat on it, chambered a 210 NP round in the .338WM rifle, and waited.

First a couple cows traversed an opening on a small ridge about 100 yards away, followed by a legal bull, long enough for i.d. not long enough to then shoot I pulled up on the next small (really small!) opening and waited. The two cows came through, and what I THOUGHT was the same bull. I shot, the moose all bolted. Next I saw was the two cows and my bull bolting through the next and larger opening. The bull stopped behind a clump of brush but there was no way out for him that I would not get a shot when he left , so I waited for him to go down, which I expected momentarily, or for the 2nd shot opportunity

Then I heard thrashing and kind of bubble-breathing back toward where I'd first fired. "What the hell did I shoot?" About that time the brush-hidden bull moved out and I got another look at him - he looked the same as the first bull I'd looked at.

"WHAT THE HELL DID I SHOOT?"

Note to self - FINAL IDENTIFY AGAIN, before tripping that trigger!

I walked up on my downed bull and things got interesting. When I was 10-15 feet away he surged to his feet, and I more or less one-handed the second 210 NP round "up his nose" - actually between the eyes. More or less.....

Note to self: that's the last time I approach from the front, and always put an insurance shot in from a few yards away.

The two bulls were virtually identical - I suspect they were twins. Luckily the downed bull made noise before I shot the standing one "again".

The first round had disintegrated on the shoulder blade, shattering it sending bb-sized bits of bone and lead into the near side lung only. No penetration to the off-lung at all. I never found the rear portion of the NP - I suspect it richochetted or fell out of the large entry wound.

Note to self : don't use 210 NP on moose. and I never have on anything since. Probably OK for caribou, tho. Or deer. Or coyotes.

I still have no idea whether I shot the first or second bull following those cows.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

One of my hunting knives is still there, somewhere....

Yes and no. I shot the buck I wanted, he dropped at the shot, but immediately got up, so I shot him again. Only to find out it was a different buck that was bedded next to the first buck.

Not me, but an older gent we used to hunt with but has since passed. He was a farmer and was as frugal as they come. He hunted with a trapdoor Springfield 45-70 he bought from the DCM in his youth, along with a crate or surplus ammo he was still using. This took place in the early 80s. Anyway, he farmed sugar beets and usually brought a good enough supply that he sometimes had to wait for the deer to move from behind the pile to shoot. One day, he shot. You could always tell from the boom of the old cannon. When we all got back to the cabin, he came in talking of the ‘monster 12 point’ he shot. ‘Biggest damned deer I ever seen, and I seen a few!’ This is from an area not known for big bucks and a buck surviving until his third year was unusual. So we went to help track his deer. Come to find out it had been standing behind a 6” diameter maple in a stand of poplar. Knowing his old rifle had probably killed Buffalo, he shot through the maple, and that bullet had hit and killed the buck. It lay about 12 feet away, a true trophy for the area. It was a 2 1/2 year old basket racked six point that live weighed about 130 pounds. He swore until he died that wasn’t his buck, and that we just didn’t look hard enough for his deer. When he found it, one club member said, ‘well, I found your deer, but I think that old cannon blew half the points off him!’

I may have shot the wrong buck once, too, but that story still amuses me.

Old70

Yes - still pisses me off when I think about it.

OMG yes just last year. Watched a big buck run a doe into a creek, moved my position and watched a buck run a doe back out. Didn't figure out there were two bucks and two does in that creek until I walked up and put my hands on him, while watching the first one run out the back with his huge rack and doe in front of him.

I’ve only shot the wrong buck once. It was opening weekend of Oklahoma rifle season in 2017. It was still a really nice buck just not the buck I thought it was at a little over 200 yards and on the move.

Not exactly, but last year I shot this scrag at the crack of dawn with my xbow, thinking it was a doe. Left me stuck with an Earn-a-Buck restriction for the rest of the season.

^^^^^^
Close enough.

Super long range.
I shoot the buck.
I look through the scope.
He is still standing.
I must have missed.
I shoot the buck.
I get there and find two bucks.
Ask the other hunters, "Anyone want to tag the extra buck?

My story also. Had to be about 35 years ago and I had my oldest son with me. Luckily my wife also had a tag but she was back at camp.

Another time my son was with me and I shot at a nice 4x4 standing in the oak brush but he hauled ass away like he hadn't been touched and I didn't get another shot off. Went to look for a blood trail and there was that 4x4 laying in the oak brush. Luckily I didn't do that same stupid stunt that time.

Kind of. Opening day late I was getting out of my tree stand when a fork horn went under my tree. I didn't want to shoot that one or show him where I was, so I let him feed his way over the hill. About a minute later he came racing back under my tree like he was on fire. Strange I thought and then the buck of a lifetime came up over that same hill with a doe. I've seen a lot of big deer including B&C mounts and this guy had it all. Broadside at 80 yards with snow... But late, like half an hour late. I hunted that buck for three days and never saw him again, only big tracks and a rub on a cedar tree I could barely get my arms around. I went back for my camera to get a picture of that one.
I gave it up on that stand four days later, moved and 8:30 that morning shot a consolation buck. 210# dressed weighed a week later as a main frame 10, with 18 scoreable. That opening day buck still haunts my memory years later.