Biggest whitetail you ever seen and didn’t get a shot at.

[Vol1975]

Story time for those awaiting hunting season

Killed a lot of big deer in my 40+ years of hunting them and been fortunate enough to kill a few BC but to this day the one that keeps me up at night thinking about and can picture him to this day some 30 years later is a deer I seen in Coosa county Alabama. Like a midnight dream.
story goes I was pulling into the area to hunt in the middle of the day during the rut and was coming up to my area. As I was walking the Deer meet me walking to the stand in an open area some 250 yards away. The deer looked like a horse with a rockin chair setting on his head. To this day I don't know exactly how big he was but I've killed deer from south Texas to Canada and he was good as any. Make a long story short he seen me when I seen him and he skipped 2nd thru 4th gear and was at a full run quick. No chance. With distance between me and the deer and his speed. Maybe I should have took a shot. Maybe not.
to this day I think about that deer. Oh well it keeps u going back. Sad part is I never seen him or any body else. I know if he would have been killed I would have heard about him. The newspaper buck I called him from that point on that never made the front page.
tell a story for those awaiting hunting season.
cheers

 

[sturner]

Sat and watched a 190 on the King ranch across a fence we couldn't shoot across 1993

 

[LVJ76]

When I was 8 yrs old I missed my chance at the biggest Desert Mulie I've ever seen to this date, never seen another animal that big.

So my dad had gotten me a Savage over under rifle, 223 Rem on top of a 20, one cool gun. We used to hunt some ranches in Sonora Mexico that belonged to my uncles in laws. One afternoon I went dove and quail hunting and got enough for dinner for all of us.

Thw next morning we went for a walk and ran in to this big beautiful old mulie, pulled the hammer back, set the crosshair right behind the shoulder and fired, what happened? A cloud of dust of all the pellets fromt the 20 ga, thats what happened, oh and a monster mulie that walked out of my life forever.

We nicknamed him "El Viejo", means "old man" in spanish. In the years that followed an uncle of mine, one cousin and a friend also missed their chances to shoot him. I don't think anyone ever got him and we believed he died of age. One uncle ran in to him at about 60 yds and all he could do was stare at the massive rack and watched him walk away, he said he couldn't bring himself to shoot that beauty.

To this day I can still relive that moment and I still regret not checking the gun and adjusting the lever back to the 223 barrel.

We did feast on bacon wrapped quail and dove kabobs that night, that was the only good thing that came out of that, a great dinner with my dad, uncles and friends, and a great story that we still laugh about.

 

[Mustang72]

Still have my 223 /20 gauge. Mine was about a 150 class eight point about 3 years ago. I messed up on opening weekend and shot an 8 point that I thought was a different deer. A couple of weeks later I started seeing the big 8. Never got a shot in him that I was comfortable taking. Finally took an old respectable 10 point with a week or two left in the season. Last buck tag filled. A buddy came out the last weekend to shoot a couple of does for the freezer. There we were and out walks some does a hundred yards from me and guess who was with them! Must have shot his son the next year--oops! Last light who would have thought there would be two with 8 inch brow tines! Never saw the big one again. Son was decent but still needed a couple of more years!

 

[LVJ76]

After me mi brother hunted with that Savage, we still have but in Mexico, when my dad passed we weren't able to bring it across the border so we use it when we get a chance to go down there.

Lots of memories with that gun

 

[Savage 12BVSS]

I had to pass on what is a pretty good one up here, I sat one windy afternoon in a stand well hid up in a tree. I saw the top of a small hardwood shake violently up at the top and went on full alert. A buck walked out and started past me in a swale, I brought up my gun and shot him as he trotted past. I watched him fall and set there collecting my thoughts and preparing to climb down when a huge older buck walked out to the swale edge and looked all around. I watched him for 10 minutes or so and checked him in the scope, he was out past the ears and had impressive tine length. I called my hunting buddy and told him what I was sitting and looking at, he simply said shoot him and give someone the other deer. I couldn't, after 15 minutes I started to climb down knowing he would never get near the stand again and would disappear into the swamp. He did and it wasn't till right after season he was hit and killed by a car crossing the road. He scored 165 and change and was the best I've personally seen in the woods hunting.

We live with our decisions and I'm OK with mine, I simply don't break game laws even though some of my friends couldn't believe it. Here's a good one shot up here near where I hunt great mass. Dave

 

[MaineMike]

...there was this thirty pointer once. Perhaps you heard the song?

 

[Sledhead406]

...there was this thirty pointer once. Perhaps you heard the song?

I had dreams of Betty Lou when I was a kid.

 

[KurtB]

One year my wife shot a very large buck that scored well but lots of deductions. He had been hanging with a perfectly clean 10 pt that would gross and net around 180". We never got a shot at him. Saw that 180 again in late rifle season and good friend almost got a crack at him but it wasn't to be.

 

[RGJZ06]

Love to hear these stories and they can keep you up at night second guessing the experience. My experience keeps me in the field at my advanced age. I use my experience with the one that got away as a positive in my hunting life. There are more monsters out there for us to get a crack at.

 

[Savage 12BVSS]

Those big alpha's spread their genes around pretty good every fall, so you know there's always a chance of another a few seasons later. A son or grandson with similar antlers could appear.

 

[SavageHunter11]

Story time for those awaiting hunting season

Killed a lot of big deer in my 40+ years of hunting them and been fortunate enough to kill a few BC but to this day the one that keeps me up at night thinking about and can picture him to this day some 30 years later is a deer I seen in Coosa county Alabama. Like a midnight dream.
story goes I was pulling into the area to hunt in the middle of the day during the rut and was coming up to my area. As I was walking the Deer meet me walking to the stand in an open area some 250 yards away. The deer looked like a horse with a rockin chair setting on his head. To this day I don't know exactly how big he was but I've killed deer from south Texas to Canada and he was good as any. Make a long story short he seen me when I seen him and he skipped 2nd thru 4th gear and was at a full run quick. No chance. With distance between me and the deer and his speed. Maybe I should have took a shot. Maybe not.
to this day I think about that deer. Oh well it keeps u going back. Sad part is I never seen him or any body else. I know if he would have been killed I would have heard about him. The newspaper buck I called him from that point on that never made the front page.
tell a story for those awaiting hunting season.
cheers

It was opening day of my very first whitetail deer season in 2011 about an hour before sundown. My brother and I were perched on top of a hill in a ground blind on some public land that runs adjacent to some prime private land on our right side. We had been sitting there for about 2 hours and were seeing nothing until we saw a huge buck step out of the shelter belt on the private land about 300 yards to our right. As we sat there, slack-jawed, at the size of this deer (it was both our first times ever hunting deer) we noticed the buck was making a slow beeline straight towards us. We watched for about 20 minutes as this deer walked closer and closer to public land for us to shoot it and my brother and I had already flipped a coin and I was the lucky one who got the first poke at this monster buck.

I started getting my rifle (R700 VTR in 308) ready to take a shot, any second and the deer would be off public land. The deer was no more than 5 to 10 yards from the boundary when we heard a noise, it was a truck coming up the road that separated the public and private land. Next thing we know a red Jeep Grand Cherokee comes busting down the gravel road. The buck turns tail and takes off into the field. The Jeep slams the brakes and tears off into the field after the buck chasing it all the while the passenger is blasting away at it out the window. They pursued the deer for about 500 yards and let loose about a box of ammunition before they finally killed it.

About this point in time my brother and I are mad enough that we decide to pack up before we decide to confront a couple of idiots with guns and questionable decision making. As we finished stowing our gear and started driving off. We decided to turn into the farm on the other side of the shelter belt to see if anyone was home, we had a feeling that anyone who hunted like that probably didn't have permission. We were correct. The farmer confirmed that he doesn't allow anyone to hunt his property and he was all riled up that someone had. To make an already long story short. We called the wildlife officer who was in the area and only a couple miles away. All four of us confronted the "hunters" in the Jeep. We pulled up on them as they were trying to leave the field. It was a group of three teenager from the city about 2 hours south. Turns out they didn't even take the meat. After shooting the deer, all three kids posed with the deer for multiple pictures before the used a battery powered sawsall to cut the head off for the antlers before trying to bolt. The GFP officer ended up confiscating the guns and truck as none of them had and tags to speak of and parents were called. The GFP officer did a rough green score and said it was about 180 - 185 point buck.

It's a sad story that at least has some justice. My brother volunteered his tag and harvested the meat from the deer so it didn't go to waste. The skull hangs in his den with a sign under it reading "Poachers, ye be warned" (an homage to the opening scene of a pirate movie) . I went on to harvest a large deer the next morning on the same public land with one of the gnarliest looking racks I've ever seen (super thick base with spikes all over and a weird backwards curl with a high narrow 5x5 rack up higher). It was a wild first season for my brother and me and one we won't forget.

 

[5.56×250]

I spent a couple seasons hunting a ga bruiser back when i was young . I guess i was around 20 . Most people around my home had seen the big 10pt at night . I had laid eyes on him in broad daylight cutting across a huge hay field with his nose to the ground. Unfortunately, i was driving by the field and not hunting that time.
I had seen enough to know he was a super deer for the area and commenced to making hom my hunting obsession for 2 years till his terrible ending . The only time saw him with rifle in hand I had finally found his main rutting area and , because there was no suitable tree to climb, i had set up on the ground . To mask my scent, i dumped a whole bottle of tinks skunk essence around me . About an hour into my set , i heard the unmistakable sound of hooves in the heavy leaf litter . Whatever it was headed straight towards the scrape line i was hunting. I got in position with my old rem 788 carbine in 308 , and tried to focus through the blurry eyes and pounding headache from the overwhelming stinch of skunk . All of a sudden, the woods exploded with crashing limbs and horns battering twiggs as the monster buck shot out of the draw just beyond the rubline in the old road bed. He cut an angle to the huge field just 50 yards to my left. I got a great look as he hit the open, but had no chance for a shot as he cut the corner and dove into the thick green briar on the field edge and was gone. I immediately heard more crashing in the direction the buck had come from. An overweight hunter with orange " everything " popped out in the field and casually walked around the edge. I dont guess he ever knew how close he was to a true trophy ga buck that day, or that a young obsessed 20 yr old with a loaded gun with more anger than i care to admit was watching him do his impression of a deer hunter.
At the end of my second year hunting that deer, word got back to me that a logging truck had hit him not 200 yards from where i hunted him. I had hope for a little while that the buck had survived the hit, because the logget said he was only going 25-30mph when he hit him and the deer got up and ran off. The owner of the land the buck ran onto after the semi hit him, found him , dead. He was an avid hunter and scored the near perfect 10 pt in the high 160s.

 

[Savage 12BVSS]

These are some great stories! Keep em coming they make the cold silent woods in winter up here bearable….Dave