Biggest animal you ever missed

Summer doldrums got me thinking....

I missed a Boone & Crockett pronghorn with my bow at 81 yards. I was on one hill and he was on another with the bottom 100 foot below us ( antelope don’t ALWAYS live in flat country ). At the shot I heard the arrow sizzle across the canyon...imagine it sounded like a missile on his end. He took two steps and the arrow stuck right where his shoulder had been a second before.

We looked at each other for another 30-45 seconds before he sauntered off. Wasn’t even mad about it

A nice buck that I can only estimate to be a ten-point or better. I'll never again underestimate the need to check your zero after letting your rifle take a pretty good hit.

A very wide 10 point Whitetail. Had him at 135 yards, took an off hand shot and had no response from him. No impact on the dirt anywhere near him, we both just stood there for a few seconds. I slowly worked the bolt to try again and off he went. No blood, hair or anything where he was standing. Looking back to where I shot from, I could see the sapling that I shot, hit it a little bit off center and it deflected the bullet off to the right of him. Had him on trail camera several times after that, but he never came out in the daylight.

30 years ago when I was 16, we had a lease in San Saba between cherokee and pontotoc, I was down for the whole week of Thanksgiving by my self, parents left sunday and came back friday after T day. I was in one of my favorite blinds about wednesday and to be honest, I was rolling a joint, looked up and 3 does and the biggest non typical monster buck I have ever seen is standing 80 yards from my blind! I took a shot and watched him run off unhit. Caught a glimpse of him one other time and my dad got a good look at him one afternoon but he was 5-600 yards away and he had his 243. I can still see that deer in my mind.

Low 80’s pasture maggot goat(Archery)... think I may of killed him last year with rifle. One I killed was 7- 8’ish+ years old, typical prime on Pronghorns is 3-4
350 bull twice(Archery)
Mid 80’s WT (archery)
Mid 70’s MD (archery)
154 8pt w/ML -Neighbor later killed him

Technically not a miss, but I'm pretty sure I pulled the shot and shot an Eland through his dewlap. He was 200 yards, quartering away, fixing to change zip codes. Excellent trackers found one, light, tiny blood drop - the money drop! $ We thoroughly looked for hours. Pretty sure he healed up just fine.

Maybe not the biggest animal that I have missed, but my most memorable miss none the less. It was Early Nov bow season in OK, and I had not seen anything all morning, so I decided to go for a walk. Found some does feeding in the East Pasture near the treeline, so I decided to put on a stalk. Stalk up on deer with a bow?! I thought to myself, what kind of crazy makes you think you can get to within 40 yards of 4 does. Well, 15 to 20 minutes later, I'm only about 45 yards away, and they are oblivious to me. I could not believe it. My heard was pounding, and I had a huge case of Buck fever over a few does. I checked my range finder again, and got within 40 yards (I am very confident at 40), and nocked an arrow. Part of it was my heart pounding and the Adrenalin rush, and part of it was dumb luck, but my arrow nicked the barbed wire fence that I had forgotten was between us and the arrow flew a good 3 feet over her back. Three of the does bolted, but the one I had shot at just stood there looking at me. Since she had already busted me, I casually took 10 steps closer, nocked an arrow, and let it fly. I have no idea what happened at this shot, but the 2nd arrow sailed just over her back as well. Now, she bolted...but stopped just on my side of the fence about 80 yards from me. So I nocked another arrow, and started walking towards her. She let me get to about 50 yards before she was done playing with me and took off for the next county. I never did find the two arrows that I had lost.

160+” whitetail at 300 yards.

Two come to mind on WT. One was northeast of Jayton back in the late 90's on our lease.The first year we were seeing a young 6x6 that had a fork on his G3...so 13 pts. He was young and very narrow but long tines. He lived in a break that dropped off into a larger drainage to the east. There was a long point inbetween two breaks we could drive out on and we would see him almost every time jump and run from that one break. The next year I hunted that area hard the first 3 weeks of the season and had not seen him. Just after Thanksgiving I was walking back to my truck after still hunting thru a mesquite thicket that afternoon. Did not see to much till I got almost back to a tank dam on the top end of the break. I had my head down walking in the lower light looking for rattlesnakes and planning the next days hunt when I looked up to see a huge buck looking at me. He was in scattered mesquites standing broadside at about 150 yards. I was in the wide open with nothing to use as a rest and in waste high grass. So all I could do was shoot offhanded and I rushed the shot. As soon as I shot, I new I had missed him. Looked till dark and never found any blood. I knew it was the narrow 6x6 from the year before due to tine length and narrow spread. He had blown up in size. I hunted him hard the next year till Thanksgiving. I was hot that week of Thanksgiving and my good friend Jimmy was coming into camp to hunt Thanksgiving day only. So I told him where I had been hunting but not seeing much that week. I told him there was some good deer in that area just not moving for some reason. He got to the area at daylight and decided to go and rattle in the area I missed the buck the year before. Of all things, he had brought is 7mag but brought ammo for his 270...he only had one round in the bottom of his 7 mag. So he knew he had to make the shot count. The first spot he rattled he had 8 bucks come in from all directions. He was about to shoot a 24"-25" inside bigger 8pt when a very heavy and tall mutli-tined walked in front of the 8pt. So he shot the buck without seeing his spread. The buck whirled and ran off. He went to where he shot him at and walked the area. Could not find any blood nor any sign he had hit the buck. He looked for 2 hours and could not understand how he missed a broadside buck at 80 yards. He was walking a cow trail back to his truck and had gone about 150 yards when he walked up on a dead buck laying in the trail. No blood on the ground but he had some on his shoulder on the side laying up. It was the buck he had rattled in and shot. Main frame 5x6, one fork G3 and only 14" inside but grossed 164. Same buck I had missed the year before.
Second one was in Kansas in 2012. I drew an either species WT/MD permit for muzzleloader season. The area I was hunting had way more MD than WT so I set myself a goal of a a 180 or better MD. I put a 180+ size on any WT to shoot so I would stick to MD. I hunted 5 days hard and found a few decent MD and started to check out some other crop land that was owned by the farmers. I spent one whole day looking at all the farms but one. I wen the 7 the day to check it out...2 quarter sections..one in wheat stubble and one drought stress out corn. That wheat stubble had a quarter of corn joining it and both those had about 5 or 6 sections of pasture land joining them on 1 or 2 sides with several windmills or solar wells I could see. I found tons of sign in the quarter of drought corn. I found some WT and quite a few MD. I was going to have to leave the next morning early to drive 12 hours home. I hunted that evening and found several mule deer bucks one older one that had a huge side and then a damaged side on the other. So I made plans to hunt 2 hours the next morning. I got to the quarter before daylight and was sitting glassing..found a 9pt WT in the wheat stubble feeding to the pasture land...found 2 MD bucks I had seen the evening before...then found another MD buck. I moved up the corn to the top of the little rise and then walked into the corn. Lot of trails and tracks. I started seeing MD and WT bucks right away and even a few does. I jumped a narrow 9 WT and then walked by 5 MD bucks bedded in the rows of corn. Jumped a WT doe when I was walking the top of terrace in very short corn. I was watching her and then decided I needed to move on with limited time to hunt. I put my head down and was looking at all the deer tracks when I heard the corn busting in front of me at 60 yards. Up and running away was what I thought was a really wide 5x5 WT. He run down about 100 yards more and turned and looked back at me then off to my left...the WT doe was standing there watching me and we were all looking at each other...all about 150 yards from each other. Light wind had to corn leaves moving and making noise..so not sure the buck new what I was exactly. I thought immediately as he was running away that is a mid 170's 5x5 WT....when he turned to look back at me I saw he was a 6x6 then found 3 kickers off the bases and one browtine. He was very mature and very wide...at least 21 if not 22" inside. He had average to better mass and really good tine length. I started to see he was larger than 180 for sure and maybe large with the kickers. I stood there glassing him with my ML on the sticks..then thought.."dummy that is a huge WT..shoot it". I ranged him and got 60 yards twice, then 139 once then 160 once and then 139 again. I felt I was hitting corn leaves so I moved my sticks and settup to the side to line up in the row better. I ranged him again and got 140...he looked farther away than that...after I moved it made the quartering shot angle much greater. I decided to put the 150 yard crosshair behind his left shoulder and squeezed off a shot. After the smoke cleared I could see him limping off about 40 yards and stop and look back at me. I was scrambling to reload and trying to watch him. He was looking at the doe and she finally started to trot off. He turned and ran north about 200 yards and stopped. I had reloaded and got my binos on him to look at him and range him. I had 280 yards now...he was walking slowly to the north and stopped at 400 yards. I could see one small crease with blood in the leg muscle below the body but nothing was broken. I dropped off in the low area of the terrace and ran towards him about 250 yards. The doe had moved north out of the corn into a neighbors place just planted in wheat. He was now walking to her and broadside. I got good look at him now and could see just how big he was...5" brows, 9-10" Gs, 11 G3's, 5" and 7" G4s and 5" and 3" G5s..with 7-8" of NT pts. Long beams and wide, very mature buck so he was probably closer to 190 than 180 gross score wise. I watched him and the doe leave that wheat field and walk into a freshy baled haygrazer field then over the horizon to the west. There was 5 pretty good MD bucks walking over that same ridge that I guess left the corn when I shot. The thing I remember about that buck is how dark his antler color was for western Kansas, must WT I had seen had white antlers. I turned and walked to my truck and drove 12.5 hours home...dejected but still happy about my first Kansas trip.

Took a last minute trip to Wyoming and wasn't confident with the gun I was taking. Rifle wasn't grouping good at all at 100yds and I wasn't confident in a potential long range shot. Then of course a long range shot situation came up and this guy was at a little over 300yds. I had missed before I already took the shot.

Next day i borrowed another hunters rifle and went back to the same spot and he was there again.

Missed one day, but not the next day.

Not the biggest, but the most memorable. I was bowhunting for deer and walked into an area I hadn't hunted before. I sat down on the ground, against a tree. After sitting quietly for some time, I turned my head slightly and saw a bobcat sitting on the ground, less than 10 yards away, staring at me. I slowly raised my bow and began to draw, thinking he would run immediately. I don't think I even used the sight; I just pointed and let the arrow fly. It narrowly missed the bobcat and stuck deep in a tree right behind him.

My most heart breaking miss was a big pig with my 7mm/300 WM at 1580 yards. I had lasered an item at 1597 yards, and I thought the pig was even with it, but he was in front of it. My bullet went directly over his back. I watched him and the group run off. I'll get him next time.

A 164" WT on the Brazos back in 1997, another hunter got him a week later. In 2015 I had a 390-400" Bull Elk in my scope waiting for him to turn, which he did in the wrong direction and went over the hill, I never fired a shot though. I did end up getting a 352" Bull on that trip.

My kind of elk trip!!!!

Not the biggest, but my most memorable miss was a decent sized WT buck at about 20 feet...with a shotgun. I was quail hunting and we were working a pretty big stand of sunflowers. The dogs were off to the side a little ways when this really nice buck stands up right in front of me. Well, it was deer season and at that distance I figured a ounce and a quarter load of 7.5 right in the face wouldn't have any trouble killing him. I snapped my shotgun up and BOOM! I must have been a little high and the load went between his antlers. His eyes got as big as baseballs and before I could pump another shell in he was gone.

Western Hartebeest, Cameroon 2004. Don't know how but I missed him clean.

The miss that bothered me the most was a black wolf in BC on a bear hunt. I knew the minute I squeezed the trigger I shot high because I felt the skinnt tree limb I had to use as a rest shift downward but I couldn't stop the trigger pull. He didn't stick around for another shot.

Only once have I missed. back in late 80's in Jack county. Decided to try a different tree that had a view of a new clearing made for a pipeline past a small creek. Did not see anything for a while so I decided to call it a morning.
After I got down I decided to walk towards the pipeline clearing and low and behold there was a big bodied buck walking down the embankment on the other side coming my way. I creeped back about 20 yards and laid flat on the ground in sniper position waiting.
Then there he was, all I could see was from his upper neck right below his chin because of the tall grass, he had a big rack with lots of points not to wide but a dandy. I decided to shoot below what I could see to make sure I was getting a good portion of his neck.
Squeezed the trigger on the 7mm mag and he was gone. I knew I had hit him and he would be laying at the bottom of the creek, so I get up go to the edge and there he is standing on the other side of the creek staring at me, I am thinking he is dead and just does not know it yet, he turns and runs off

After walking the whole edge of the creek bank where he was when I shot I figured out what I had done wrong. I thought he had come straight up the bank, in fact he did not, he came up at a hell of a slant and my shot went under his chin.
Moral of the story, shoot what you can see!

Hunting on a South Texas ranch, sitting on top of a jeep. When a Nilgai was spotted running away at about 300 yds. Saw dust fly up ahead of him. About 30 mins. later we saw another at about 175 running left to right. Didn't miss that one.

Great thread! Keep the stories coming...

In 1982 I won an elk hunt from Duck's Unlimited in New Mexico. The first rifle hunt of the season - called a Bull Elk Hunt. The hunt occurred about 20 miles west of Raton, NM. I don't remember the name of the ranch, but the ranch manager was Garry Wolfe. I was sorta the "toy" of the hunt for the guides, being from New Mexico. The guides had been scouting and had a 7 x 7 picked for the Du guy. I had spent $5.00 for the ticket and was really excited. The first morning while still dark, we saddled up and headed out and after a short 4 or 5 mile ride, we came the the section of the ranch that had this magnificent animal. We stalked and found the spot the guide had selected for my shot. After being there for about 30-40 minutes the elk was spotted. He was in the process of herding his cows back up the mountainside for the day, bugling and thrashing around. I finally saw him through our shooting lane of about 20 yds. wide and 150 yds. long. I had bad buck (elk) fever, shaking and sweating bad. My glasses were constantly fogging over, needless to say I did not get a clear shot that morning, great bummer for the guides since they sorta adopted me being the only native New Mexican on that particular hunt. I got a 6 x 6 a couple of days later and he now hangs in the Elks Lodge in Tucumcari, NM. The last notable thing was we were out scouting one morning, drinking things and bullchitting. We stopped to do a 10-100 and popped off a couple of boxes of hand gun rounds, and other stuff. Not a rifle in the truck. We returned to the lodge about 3 hours later and Mr. Wolfe was waiting to check out how things were going. After visiting with us for a few minutes, he asked if we were on the northside of the ranch which we were and he said that we had been in Colorado for a little while instead of NM and we were being watched by a Colorado Game Warden - in the middle of Bumf***, NM.....scary when you realize how close you come to unintentionally do something wrong......

I've posted before about my "click heard round the world" on the largest deer I had ever seen in Texas - technically, not a miss, but a mishap - bolt didn't seat firmly while I was trying to be stealthy.

The "miss", again, completely on me, was a few years ago with a nice 12 pt at about 125 yards. Was shocked that he did not drop and no blood trail. I took the rifle back to the house and sat up a target and found that I was barely on paper. Stupid of me, but I had loaned the rifle to a relative a few weeks earlier who wanted to get some target practice - he only had it for a weekend - and failed to zero when it was returned. Confirmed later that he felt the scope was "way off" so he adjusted. I know better, but hey, lesson learned.

I was driving a Jeep down a sendero in south Texas, and we went over a rise. I saw a deer, so I stopped to glass him. Biggest set of antlers I ever saw. Stunning. I had customer hunters in the Jeep, two riding in back in elevated seats and one riding shotgun. I told them this was a lifetime buck, so one of you shoot him. Nobody did. I asked why nobody had shot, and they said “it’s too far”. Might have been 300 yards or a bit more. Well, it wasn’t too far for me, so I rested the rifle on the steering wheel and squeezed as he stepped past a Mesquite. My bullet hit a limb and I saw it hang down. The monster buck walked into the brush. I can close my eyes and still see the scene.

As an employee of the host company, I risked being fired for shooting a record class buck. I told the customers, who I knew well, that one of them had to claim they killed it. The buck was special enough that I risked my job by trying the shot. Probably best that I missed. Yes, it was that big a rack.

Customer hunting. Man, that brings back some memories. WAY more complicated than Customer Golf.

About 10-12 years ago I had taken my daughter to the ranch with me she was 8-9 at the time. I had spent that previous week trying to ween myself off of coffee so had been without. Well we got up that morning to head to the blind I smelled a fresh pot of coffee brewing so figured I'm at the ranch so go for it. We make the drive to the blind and get settled in when that familiar rumble in my gut started. I whisper sweetie dad has to go back to the truck so sit tight. I make the 200 yard scramble to my truck and get that handled up on. I start heading back and as I get closer to the blind I hear my daughter with a loud whisper saying dad hurry up. Keep in mind it is still dark and about 20 minutes until day light. I get in the blind and she says dad I think there is a huge buck at your feeder. I pick up the binos and can barely see his shadow down in the draw but he does look big bodied. I say it will be getting light quick so we will see. Well as it gets light I do see the biggest 8 pt I have ever seen to date. He had it all, mass length and spread and would guess him at 150 or better. Massive 8 and as I get my rifle out the window about to settle the crosshairs and the dang feeder goes off. It was like an IED went off and he bolted up the ridge opposite the draw. My stand on the north ridge facing south. I am shaking like a leaf (another effect of the coffee I reckon) as he stops at the top of the ridge turns broadside and is staring at the feeder. Here is my chance with my daughter saying get him dad I can not settle my scope on him I am shaking so bad. It seemed like I had forever to get my crosshairs on him and couldn't do it for the life of me as I watched him walk out of my life never to be seen again. I hunted every chance I got that year and never saw him. Later that season the ranch hand pulled in camp and asked if I could help him a minute. As we talked he asked how my year was going and I told him about that buck. He asked which part of the ranch my stand was at and I told him. He says yeah I have seen that buck almost hit him on the county road south of you. He said having grown up around there it was the biggest 8 he had ever seen also. Not really a miss but same result.

Happened this past November.
My lease in Missouri.
Rifle season is all of 12 days and we only get to hunt 8 of them.
We have a 4 point on one side antler restriction in this county.
Hunted from Saturday opener until the following Saturday without ever seeing a legal deer.

About 10 AM on the second Saturday I'm in a stand on an uncut soybean field.
Beans are 4-5 feet high most of this field.
I look to my right and see a big bodied buck trotting away from me along the edge of the field.
He's about 200 yards away.
He turns left at the edge of the soybeans and walks over to a scrape on the edge on the south side of the field.
I'm watching him with 10 power binos but still cant put a brow tine on either side of him.
The scrape was 310 yards from the stand.

He piddles around still broadside at the scrape for a minute with his head down then turns, nose to the ground and starts towards me with his head down below the top of the beans.
At 275 yards he stopped and picked his head up.
He's an 8 point and about 150 inches.

Grab my rifle and stick it out the stand window, get behind it and can't see anything but black through the scope.
My son had hunted with this rifle the day before and had adjusted the parallax on the scope.

Grab the focus knob and get the scope focused, find deer and he's trotting back toward me.
Turns hard left and heads toward back edge of field.
At 200 yards he stops on the edge of field/woods and looks at the stand.
Crosshairs on his shoulder I squeeze one off and he just stands there.
Slowly leaves field and walks back into woods.

I bolt another round into chamber and sit there for 5 minutes hoping he'll do something stupid.
Nope.
Dejected I stick rifle back in corner of stand.

15 minutes go by, and I see movement out of my peripheral vision to my right.
Look out the window and their is a deer trotting out into the beans.
Grab the binos and look, it's a doe.
Then I see movement in the edge of the binos, refocus my attention and damnit there he is again pushing this doe.
Drop binos, grab rifle and the doe is already clearing the field headed back into the woods with him on her heels.
I get on him and he stops on the edge of the field again in the same spot.
Crosshairs on his shoulder and BOOM again.

He just stood there trying to figure out what was going on, slowly walks back into woods again.

The back edge of that field has a Bois d'arc treeline that runs north to south along the edge of the field with a lot of limbs that stick out and hang down over edge of field.
Walked down the edge of field to trail he exited field on and look for signs of a hit.
Nothing.
Look back toward stand and between me and that window were 20-30 limbs.

All those limbs are gonna be gone as soon as they get the corn out of that field in September.

My biggest miss was my own fault.

I was hunting bull elk during the rut in a choice unit in Arizona. Opening morning we glassed up a monster 7x7. His rack was fully polished with no coloring. His rack looked like pure ivory and "glowed" in the sunlight. We ranged him three times and each reading came within a couple of yards of one another. The distance was over 900 yards but I do not recall the actual distance.

First shot went straight over his back right behind the should. The bull looks around. Second shot went to the same spot right over his back. The bull looks around some more. Third shot went to the same damn spot over his back. The bull finally had enough and disappeared to never be seen again.

I had messed around with the rangefinder and accidentally turned off the angle compensation. While I still got a bull of a lifetime, that encounter haunts me to this day.

The She-Wolf and I were hunting along the Kafue River in Zambia a few years ago. I had buffalo and roan already in the salt and we'd been looking for a suitable sable when this gentleman stepped out. I snuggled up against a tree while the PH looked him over and when he gave me a green light I sent a .375 his direction. Not much over a hundred fifty yards and whiffed it completely. Mind you, this is with a rifle I had thirty years experience with at the time. I dunno.

Those other cartridges in the magazine were there for circumstances like that, I guess. Whatever I'd done, I didn't repeat it...

Mark

Eland in Zimbabwe. Had a scope that got knocked out of zero. Still have the most vivid mental picture of rain falling off my hat brim and watching zebra move through the scope to clear the shot. Felt great, but was a clean miss, he was facing me and I shot for the chest. Then we figured out that my rifle was shooting about a foot left and 18 inches high at 100 when the next one (a different eland) was a broadside shot and I hit him high in the shoulder.

Great Sable! My partner was supposed to hunt the Kafue end of this month but due to Covid it got pushed to next year.

Sable, Buff, Lechewe and Sitatunga were his bag

Sometimes I miss my on girl friend from high school....and she was pretty big!

To clarify, you miss your old high school flame that carried some extra weight on her, correct?

You got it

I didn't miss cause I never got a shot off but there was a monster mule deer up in Idaho that my brother-in-law and I spotted down the mountain from us. It appeared to be about 600 yards away and was accessible from a ridge below us. I crawled down and try to get on the ridge to try and get a shot but couldn't see him from the ridge. My BIL stayed above to keep an eye on him. After 10 mins of hand signals I still couldn't find him so i crawled back up and my BIL went down to try and get a shot. He couldn't find him either. So I crawled down and we started crawling down to try and find him. Well he was over 1500 yards away! The steep elevation really messed with our distance judgement and this was before range finders were common.

By the time we got to the area he was at, he was long gone but we did find the two does with him. We still talk about the monster that got away. I blame him!

144" ten point WT he stuck around for a second shot and got him.

Mine was a piebald doe, she was white all the way up the back of her hip like an Appaloosas horse.Funny how a single strand of barbed wire can wreak havoc on a bullets path.saw her run off in the middle of the hay field then just trot away,never saw her again but believe me I looked HARD.

Drew out for a special muzzleloader hunt back in Oklahoma. Had bow hunted the WMA a lot, so knew exactly where I was going to be. Big timber area with several hundred yards visibility. Mid morning, I noticed a big rock about 80 yards away that I did not remember seeing earlier. There was a bit of brush between me and it, so I thought maybe I just overlooked it. Kept scanning for deer, occasionally returning to the rock in question. Had the binocs on the rock, and it moved! Was a heavy, wide racked 3x3 that had bedded down on the edge of that bench. Now to get a shot. Couldn’t see a clear path to the deer from my stand location. Stood on tiptoes, no dice. Crunched down on stand bottom, still no path. Tried grunting to see if buck would stand up, nope. Got out of stand on adjacent big limb, still no shot. Sat and waited for 30-45 minutes, but deer was not moving. Finally contorted myself around the tree and found a small window I could shoot through. Calmed my breathing, steadied my rifle, and squeezed of the shot. Buck took off like his tail was on fire. Kept my eyes on him, expecting to see him pile up. Ran out of sight with no apparent ill effects. Couldn’t understand, as the shot felt perfect. Climbed out of stand and walked over to where he was bedded. No blood, no bullet impact. Got on my knees and sighted back to my stand, and noticed a small tree limb hanging weird about halfway back. I had shot a half inch limb almost dead center, just hanging by a bit of bark. That was the only shot opportunity I had the remainder of the hunt.

I thought and thought and couldnt remember so I guess none real big. Finally I remembered(mid 80s) my BIL and I were driving ranch road back to camp on our Ft Stockton lease(Bakersfield actually) and a big buck jumped up and he shot a couple times running and missed. He was with a doe so we tried to get out and get on him again and did. He shot at him running a few more times to no avail and he hollered at me to shoot. I figured it was his buck to shoot and I dont shoot running deer so I had waited. Finally shot at him running right to left at about 100 and missed. I know thats an uneventful story but its all I got. The next year on opening day morning I had worn contacts for the first time and they drove me crazy. I was hunting my way back to truck to deal with that and the buck from the year before was standing 20 yards away. I didnt miss. Best buck killed there in 20 years and my biggest buck at that time.

whitetail or mule deer?

Interesting you asked. On that lease we were close to 50/50, probably a little more WT depending on the area you were hunting. Its was before MD season so you always have to be careful. I walked up on him real close but he had his head down and just couldnt see his head real good at that immediate first glance. I proud myself in taking the split second to look at his tail as I raised my rifle and I knew it was a WT. Just as I raised rifle his head came up and I was already squeezing. If I would of studied long it would of been another running opportunity.

only one true missed big animal that I recall offhand. It was in the early 1970s, I was about 11-12 years old and was getting too big of myself for my own good. I had been hammering on my dad that my 243 wasn't big enough and I wanted to swap with him with his old 30-06, he kept telling me that it would kick too hard and get me to flinching. I kept hammering on him anyway. One morning as he let me out to get in my tree stand (more on that to follow), I said "come on, let me take Bertha (his 30-06), reluctantly, he said okay but it's gonna kick the sh?t out of you!!!). I was like a kid in a candy store, grabbed it and stumbled thru the rocks, cactus & waist high mesquites over to the big oak tree that had 2x4s nailed to the trunk, the tree leaned at about 60° up to a big fork about 10 feet high. There was a 2x6 slightly higher between more limbs that you sat on. No place to put your feet, just dangling like sitting on a tall swing. I got settled in and he drove on down the pasture road about 100 yards to where another road kicked off to the right that went on down into the ranch by a big dirt tank with another ground blind, probably 500 yards to my right. I set there for a couple hours with the wind howling almost straight into my face, I was so stinking cold I couldn't feel my feet or fingers, my cheeks were numb as well. My legs had fallen asleep from sitting on the 2x6 for so long didn't help matters. I see movement down where the road dad had disappeared, moving from right to left. I grab the gun out of my lap and man was it heavy and bulky compared to my 243, ergonomics were all different than it too. I finally got it up to my shoulder but was struggling to hold the forearm up and the wind was whipping the tree, me, the gun, and all I could see thru the scope was a big circle where the crosshairs were going around the biggest deer I had ever seen. I took a breath and clinched my teeth trying to pull the crosshair down onto the deer, flip off safety, start to squeeze the trigger to hear "snap" ... quickly drop the rifle from my shoulder, fumble around trying to get a bullet bolted, back to my shoulder and find the deer again. Finally found it and went thru the steps to prepare for the shot which is now farther off to my left than was comfortable. The last thing that went thru my mind as I started to squeeze that trigger was dad's last words (it's gonna kick the sh?t out of you!) and pure reaction kicked in as I quit squeezing, tensed up and pulled the trigger (of course I pulled the rifle well off target by pulling instead of squeezing) ... BOOM ... ... uh, his comment about kicking was an extreme understatement as it shoved my shoulder back what felt like a foot or so ... ok, remember I am balanced on a 2x6, gun kicks me back causing me to loose balance, my feet continue to go up and out the back of the tree I go rolling with rifle in one hand and the other grabbing for any semblance of a limb or branch to catch myself, but to no avail.. I end up rolling down the 60° angle of the tree, finally landing flat of my back but the gun never touched the ground. I lay there for a few seconds gasping for breath ... after a few minutes of gathering my composure, I got up and looked down where the buck was when my acrobatics started. I see nothing. I slowly crawled back up in the tree and retook my position until dad came back to get me. I knew that it wouldn't be long since he heard my shot. Sure enough, 15-20 minutes later, I hear him crank the truck and start working his way back to me. I sat my spot as I was taught because he might run something over me driving. Once I started seeing glimpses of the truck thru the trees, I started working my way to the ground, then on down the pasture road to where he would eventually come out. When he gets there, he didn't ask what I shot, he asked "so just how much kick does Bertha have in her?" I just said yep, a pretty good little kick. He got out and then asked what did you shoot "AT"? I said a huge buck and it went that away. He looked at the tracks and started following them and stopped, looked back to my tree stand and said "it was about here when you shot. right?" I was like, uh, yeah but how did you know that? He said cause the deer changed from walking to hauling tail about here. We followed the tracks a couple hundred yards and he stopped, lite a cigarette and said "you clean missed him" ... I fessed up to what all had transpired as he started chuckling, then laughing and said we better go shot that gun to see if you knocked the scope off. We went back to camp, walked out into a big field and set up a target and he shot the gun. Was still holding a quarter size group ... It was a few more years before I started hounding him to hunt with Bertha again.

less than a week later, one of dad's hunting buddies killed a 10 point with ~20" spread out of that same tree stand, almost an exact repeat of what it did the morning I was hunting there. He said it was by far the biggest deer he had ever shot and by far the biggest he had ever seen on that ranch. This was well before anyone in my dad or my circles knew anything about B&C, we all went by field dressed weight, number of points and inside spread.

Good one. Very good one.

Great stories here, I can only imagine.