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Fisherboy0301

Buck fever...

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Primitive weapons season is underway here in Georgia, and that means I can hunt with my shotgun cause I'm only 15! :) Dad is still using his crossbow though.

 

Anyways, I was walking back up the road to where my mother and little brother were in the truck, because it was too dark to shoot in the bottom where I was in the stand. I could see enough to shoot on the road though, so I kept ready hoping a deer would step out in 12ga range. I got down in a bottom where a creek goes under the road, and to my left a deer blows at me. I turned to look, and in my peripheral vision saw something in the road. I look up and there's a dark mass on the right side at the top of the hill. He took two steps out and stood there sillouetted on the top of the hill. He was huge. By far the biggest buck I have ever seen! The bummer is my mom and brother were parked just over the crest of the hill, so I couldn't shoot. So I'm standing there and a thought jumps in my head I'll move and change the angle to get a shot. I moved to the left, where I'd now be shooting into the woods behind him. He was just standing there stomping at me. I finally managed to get the gun up on him. But I was shaking so bad I just couldn't make a clean shot, and he turned and was gone as quick as he came....

 

I got back to the truck and my whole body was shaking. Mom asked if I had got a deer though she hadn't heard me shoot, I said no... But I almost crapped myself...

 

Anyone else had an experience like this?

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Fisherboy,

 

Huge congrats on a successful hunt!! I find the sightings make a far better story than the kills do. I want to give you the kudos you so deserve, because you had your head about you to know what was in your surroundings, i.e. where the other people were. I know many people, much older then you, that either can't or don't care to have that kind of awareness of what is around then, especially when the gun comes up. Keep it up. I for one would like to hear when you do get "The Big One" this year.

 

Michael

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Sounds like and awesome day!! Its always good to here when people make the right decisions when its safe to shoot, and knowing when its best to not. Especially younger hunters. You in this case made a very good and safe decision not shooting knowing your mother and brother were in a bad line of fire. Its also good to here that you let the big buck walk because you knew you couldn't make an ethical shot due to your shaking. Im not much older than you, only 18, and still get a good amount of buck fever when I see the big boy step in front of me.

Last week while bow hunting i had a nice buck walk in front of me 40 yards. I had to let him walk as i could not hold the pins steady on him. That wild buck fever sure does make it hard to hold your bow steady, far more so than with a rifle i found out. While at home practicing i can confidently make a 40 yard shot every time. But i knew better than to take the shot because i was not 100% confident my shot would be were i wanted it to be. I was a good 85% confident of my shot but i knew better than to risk shooting it possibly wounding the animal and not finding it.Even if your a tiny bit unsure of your shot its best to just let the animal walk, no matter how big that buck is.

Just keep at it and one day of these days you will get another chance at a monster buck, and this time hopefully things work out better for you. Good luck during the rest of the season, and do report back if Mr. big returns.

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Fisherboy, congrats on having this happen...it's gonna happen again. Hang in there, you're time will come. Also congratulations and a thank you for using your head...all of us benefit by your actions. Keep at it man. Cheers, Edpost-56862-0-96132100-1444948933_thumb.jpgpost-56862-0-34850700-1444949016_thumb.jpgpost-56862-0-34850700-1444949016_thumb.jpgpost-56862-0-20163700-1444949104_thumb.jpg

Oh yeah, for me the fever hasn't gone away...I missed a good one last year 'cause I was freaked out. Here's the last 3 years with a recurve.

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I too applaud you sir! Safety & the safety of others is always the first & foremost concern when hunting. You'll get that deer eventually.

 

Yes, I've had that encounter while hunting & was left with the shakes as well. The worse case was when I had a whole herd of about 12 deer walk within 10 feet of me and I could do nothing but stand still. It was mid Oct and I had hunted the same area with a bow for deer which was still an active season, but this day I was Squirrel hunting with a 410 shotgun. Squirrel season always opened the 5th day of Oct back then in MD where I hunted. The gun season for deer was not yet in, so shooting a deer would not have been legal. Not that the 410 would have been legal either even if the season had been open.

 

I was wearing full camo & was walking an old farm road & heard them as they moved towards me through the woods. I saw them & watched as they walked all around me & past me! I still to this day do not understand why they didn't see me sooner. Of course, one buck did stop right in front of me to eye me up! I was within 25 feet of him! He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity, then sounded the alarm with a loud snort & they all bounded away! I swear I think they heard my heart beating it was so loud! All I could do was stand there shaking.

 

I think I was 19 then ( I'm 60 now) & have since been very close to deer while hunting, but that one time had the worst case of buck fever I have ever had!

 

Even if I had been carrying my bow, I'm not sure I could have even gotten a shot!

 

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I guess it's not just bucks now that I think about it haha I'm still kind of new to hunting. I've only harvested 2 deer. Both were in front of dogs and you don't have time to get the shakes then!

 

 

Monday morning a buddy and I sat in the box stand for 4 hours. We decided to take the 30/06, and walk back to the truck to get the 12ga and do a little walking to maybe jump a deer. We got to the road and a doe was standing there at 150 yds. He dropped to a knee and I rested on his shoulder just as we'd practiced. I put the crosshairs on her front shoulder and squeezed off a round. She just stood there. I tried for a follow up shot but the gun jammed. Figured she stood there for the 5min we fumbled with it but as soon as I got the crosshairs back on her she bolted. No blood hair or anything. Clean miss. Still don't know if it was me or the scope. As we kept walking and walked up on two does standing there dumbfounded, at about 10 ft. Garrett had the rifle, he threw it up and fired at the center of the chest of the larger doe. They fled. No blood. No hair. We think maybe the scope got bumped since we sighted it in....

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Our firearms season starts up Nov. 2nd, I'll hopefully get out a couple weekends. I have never had a deer walk out in front of me while stand hunting but I do a lot more tracking than sitting, I'm way to impatient. Several years ago, I tracked a buck leaving hoofprints in the fresh snow for several miles, when I finally caught up to him he had ventured into some very thick forest with lots of beech (which don't lose their leaves until much later in the year) and I could hear him crashing through the woods. I swear at one point he was only 20ft in front of me but I couldn't see him through the leaves, when I came out the other side where the woods open up in some old growth oak he was almost to the crest of the hill, I put the crosshairs on him and tracked his running and pulled the trigger, except I was so excited I forgot to turn the safety off. By the time I fumbled the with the safety he had made it over the hill and I couldn't catch up with him again for the rest of the day. While it is nice to shoot a big buck for bragging rights and such I would much rather shoot a 130-150lb doe because they are much better eating. I fear my deer season won't be very good this year though because they have been actively logging around our property and it really disrupts their territories and many of the cutdowns I used to hunt in the area are grown up enough now that I couldn't see the deer if I tried.

 

When you sight in your guns make sure you wait several minutes between every shot because when you fire at a deer the gun is going to be cold and sighting in a hot barrel when your making a cold shot can be the difference between a downed deer and a miss. Also sight your gun in for a typical shot (probably 100yds if hunting open land, or 50 yds if hunting thicker forest, but shoot long shots and learn to judge distance also to figure how much higher you need to shoot at a distance, especially if hunting with a shotgun, those slugs lose altitude very quickly. Being able to quickly and accurately judge distance will greatly improve your shot.

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Once. Nov 6, 2002. I was hunting Ravenna (hole-in-the-horn buck property), found an antler shed that morning I could barely get my hand around the base. It was a spectacular typical specimen

 

As luck would have it, we saw the now year-older buck later in the day, biggest buck I've ever seen in person. It's a controlled hunt, my buddy drew our single buck-only tag (rather, I gave it to him when we applied) and he set into get closer. I sat at the base of a tree to watch the comedy of errors play out in front of me. I hadn't been sitting for a minute, a very respectable buck in anyone's lifetime walks in and is browsing on the opposite side of the tree.

 

A few minutes later, another buck walks in and is grazing another 15 yards away. I could only smile through the pain.

 

That big buck, well, he at least lived to see another day. That was an agonizing afternoon.

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I guess that wasn't my buck fever story, my buddy had it bad, he shot a stump earlier in the day that had a knot and some sprouts coming off of it; he thought it was a buck, it kind of looked like one. I'm sure that wasn't his proudest hunting moment.

 

The first deer I ever shot, I shot it three times. I might have been a little too excited behind the trigger. It wasn't my finest moment.

 

Thankfully I've done better teaching my son, he dropped his first buck at age 13 from 135 yards with a muzzle loader, and has never lost one yet to poor shot placement. I've never seen him have buck fever, which I find sort of odd. He's all business.

 

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