Your biggest buck story?

[KyFlintlock]

How about sharing the story of when you took your largest buck?

Season is headed this way and I always enjoy hearing stories of when folks took their first and largest....Lets focus on the largest.

Spill it! :grin:

Wess

 

[shmrck1]

KyFlintlock(Wes),
Just wondering do you want the largest buck
story or the best deer hunting story?Some of
the best hunts did not involve a deer
harvest, but some of the best and funniest
involved hunting deer?
snake-eyes:hmm:

 

[Vaino]

Do you want a "story" or an account?...Fred

 

[rabjr]

Unfortunately for me, where my two largest bucks should have been a special time for me, they are the saddest and to painful to talk about. Both times I had someone take advantage of the fact I cannot walk and try to steal them from me. It's very unfortunate sometimes what a pair of antlers can do to a person. :shake:

 

[RC]

ah yes.. "The Bleepin Buck!" brings back many bleepin memories! :rotf: RC

 

[Runner]

I was slipping trying to run deer over my father when I killed my biggest body sized buck. I shot him in the neck with a roundball at thirty yards when he stood up to see what was making noise. A deer came charging out of the cloud of smoke and ran right at me. I was trying to draw the Dragoon when I realized it did not have horns. I finished drawing the pistol and hot footed it to where I had shot the buck. He was down, but just stunned. He was starting to move when I saw him, and he spun around and tried to get me with his horns. I kicked him over on his side and put a 250 grain REAL thru his lungs with the pistol. He was dead within seconds.
The 490 ball had penetrated just over 18 inches of solid neck muscle and stopped under the skin on the off side. That is 18 inches almost straight thru the neck. It just ticked the spine on it's way thru dropping him in his tracks, but not causing a fatal injury of any kind.
Luckily we could get the truck right to him. We had to bend his neck severely to get the tailgate of a Jeep Conmanche closed with his butt against the front of the bed. We hung him with a Kabota tractor by lifting the bucket as high as it would go and setting the teeth in the hay loft so it would stay over night. The owner of the property had pictures, but we never got copies.
I don't know exact weight because he was never weighed. I do know that the meat alone would have won Dennison's contest for the year. That is without the trimmings, hide, or head. CVA 50 caliber Hawken loaded with 100 grains of p under a 490 at 30 yards.
When I brought him home, he was in a truck overhead camper with a 3 foot over hang in the back. With his butt against the step for climbing into the over cab bed, his head hung out the door! Took three of us to get him inside and the door closed successfully. I have only seen one deer bigger than him dead, and a doe almost as big killed by the same man on the same day. He scored 128.
The biggest horns I ever got was on public ground and that was also a big deer, but nothing like the one from the farm. I had spent the day dressing deer and that included a nice buck and a hot doe that had been taken together. I rubbed my pants legs and my boots down with all the scent glands. I was slipping and sitting when I heard what sounded like a troop of boyscouts coming thru the woods. I was sure it had to be turkeys. The buck came in thru the slough hooking weeds and in general just destroying anything in his way. He came out and stopped with his shoulder behind a tree trying to find what he smelled. He was quartering to nme, so I put the bullet right in front of the shoulder angling back. At the shot, he ran right at me and stopped about 10 feet away with a cedar between us. I leaped to my feet, but I had been sitting with my legs doubled under me and they were asleep. As I fell forward on my face, Igot a secound shot which missed for some reason. The deer cleared the slough in two bounds and was gone. There was no blood to be found. When I got to the other side of the slough, there he was with his head still up watching me. UI pulled the hammer back and was thinking, get up now big boy. He did not move. When I finally figured it out, it was funny. On his secound or third jump he had hooked a straight sapling about 8 feet off the ground and his horns were caught on it holding his head up. He was very dead. That buck was over 200 pounds and scored 170 green and 158 3/8s when he was measured. He was killed in northern Missouri.
The biggest deer I ever saw was a doe. I was watching 3 deer feeding in full grown milo. When she came out of the woods, the milo was even with the bottom of her belly. Her skin hung loose on here and she did not look good. I almost fell out of the tree! She was huge. It has been suggested that she was a likely an older buck that did not have horns anymore, but Harold watched her jump a fense at 10 feet or so and still figured her for a doe. No exaggeration at all. She was as big or bigger than the cow elk at Lone Elk park.

 

[roundball]

November rut, 2005, beautiful 10 pointer...had walked in to a ground stand in the dark like I usually do, and took my seat at the base of a big pine in amongst a hardwood flat that borders a regrowth clear-cut area...a major exit trail comes out of the thick regrowth and enters into the hardwoods about 75 yards in front of my ground stand. It's still black dark at ground level with the sky in the east just hinting of first gray light to come above the under story.

I finished getting settled, laid the Flintlock across my lap, and using a tiny red thumbnail light I bent over and primed the pan...began to straighten back up to lean against the tree and as I did I saw the horizontal back-line of a big deer moving left to right through the trees about 25 yds in front of me.

In another couple steps a head and big long tined rack came out from behind a tree, were momentarily silhouetted against the lightening sky, then disappeared against the black under story again...couldn't see him, didn't know where he was...if he had stopped...if he had made me, etc...and was sick about being that close to such a buck and not getting a shot.

I had the slightest breeze in my face so I knew I was good for scent, and thought he was still walking when I saw him and froze so he hadn't spotted me as his walk was casual, not alarmed...so I slipped off the hammer stall, set the rear trigger and just sat there.

Only 2-3 minutes had gone by and his head silhouette reappeared against the sky going back in the direction he'd come from...when he hit a spot in the terrain where his whole body was temporarily silhouetted, I whistled and he stopped...I brought the front sight up along the back edge of a black silhouetted foreleg until it disappeared in the black of his body and touched the set trigger on the .58cal.

I strained to hear which way he took off and ran but the noise and smoke cleared and I had not heard a thing...light was coming up fast then as it does, so I stood up to look and there he lay, stone dead in the leaves about 25 yards out.

Unknown to me due to poor depth perception in that light, when I shot him he was actually standing at a slight quartering away angle and the ball entered behind his left shoulder, driving forward into his neck vertebrae killing him instantly, dropped where he stood...most symmetrically racked mature buck I've ever had the good fortune to take.

 

[Idaho Ron]

That is a beautiful picture roundball. Ron

 

[Idaho Ron]

Last year was not the year that my Buddy John and I got our biggest deer but it was probably the most fun. I found these deer on a Friday night and watched them all evening. I found them the next morning and we moved in and popped a cap on them Saturday evening. We had to pack them out the next day. I won't get the chance to use the Renegade this year unless it is close to the truck. My tag is for any weapon so I will have it along.

 

[roundball]

Nice ones...mulies are a pretty significantly different animal from a whitetail for sure

 

[Bill Hall]

Biggest ml buck was also my first ml buck. Around 20 years ago I was working on my first scratch build when the season came around. The rifle was just a squared off chunk of wood with barrel, thimble, and rib all taped together. No trigger gaurd yet.

ML season wasn't very popular yet so I had nobody who would go with me, so I hunted alone that year. The first day I spotted two nice 10 pointers in a large meadow but had no way to sneak up on them. I hunted hard that first day but only saw a handful of deer, but no more legal bucks.

The second day I went back to the meadow hoping to get another chance at one of the big brutes. At about noon I decided to walk back to camp when I stumbled onto one of the big bucks asleep in his bed. When he got up, he acted as if he wasn't awake yet, just stared forward broadside to me like he was thinkng "what was that?". Unfortunately there was a tree hiding his chest area, so I decided I would try to sneak the .54 RB as close as I could just to the side of the tree and try to hit his lungs. I aimed and fired and the buck took off as if it were a complete miss. He bounced out of sight and I wondered how I could miss such an easy shot. I reloaded and reproduced the sight picture at the point where the buck was standing and realized it was probably a good shot.

As soon as I started trailing him, I could hear him in the distance flopping around. By the time I had walked up to him, he was dead. Beautiful 10 point. Not my biggest deer, but the biggest with a ML to date. The ball had entered in the chest area and angled back into his liver and came out near his rear leg. Not the best shot but it did the job and I learned alot about how a rb kills animals. It really is all about shot placement.

The thing that I felt so proud of was the fact that is was with a homemade rifle, with home cast balls, by myself, and with one shot. Luckily for me he ran close to a road before dying. It took me two tries before I could lift him into the truck bed. Bill

 

[Runner]

At Busch one year, I set up watching a trail. A huge 6 pointer(no brow tines at all) came in from the side. He stopped about 15 yards away with me sitting on the ground. It was cold and steam was blowing out his nostrils. I had to twist all the way to the right to get the shot. I had practiced just this shot, and I knew that when I twisted all the way that way sitting down, I shot a little bit that way. He was broadside with his shoulder behind a tree. I needed to just miss the tree, and I knew I would shoot 2 inches right. I pulled right on the edge of the tree and released. I can still take you and show you the broadhead is stuck in the tree exactly where I aimed it! No two inches to the right that time! The two minutes or so it took him to sneak in with me sure he would see my breath any second, and then the shot while he was trying to figure out what he was smelling blowing steam two feet out his nostrils is still one of the greatest hunts I ever had!

 

[Halftail]

ah yes.. "The Bleepin Buck!" brings back many bleepin memories! :rotf: RC

Ahhhh yes the Bleepin Buck.....Funny ......I got the same Name for me Mother in law.. :hmm:

 

[tg]

Nov. '97 I had taken a nice forkhorn the weekend before, but went along with the guys to try and fill my other tag and trap some beaver, near dusk I kicked out a big doe and this buck for my pard, he shot and missed the doe and did not see the buck, I came up out of the draw as the buck went over a log above me and stood looking to his right at my pard with an empty gun, my pard yelled Buck! Buck! at any rate that is what I found out later he was yelling... the only shot I had was dead on from behind so I rested against a dead tree and popped him in the back of the head with a .40 pill from a Navy Arms Kentucky caplock with a replacment GM barrel from about 80 yds, the eyes are long past a shot like that anymore. I have several 4X4 and 4x5 racks that sit completely within this one it is a 3x3 with nice brow tines, it only measures 119 cured but this is Blactail country and that is a fair deer around here.

 

[Runner]

They get big around here sometimes! Here is one to get ya going. The chair is really not that color!

That is likely the biggest I will ever get since I don't really buck hunt anymore. They are all trophies, and the little ones eat a lot better!

 

[KyFlintlock]

If your biggest wasn't a happy occasion, share one that was....an account.

Thanks guys, I am enjoying your stories! :thumbsup:
wess

 

[shmrck1]

Wes,
I did'nt mean to indicate that my biggest buck
was not a happy occasion. It was just not eventful.8pt at maybe 40yards with my .45 and
recovered within 30yards of where it was hit.
Eventful and memorable is hunting with you son,
and two grandsons and the grandsons harvest a
4point and a doe.I wish I could tell you a big story, but there just ain't one.The very best
part is the grandsons were not my sons but his
two sisters,my daughters.My son has twin
daughters and he says one has the hunters eye.
Being only 5 I told him the other can develope
it,in time.Sorry Wes for:yakyak::yakyak::yakyak:
snake-eyes :hatsoff:

 

[Halftail]

Unfortunately for me, where my two largest bucks should have been a special time for me, they are the saddest and to painful to talk about. Both times I had someone take advantage of the fact I cannot walk and try to steal them from me. It's very unfortunate sometimes what a pair of antlers can do to a person. :shake:

SwampRat,
That has got to be one of the Lowest things I have ever heard.Hopefully they never succeded in getting them. :shake:

 

[RC]

gee swampy i didn't even see yer post..that sucks! but i know what ya mean about antlers "changin" people,,i once shot a buck,that never bled,was in the pines,and runways all over..shot wed. afternoon found it friday (i don't give up easy!) but it was bloated..badly..guy huntin with us said he'd take it an feed his dogs..better than wastin it i guess,,,gee should'a heard the stories at the local pub,and to this day that 8 point is mounted in his living room! he told me a couple years ago about how he killed that deer...then i reminded him..i was there course the look on his face was priceless! :redface: :redface: :redface: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:

 

[Halftail]

My biggest buck with a muzzleloader is nowhere near my biggest buck but it sticks in my mind the most.It was last fall,My father was going with me that morning.He was going to my "Hot" stand where deer sightings were almost guranteed.The wind was perfect for another location a half a mile to the south of where my Father was headed.We got up Early,I'm talking 3 hours before Daylight,Had breakfast and then headed out for a mornings hunt.This is a good time to add that my ol'man dosen't have the greatest courage in my muzzleloaders all this despite the fact I kill a buck every year for the last 5 years.He teased me that morning adding the "Why don't you take a Real gun" phrase.
We parted ways an hour and a half before Daylight to get to our stands and have plenty of time to let the area "Cool off" and Quiet down before first light.
It was a frosty Cool November morning with a draft of wind out from the Southwest.Perfect for the area we were[url] in.Things[/url] were pretty uneventfull for the first 2 and 1/2 hours on stand when I looked down the ridge and caught a glimpse of a deer going through a gap.I readied my New Englander and watched to see if it had antler(Only legal one up here and it has to have over 3 inches)After what seemed like an eternity he took another step and I plugged one in the butt of his neck.He dissappeared behind the puff of smoke.All was quiet.I hurriedly reloaded fully suspecting not to need it.Then I scrambled down out of the tree to go have a looksee.I found him only feet from where I shot him,Deader than a knit!5Pointer...160 pounds.Decent little deer for my area.Shortly after I had the pleasure of Meeting Pa' up on the ridge to the north of where I shot.He said my shot near Lifted him out of his stand and made comment to how anyone could have the "Courage" to hunt with one of them...You should see him when I take my flintlock out... :shake:
Here's a picture,it's small compared to some of these but I was proud...