Luckiest Deer on the PLANET

[BeerHunter]

We hunt in Central MN. WE hunt the edge of a tamarak swamp that is pretty tough to hunt in because it is Mainly Tall cane grass and little bushes.

Saturday night my dad is sitting in a stand when about 20 minutes left in shooting time he has a monster coming right at him about 30 yards away. He waits for a better shot and it turns behind a bush. Gets a little jumpy and shoots at it through the bush. Hits a tree and the deer jumps out in front of him and gives him an open shot. CLICK!! he didnt completly eject his shell and then it was too late he was gone.

My dad said it was the biggest deer that he has ever seen and he has a monster 16 point on the wall.

Sunday night we have 3 people in the swamp. Another guy we hunt with has the buck chasing a doe right in front of him in some tall grass and he unloads. He does use a red dot scope for some reason, He misses.

So i figure i will get him the next night. Me and my dad go out and i sit in a stand i put in a tamarak tree right next to the cane. I am down wind from the cane. I washed everything i had and used my scentlok suit. I hear a deer for 45 minutes in the cane and then look to my right and see one moving with it head down i could not tell what it was.

I stand up and turn around and wait till i hear something and i look. 50 yards away. The brute was chewing on some bushes. I pull up and wait for him to move closer. He just turns around and gives me a quartering away shot. My gun is right on at 50 yards and i have a rest.

I put the sight on him and shoot. He drops to the ground. Then tries to get up and drops and then tries one more time and drops. I think about shooting because he was moving then he just was done moving. I watched for a minute and nothing. Needless to say i was pumped. I started to get out of my stand and The bastard got up and ran away.

Went to the spot i hit him and there was blood everywhere.

Waited 3 hours. started tracking him

Very nice blood trail but it seemed a little high. where ever he would stop the blood would be everywhere we had no trouble folowing him. He had walked out of the swamp about 25 feet from where i was parked, walked into a field around the farmhouse out by us. WE followed bloode through a plowed corn field and up to a meadow next to the same swamp i had shot him. there was one last large spot of blood where he had stopped then there was a trickle and we lost the trail. Mind you it is now 11:30 and the fog is rolling in.

Go back out the next day at about 12 to take it up and could not find any more blood. We walked the edge of the swamp and nothing. We then looked north and saw a 25 by 25 yard thing of cane grass in the middle of the field. WE walk over to it and i walk in looking to find him.

I hear shots and the guy i was with was like that was him he unloaded as he was running out at about 75 yards and missed.

I watched him run the same circle he had took when we followed his blood and go right back into the swamp. There was no blood so it seems that it must have been a high non fatal hit.

Now i am kicking my self in the ars for not taking a shot when he was on the ground.

We still have this week and weekend to get lucky enough to see this deer that will not die. He was only shot at 4 days in a row and dropped to the ground.

Just thought that was a nice little story to share. I will keep you informed on whether or not we get him

[FL SNIPER]

Wow....what a story.

That tells me that if I shoot a bruiser this weekend....even if he drops I might put another one in him just to be sure.

Good luck getting him....sounds like he's sticking around that area anyways.

Thanks for sharing your story.

[Johnny_Namakan]

Similar thing happened to me two years ago. Shot a very nice 10 pt. buck late afternoon (3-ish). Appeared to be a solid hit arounf the front right shoulder. He took off like a bat out of hell. Waited an hour and began the tracking. Good blood trail, which was good with not having any snow on the ground. I knew he was hit well, because he didn't even try to hit the thick cover. He stayed on a well used deer path for about 1/4 mile. At that point we lost blood. Of course we had to lose his trail right around an area where several deer paths converge. Three of us spent several hours trying to pick up the trail....no luck that night. Next morning two of us go back. Now we'r eon our hands and knees like some sort of forensic scientists sifting through the soil for clues. I finally pick up the trail with one tiny little drop on the back side of a leaf. Sweet, now we at least know whixh direction he's headed. Couple hundred yards and still no more blood. Now we're wondering if we are on the wrong path again. So we keep in the same direction and end up finding another drop or two over the next few hundred yards. As we're walking my uncle says, "hey, do you see that over there?" He pulls me into his line of sight and points.....sure enough there he is...down about 20 yards away. That deer traveled at least 1/4 mile to 1/2 mile with only leaving 2-3 drops of blood and died. Turned out it was a very good shot. Busted the front shoulder and hit high in the vitals with no exit hole. He traveled 1 mile with a fatal wound and three working legs. Those big bucks have a will to survive like none other. I hate to say it, but your deer may be down but just not found. O.K. let's not try to think that way....You grazed him and he's there for you to hunt again. Gotta stay positive right?

Curious: What kind of bullets are you using? I shot the buck in the story above with a 30-06 Ballistic tip 165grain. The ballistic tips are great if you don't hit the shoulders, but if you do they just don't have what it takes to get through and retain its mass. I've swithced back to the bullets I used 15 years ago. Just your standard lead round. Don't fix it if it ain't broke I guess!

Good luck, get the swamp buck!!!

[LaVoi]

Wow, that story is eerily similar to a buck I lost in 2003. It was the biggest deer I had ever saw in my 10 years of hunting. A very nice 10. I shot it with my 30-06 at about 60 yards in the front right shoulder. He dropped on his front legs on impact, got up and made a mad dash for cover. The thing that still gets to me today is that I had a chance to at least put one more hole in him, but my pride got in the way. Up until this deer I had never taken two shots at a deer and nearly every one of them had dropped in its tracks. When I shot the deer, it dropped, I could see the spray of blood on the white snow upon impact and as it ran it ran like it was already dead, so I did not take that second shot (This was mistake #1). Well, a few minutes later my brother came to my stand as he knew I had shot. I couldn't hold back my excitement and neither could my brother when I told him it was a big 10 pointer. We only waited about fifteen minutes before beginning to track him (This was mistake #2). We follwed a good blood trail only 100 yards and jumped him in his bed, that is the last I would see of him. We hunt in the big woods and bogs of area 111 and we tracked this deer for somewhere between 6-7 miles. Some spots the blood was gushing, some spots the blood was the size of pinheads. In fact there was a 100 yard stretch of blood that was squirting out of his chest four to five feet to the side!! I could not believe it, but once he bedded it was back to pinhead drops. We had tracked for seven hours until dark, at the end the deer made it to some of the thickest cover I have ever seen. Also, the blood trail was all but gone now. So, I drew two conclusions from this. A) I now pump the lead into them until they go down or are out of sight. I always wait a minimum of an hour before tracking the deer. I know some say that in certain situations you should push the deer so they don't clot up. However if you are dealing with a big buck, once you push them off of a bed once they will not stop until they have absolutely no energy left. Oh yeah I forgot to mention, that I had shattered the bucks front right shoulder or leg, because for this 7+ mile stretch he was dragging the leg, the tracks in the snow looked as though the leg was just dangling there. Unfortunately this was the last day of season, all of our party had to get back to work, and I had to go back to school. School is five hours from camp so the following weekend was the first chance I had to get back and look for him. I brought a dog with a good nose and searched for hours to no avail. This loss still gets to me today and that deer is now referred to at our camp as Mr.Invincible. Hopefully this doesn't happen to any of you.

[fishermn]

Those big guys can be tough to say the least. I whacked one with archery gear last September, hit him perfect right behind the left shoulder with a quartering away shot. Not a drop of blood after about 30 yards... Nothing. Looked for 3 days with no success. It is truly amazing what a big buck can do after taking a shot that looks good and SHOULD have been fatal...

[BeerHunter]

I had shot him with a Federal barnse expander sabot slug out of a rifled barrel slug gun 870 express. A big hunk of lead to say the least flying at him and it splits apart at contact.

We kicked him up about 21 hours after i shot him and there was no more blood. He was also running very well across the plowed field. WE are heading out tomorrow night to se if he is moving around again. Hope he gets back to chasing some does.

[USPENAMC]

i shot a 6 pointer about 30 yards away with slug gun hit him dead on he fell right over for a couple of seconds then all of a sudden i heard the beast within hime

I DID NOT KNOW BUCKS COULD sound so much like an angry bull it sounded like when you are branding a cow or bull mooooooohhhh that could probably be heard miles away he kicks and kicks and i figure he is just dying so then he kicks and kicks and heads down the slope then hits the breaks and turns sharp directly at me all the meanwhile doing this horrific cry i move my gun up and he notices movement not 10 feet from me at this point and hits the breaks and turns left then hits the breaks then right he goes around my brother shoots at him 3 times (12 yr old) and misses he hauls arse up the hill into private property we looked for him for a couple of hours .. i have my soiled underwear as proof of his loud and horrifying whatever you call it. i have never heard them do this in any tv show or ever known of doing this i was scared shi...less has anyone every heard them mooohhhh like this .. the next thing im walking back and a cow mooohs and i nearly fall on my bu... i was still thinking of the buck.... holy..

[HunterLee]

Deer in general are tough. If you ever, shoot a deer espiecaially a big buck you go up to it right away. I know it has saved a few bucks in our party, and not doing it has lost a few. Couple years ago my cousins husband shot a nice 8or 10 pointer. Was standing at 50 yards. Shot and dropped him. He figured he was dead so he turned around and waited for more deer to be pushed. That buck got up and made it 3/4of a mile across a plowed field and into a big woods never to be found again. This year i dropped a buck, sat and watched him at 75yds, no sooner did he drop, than he was wobbling away. Nice to have a rifle, so needless to say he didnt get to far. Same thing that happend to my girlfriend, shot a doe at 30yds trotting nad dropped it, i could see the hole right by the front shoulder figured done deal. Got up and ran another 100yds, even after i put two more into it. So anytime you drop one walk over to it and make sure. Otherwise one day you will lose the biggest buck of your life. Something that i know has happened to more than a few people. Oh and never stop shooting the deer until its on the ground, i dont care how good of a shoot you think you made. Using a couple extra shells is better than a lost deer.

[charliepete2]

I gun hunted a little as a kid, but then gave it up in favor of bowhunting. I've taken almost 20 deer with my bow, but this gun season, after finally buying some land, I decided to give gun hunting a try for the first time in 15 years. A few years back I shot an antelope with my 30/06...It dropped it like a bolt of lightning. I figured that's would happen to any deer hit right as well. Well this weekend I took my first gun deer ever. It was a doe that I hit at 40 yards broadside. I was steady on the trigger and using a rest...I figured the deer would drop like a rock, imagine my surprise when it turns and starts running at me full speed. I caught it twice on the run once through the guts from above as it came directly under my stand and once texas style as it headed up a ravine that finally dropped it. You can imagine my surprise when I found that my first shot was right on the money, scrambling the lungs. I almost wish I'd have held off popping away at it and not gummed up the meat, but at the time I thought I flat out missed the first shot.

[firemedic5586]

I'm a lefty and shoot a righty bolt so I have to make them count, no second shot. I have dropped some deer with my 300 WM. Put them through the boiler room and the will go 25, 100yrds. Spine them or neck them and they drop on the spot. One you track for a bit one raises holy heck on the meat.

You choose

[ccarlson]

I lost a monster buck 2 or 3 years ago where we had a great blood trail. Tracked him for over 11 hours over two days.

I felt terrible.

This year I shot a nice 8 pointer and hit him again when he dropped and was kicking just to make sure.

Here's the funny part. I process my own deer and after I cut him up, I was cutting the carcass up to get into the garbage and out drops an old bullet from some fat reserves in the body cavity up by the spine! It looks to have been there for at least a year but there was no sign of injury to the meat I had cut. It wasn't one of my shells since I found an exit hole from both hits.

It wasn't the same deer of course as the one I lost but someone else had shot this guy at one time.

I kept the bullet and will mount it on the board with the antlers.

ccarlson

[BeerHunter]

Well we know he lives, On the last day of Gun hunting on sunday evening my dad caught a glimps of him in the tall grass before he made it back into the cane grass. My dad had no shot so that was kind of a bummer. Back in the area that i shot him the first time.

Looks like we know where we are going muzzleloading this year. We dont get to Bow hunt this land which is a real bummer but we will do with what we have.

[BeerHunter]

Well was out pheasant hunting yesterday and found the buck that i shot during gun season. HE made it about 400 yards from where i last saw him. beaded down and totally eaten by cyotes. he was going back to where i had shot him. i had put about 6+ hours in walking around the swamp but no luck bummer i couldnt find it right away but i did find it so im happy

here it is 20 3/4 inch inside spread

here is the shed i found in while walking around

[firemedic5586]

Looks like your a good way along at having a Euro mount done.

[bassNspear]

might be true. Nice buck and great story

[WB make the CUT]

BH

One of the best stories I've read here,the others were too

Great thread

Great persistence!!!