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Saturday morning was easily the best hunt I have ever been on in my life. I went to my honey hole where i always see deer. I have been hunting a 5 year old 10 point all year and have had him at 40 yards twice this season. Again today I had him at 40 yards an passed on the shot. This thing looks like a potbelly pig walking thru the woods. Well I was hoping that he would make one more appearance and present with a shot that i felt comfortable taking. He didn't but 8 does walk up behind me and I see what I think is a big 8. He gets to about 60 yards and I notice that he doesn't have g2 or g3 on the right side. He was an inch or 2 outside the ears and had all kinds of mass. Well even though I wanted to wait on that 10 to come back out I decided to take this deer. He walks in front of me and i range him a 26 yards broadside. I draw and shoot and felt great about the shot. As I watch him limp away I notice that the fletchings are sticking pretty far out of the deer. I guess I hit him 2 or 3 inches to far forward. Must have hit bone because the 3 blade muzzy has never let me down before. I back out and wait for 2 hours before a buddy and I go out to look for him. We go to where I shot him but find nothing. We walk the trail he left on up to the point I lost sight of him and nothing. We walked a grid pattern in 50 acres of pines and didn't find my arrow or a spot of blood. I have been sick ever since... We looked for over 6 hours total for that deer.

This was not a deer that I would mount or that most of you would call a trophy and I have killed deer that have a better rack but never a deer this old or with the experience that this one had. Just the fact that I got close enough to this deer to have a bow shot was unbelievable. I am going to go back saturday and walk around looking for him. I think he crossed a ditch onto another property. We will see...

It is a bad feeling to loose a deer expecially when you think you did everything by the book to recover the animal.

He sure is one heck of a cull...






Honestly, I hate it for you man, but I couldn't resist.

Funny if you bring that arrow down just a bit that would be my shot placement. I wish that was the deer I was after.

truth is...he will probably live. The arrow will eventually break off and he will be around next year for ya.

if i were you i woulda shot the 10 at 40yrds... Thwack!!!

I lost a deer this year that I really haven't spoken of. I feel sick for messing Hannah up on it (she had him at 50 yards broadside in the foodplot but that's another story) then I shot him at 200 yds but didn't find him due to a multitude of things: darkness, rain, pine thicket he ran into, no pass through coupled with a tiny entrance wound. I'm STILL extremely pissed about it. He would have been my best deer to date and that I F'ed it up for Hannah prior to that. I still don't want to talk about it so this is the first (I remember) sharing it. I am sitting here still calling myself a stupid SOB for the whole episode.

Well Dog ya let the bean out might as well spill the bag....what happened

Nope, someone elses thread and I ain't hijacking it. Some time in the future I'll tell the story, just not here and now.

Dutch Dog wrote:I lost a deer this year that I really haven't spoken of. I feel sick for messing Hannah up on it (she had him at 50 yards broadside in the foodplot but that's another story) then I shot him at 200 yds but didn't find him due to a multitude of things: darkness, rain, pine thicket he ran into, no pass through coupled with a tiny entrance wound. I'm STILL extremely pissed about it. He would have been my best deer to date and that I F'ed it up for Hannah prior to that. I still don't want to talk about it so this is the first (I remember) sharing it. I am sitting here still calling myself a stupid SOB for the whole episode.

It sucks I know the feeling, it sucks!!

It sucks, but at the end of the day it is just part of it. If you're going to hunt, this is going to eventually happen. And this is even more the case with bow hunting. Lost the best deer I ever shot with a bow but not before getting lost in a huge block of cutover, and spending the night curled up in a hole, soaked and freezing to death. Was sick about it for weeks.

yes it sucks. Lost the biggest ive ever shot or seen the last weekend of the season. Shot him facing me and first thing that hit the ground was his butt. he rolled over on his back and layed there like a dog in the sun not moving. 5 mins. later he jumped up ran and fell twice before getting up and running off for good. Havent found him yet