LBL 2003
This was the first day of a muzzleloader quota hunt. We had hunted the morning a long ways back, saw a few deer, and decided to hunt somewhere closer to the truck that afternoon as it was supposed to rain. We decided to drive down a small back road where our buddy had found a lot of sign and pick a spot fairly close to where he was hunting. There was a big cut corn field on one side and little hollows leading to the road on the other. My cousin yells to stop as we're driving down it looking around, jumps out to look at a rub 20 yards from the road in a little drain, jumps back in the truck and says I'm hunting right here. I decided to go about 200 yards back up the road to another drain and climb a tree close to the road as it was probably about to start raining. When I got there, I just decided to sit on the ground which was mistake number one. It was a pretty good looking spot, and I was thinking that the deer might filter down the drain headed towards the field before dark which was mistake number 2. I hadn't been there long when here comes a buck after a doe. They had came probably 200 yards across the cut corn field, across the road,up the hill beside me, and over the ridge. I sat there for a second in disbelief and decided to jump up and ease to the top and look over to see what I could see. I jumped up without looking at there back trail which was mistake number 3, made about two steps, and here comes the biggest buck that I had ever seen bringing up the rear. He still had no clue I was there. I am not sure how big but somewhere between a 125" - 150" deer and bigger than anything I had ever killed at the time. He hit an opening about 75 yards even though it was still pretty thick, I grunted to stop him, and took what should have been a good shot even though it was off handed. He disappeared over the ridge, and to this day, I don't know what happened. The cross hairs were on him, the gun was on, but we never found a spec of blood or the deer. I still to this day don't know what happened. I nearly had to have hit a limb that I didn't see. If I would have just got in a tree that afternoon, I would have had a much better shot and taking rest. We did hear that there was around a 140 or so inch deer killed in that same area on the next quota hunt which was probably him. There are others but that one stings the most.
