I feel horrible.

I didn't want to post this but I will anyway. This is gonna be a long story but I wounded the biggest buck I have ever seen while hunting. Friday evening I hunted a new spot where a huge white oak was dropping, within 45 minutes I had a doe come by and I smoked her. While I was texting my buddy about it another doe came in and stayed for about 20 minutes and ended up walking by at 8 yards. About 5 minutes after she walked off, I saw movement to my right and a buttonhead walked out and fed for about 5 minutes and was joined by another doe. I watched them for about 10 or 12 minutes. I hear something coming from my left and look at it with my binoculars and I can see that it is a spike. (now I know why they have devil horns) he comes out and feeds down to where he is directly under my tree and he just stays there for a couple of minutes. I hear another deer coming from where the spike came from and I look up and see legs and a tree shaking above them. He keeps on coming and I can make out a huge rack and a huge body. Those of you who only shoot mature bucks will understand this and some of you won't but this was one of those times when a deer walks out and instead of reaching for your binoculars, you reach for your bow. There is no debating if this is a deer you want to take, the killer instinct just kicks in. He is feeding closer to me and gets to 15 yards, broad side. I go to stand up, I never made a noise, nothing drops off my boots, nothing happened but that spike that was directly under me busts me and runs up the hill and stops directly in front of the buck pawing the ground and staring at me. The big buck just swings his head towards the spike and runs him further up the hill and continues on to get a drink of water. This is all going on on my left side and I am left handed so I still need to stand to get a shot. The spike is still looking at me and pawing and I should have stood up here but I decide to twist around in my seat and draw back on the buck. Right when I draw, he steps behind a bush. The buck turns around to feed back up the hill but he is quartered to me and I elect not to take the shot. My body has gotten to such a wierd angle that the bow just closes up on me. It didn't jerk my release hand back towards the bow, it jerked the bow across my body towards my release hand. The buck hears this and runs up the hill and is standing at 20 yards broadside staring at me. For some wierd reason he looks down to feed and I go to stand up but because of all my twisting in the stand my freakin back pocket button is stuck in the mesh of my ol man net seat, the buck is looking at me again, halfway stood up, trying to get the button out of my seat. He looks down and I reach down and get the seat undone and get stood up. He is now standing at 20 yards feeding but behind a bush and highly nervous. He starts walking away and quarters away from me and stops at 25 yards, I draw and fire and land an arrow 5/8 up his body right behind the last rib angled down and forward towards his other shoulder. The arrow goes in halfway and stops and he runs off with the arrow sticking out of him and I am listening for a crash but I never hear one. I know I'm not gonna have blood because I have no exit wound so I elect to call in a track dog and give the deer 4 hours. We go drag out my doe and go back to camp and dress her out. We go back and track with the dog for 3 hours but the dog keeps having problems with cactus sticking in him so I get the last coordinates and go back the next day and look for 3 more hours with no luck. I did find a doe that someone had shot a couple weeks before. I beside myself right now. This buck was an 8 or 9 point hovering all around that pope and young mark and I thought I smoked him. I just hope I didn't kill him and he heals up.

Hate to hear that. They are so tough. Maybe by some means you'll find him.

Big heavy bucks are tough. They can be hard to bring down with a bow. Hope you get another chance at him.

Man I hate to hear that buddy. It's happened to me too and it sucks!

That sounds like some of the episodes I have in the stand. I hope you find him.

Damn hate to hear that nick. I know you're sick cause I've stuck a good deer and lost him and I was for several days.

Dang..hate reading these... Hopefully you'll make up for it...

TFD I can sympathize with you. I experienced a similar situation this past week in Missouri. Large 9 point stepped out of the standing corn giving me a 20 yard shot. It all happened in less than 30 seconds it seems. I had a complete pass through with a decent blood trail leading to another standing corn field but from there we found no additional blood and rain set in that night. I'm sitting here at work replaying the events in my head.

I messed up a few years ago on a big one too. Shot too much of the shoulder and got bone and very little penetration. It happens and I was sick for the longest. You did what you could by exhausting all means looking. That's all you can do. Hopefully he heals and you can kill him later.

Hate that happened. I had a chance at a 5+yo 8pt yesterday evening and grazed his chest. He was 33 yards and my sight was set on 30 and I knew it. My dumb ass aimed for the heart like I do on does all of the time. Well, bucks don't drop like does do 99% of the time. You just don't get that many opportunities at bucks that old very often with a bow.

Nick,

I hate to say this but it sounds like a fatal shot. I would be watching the buzzards hard in that area.

Concur I would bet he's dead.

Good read, hate to hear you lost him!

It happens and I hate to hear you lost him, but I would keep an eye out for buzzards just in case.

Barry, I got excited Saturday. After I had looked for about an hour, I saw 1 lone buzzard sitting in a tree. I booked it over there and there were about 30 buzzards. It took a while but I saw one fly off the ground about 100 yards away and when I got over there it was a doe that had been there for a while. We will have buzzard watch going on about Wednesday.

The button caught in the Ol Man stand.......I had the same thing happen to me when I was shooting at a doe. I guess the dear Lord felt sorry for my dumb self trying to balance myself with part of the seat hanging off my rear. The arrow found it's mark and I was glad I was wearing my harness. Hope you find him.

I'm cutting the buttons off the back of all my pants

Hate to hear that buddy but it happens to the best of us. I lost the biggest buck I've ever shot at in Alabama as well. I was literally sick for two weeks. I feel your pain buddy!

Yep,button hangs are one of the only problems with ol man stands. Cost addison a shot last year.

going back tomorrow to do a little hunting but mostly looking for buzzards. wish me luck.

Best of luck finding him tommorow. Keep your head up

Dang!

Sorry buddy and hope you eventually find him. Best of luck on that

i did the same thing never stop looking took me 2 weeks to find my deer and find him 100 yards from my stand. but the best way to forget about it is to shoot another one

I feel your pain and it sounds like we have the same type of luck. Don't give up on him. It took me two years to get over my first big buck miss. He died somewhere I just have no clue where. It still bothers me but you learn a lot from every bad situation.