Love reading about the stories of guys getting it. I've changed over the years and like some over there said, I don't get it with a gun but still get pretty unnerved with the bow.

Question: What's your worst experience with it?

I would say mine was on a doe...yes, a doe. I was probably 17-18 and had a herd of deer come in. Must have been 7-8 of them in a line. I picked one of the first ones in the line and went to draw my bow. Felt like it was set on 150lbs. Thought something must be in the wheel or my shirt caught it. I tried again and the dang thing wouldn't budge. I couldn't get drawn back! I might as well of thrown the bow at them because I was not going to get it drawn back. As they walked off the adrenalin dumped and I was literally shaking uncontrollably in the stand for a solid 10 minutes. Have no idea what happened but that was as bad as I've ever had. I did end up shooting a hog about an hour later but I can tell you, that bow was not going to break over for me on those deer.

I had a similar thing happen, but it wasn't buck fever. It was cold like today, maybe worse. I had been up a lon-on for several hours when a doe came close enough to shoot. I couldn'r break the compound back I was so cold and cramped. Try as hard as I could it wouldn't break. She finally walked off.

Worst case of buck fever I ever had was when I was hunting a particular huge buck. I sat in a newly moved ladder stand one afternoon in a place where he had been seen. A big buck came out of the woods and cut hard right , too fast to get on him. I thought it was the big one and damn near fell apart as he disappeared. Then I realized it wasn't the right buck. Shook for ten minutes. A week later I killed the one I was after and was cool hand Luke...till after he dropped.

This isn't a deer story but along the same lines.

We were duck hunting a couple of weeks ago and me not being an experienced duck hunter when the first group came in I got a cramp so bad in my arm I couldn't straighten it out enough to load any shells back in my gun...lol

Luckily it released enough that I could reload before the next group.

I am guessing it was just the excitement.

Thankfully I think my bouts with incapacitating buck fever are over. I missed a couple of bucks when I first started hunting but probably my worst case of buck fever was shooting at a doe with my rifle and it involves 3FFarms.
I had only been hunting a couple of years and had maybe killed 2 or 3 deer. Myself, brandon and another buddy had made a trip to Louisiana to hunt for a few days. It was midday and we had met up to eat some lunch and decided to get in a big shooting house and kill some time. We’re sitting there eating fried chicken and funions when Brandon says, there’s a big doe, who wants to shoot. I jumped up and got the gun and I remember immediately feeling like a nervous wreck! My heart was pounding and I was breathing so hard the deer could probably hear me. Couple that with the pressure I was feeling to kill that deer in front of my buddies and it was more than I could take. I was getting ready to shoot and then the deer started quickly walking towards the wood line. I got out of the scope and said, well I don’t guess I’m gonna get a shot. About that time Brandon SCREAMED like a banshee out the window at the deer...... HEYYYYYYY!!!! He scared me to death, and the deer. She stopped and in one fluid motion I clicked off the safety and fired one down range. To this day I couldn’t tell you where that bullet went. I was tore up! I have never been so messed up when a deer stepped out. After they belly laughed at me for 15 minutes, I asked Brandon where the property lines were and took off walking

2016 in central Kansas. Had been watching a doe about 30 yards from me bedded down when she suddenly bolted like lightning across the open field (which was CRP broomsedge). Only one cedar on the side of the rise before the line of cedars about 50 yards away behind it.

Recap: Me in stand in tree with bow, doe in cedar clump 30 yards away, she bolts past the lone cedar on the hillside and disappears into the line of cedars.

A buck that would score at least 170 - the landowner had watched it several times - got up from that hillside cedar and started walking toward me. Wind was blowing in my face. I'd watched that cedar through binos for a while and never saw anything. It probably was a good 200 yards from me, at least, if not a little more. This was a giant field.

I started shaking so badly that I didn't even try to get the bow off the hook. Couldn't breathe normally, knees knocking, had to lean against the tree, all while it's walking toward me. He probably trimmed 75 yards off of his resting spot toward me when I got the bow and tried again to breathe normally. Couldn't do it.

The buck finally cut the doe's trail and turned to go to her. I blew HARD on a grunt call since it was so windy, and he stopped and looked back. Did it again when he turned his head and he looked back again, took a step, and then trotted on the doe's trail to find her.

Never saw it again. I don't believe I could have drawn my bow. Saw a roughly 130 8-point couple of days later with a doe and didn't faze me a bit. The landowner knew about the giant buck but said it was pretty smart and didn't come around too closely.

December 2002. Dropped my dad off at a ladder stand and started my walk across an open 20 acre pasture headed to a climber watching a clear cut that adjoined it. It is breaking day as I am walking and I see a buck walking the fence line about 150 yards away. I started shaking so bad that I couldn't even keep him in the scope. He start making a scrape and I proceed to miss him 3 times. After the last shot he jumped the fence and went into the clear cut. I never seen him again. At the time he was the largest buck I had seen while hunting.

When I was 16 years old, I was hunting a ladderstand in the woods one afternoon during rut. I was bound and determined to see if a grunt tube worked or not, so all afternoon I would grunt every 15/20 min. Right before dark a group of does walks by at 50 yards, so I grunt at them just to see and they eased off. I caught movement down a fire lane of a deer, so I decided to grunt at it as it was disappearing. Low and Behold, here he comes walking to me all the way up to 20 yards from me looking for the buck who grunted. As he lowered his head to make a scrape, I eased my rifle up, and he started trotting in a circular path around me from left to right. I squeezed off and dropped him at 25 yards, and then all heck broke loose. I couldn't stand I was shaking so bad and had never seen a buck that big at the time that whenever he even moved, I shot him again! I ended up shooting him 4 times lol I couldn't even gather my thoughts when I called my momma from the stand nor could barely hold the phone!

Every year it never fails. The first deer I see while bowhunting, no matter what it is, gives me an adrenaline rush so bad it makes my lower back cramp up. It has been so bad that I wasn't able to stand up and get a shot off.

I had almost the same thing happen several years ago on Wheeler Refuge. I'd been up since noon, the temp was in the teens and at last light a spike walked straight to me. I tried and tried to draw the bow and couldn't. Finally I raised it over my head and drew it as the little buck walked straight under my tree and I shot him straight down thru the top of his back. He ran about 30 yards, almost to my truck, and piled up.

I know this may sound crazy, and sometimes even I think it is, but......I have never lost my composure over a buck, ever. I do get excited and my heart rate increases, but when I see a buck I know I’m going to kill I make it happen. I get in the zone. It’s almost like I completely tune Everything else out and all my attention is placed solely on the kill. I haven’t always made 100% accurate shots but it wasn’t from buck fever when I didn’t.

Now, here’s the crazy part. I absolutely lose my mind on any and every doe I kill with a bow. Every one of them. I get so bad that sometimes I have had a very hard time pulling my bow back. A few times I got light headed and had to sit down before passing out. I’ve NEVER done that on a buck with my bow. Not one time.