The smartest buck you have hunted?

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oldrank
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The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby oldrank » Thu Jul 16, 2015 1:54 am

I love reading the stories of guys hunting paticular bucks fir yrs before a final chapter is written on the fate of that buck. In some the hunter kills the buck in an emotional bittersweet victory in others the buck escapes and lives on for a lifetime in stories around campfires of the ghost buck. Others meet their end to a car or other not so glorious ending. Does anyone have any good stories of a buck they matched wits with? What was the smartest buck u ever hunted?

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mheichelbech
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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby mheichelbech » Thu Jul 16, 2015 2:25 am

Great topic, have one that is still in process. I think he is outsmarting me without even knowing it.

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briar
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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby briar » Thu Jul 16, 2015 4:27 am

I don't know if the buck was smart, but he just managed to live in hunting hours where you couldn't hunt. I never laid eyes on him from the stand but he left his sign all over, probably at night. The only time I saw him was on a morning in our rifle season when my buddy slept in and we were on our way after light to the woods.......there went the gray ghost on his way to behind a housing complex to sit out the daylight. He was a beautiful buck.
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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby welded34 » Thu Jul 16, 2015 5:31 am

The smartest buck I've ever hunted is in process. I found his bed last year. Got 1 trail cam pic and my brother found his sheds this spring. He is very old. I never seen him last year In the stand..but he's back again this year. He is very nocturnal and smart. One day last year I went out after him after a hard rain and his tracks were all over the farm. He's smart.

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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby moog5050 » Thu Jul 16, 2015 5:59 am

Phade and I had a 170"er that was a regular on 40 acres we hunt. In NY - that is a HUGE deer. He was hunted by the two prior owners before I bought the land. Neither of us got a shot on him in the first bow season that I owned the land but did encounter him. He was good enough to pose for a trail photo featured on the covert website. He ended being killed 2nd day of gun season that first year I owned the land chasing a doe in an open field mid-day by a guy sitting in a cut cornfield in a blind on the adjacent property. Based on trail photos from the owner before the last owner, he was at least 8 years old. Very smart until he become senile in his last year. The blind was set in the middle of a cut corn field. Not a fitting end for a monster that lived so long.
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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby hunter10 » Thu Jul 16, 2015 7:11 am

Phade and I had a 170"er that was a regular on 40 acres we hunt. In NY - that is a HUGE deer. He was hunted by the two prior owners before I bought the land. Neither of us got a shot on him in the first bow season that I owned the land but did encounter him. He was good enough to pose for a trail photo featured on the covert website. He ended being killed 2nd day of gun season that first year I owned the land chasing a doe in an open field mid-day by a guy sitting in a cut cornfield in a blind on the adjacent property. Based on trail photos from the owner before the last owner, he was at least 8 years old. Very smart until he become senile in his last year. The blind was set in the middle of a cut corn field. Not a fitting end for a monster that lived so long.


That would be tough to swallow
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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby PK_ » Thu Jul 16, 2015 2:19 pm

Probably a buck I never knew existed ;)
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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby moog5050 » Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:51 am

hunter10 wrote:
Phade and I had a 170"er that was a regular on 40 acres we hunt. In NY - that is a HUGE deer. He was hunted by the two prior owners before I bought the land. Neither of us got a shot on him in the first bow season that I owned the land but did encounter him. He was good enough to pose for a trail photo featured on the covert website. He ended being killed 2nd day of gun season that first year I owned the land chasing a doe in an open field mid-day by a guy sitting in a cut cornfield in a blind on the adjacent property. Based on trail photos from the owner before the last owner, he was at least 8 years old. Very smart until he become senile in his last year. The blind was set in the middle of a cut corn field. Not a fitting end for a monster that lived so long.


That would be tough to swallow


LOL - it was and if you knew the hunter density in this area, for a buck to live that long is incredible. Worst part was that the guy that shot him was a trespasser that I threw off my property the week before. I guess he got the last laugh. I still congratulated him.
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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby JoeRE » Fri Jul 17, 2015 4:09 am

No one buck comes to mind as the smartest deer I ever followed. There have been lots of deer that I did not get as a result of either not having access to enough of their range or just plain screwing up repeatedly.

The one that I screwed up on and I still think about the most was a buck I chased when I was 17 and 18. When I was 17 he was a 180-ish gross 11 pointer, 25 inches inside spread and insanely long main beams that wrapped around. He had huge clodhopper feet that were easy to distinguish, I hunted a lot for him but never saw him on stand that fall. The next year I knew he was a little bigger and wider. I hunted hard and never saw him on stand again. I saw him many times glassing. The neighbor shot him come shotgun season, the big buck walked up behind him while he was standing for a deer drive in the opposite direction! Pure luck. He broke off one antler when he fell down, they reattached it and supposedly scored him at 198 gross typical with close to 30 inch spread and 30 inch beams. I have a hard time to believe that because he had broken off his right G5 and I just didn't think he was quite THAT big but heck I was just a kid....but he was a giant no two ways about it.

The photo I took of him hanging on a wagon doesn't do him justice. He is a lot bigger than the camera angle makes it look.
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I just wish I could have hunted him smarter. I knew what hillside he liked to bed on with southerly winds but never went in there because at the time my rule was - don't ever pressure a deer's bedding! There is the chance I would have just peed myself if I had dove in and had him walk down a trail to me but man I wish I had tried!

Still the biggest buck I have ever chased. He was definitely smart, I hunted all over the place (just never his bedding!) and never saw him just his tracks...but I believe every deer is kill-able if you can legally hunt where he is in daylight.
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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby oldrank » Fri Jul 17, 2015 4:59 am

The buck that I have the most history with is also one I hunted when I was a new hunter. I was 16-18 and we lived in farm country. The people my parents bought the house from lived behind us and had about 40 acres they let me hunt. I had no idea at the time how to deer hunt and my father although he was a great fisherman was never a great deer hunter and at the time still had not killed a deer. I set my stand up my first yr I bow hunted and baited with carrots and apples just like I thought we were supposed to. Opening day he came out of the fence line and I caught sight of his rack. I for some reason thought I could stalk him down so instead of sitting tight in my treestand I got down and started sneaking towards him. I snuck up to where I had last seen him but couldn't find him in the grass, so I stood up.. n there he went 20 yrds in front of me.
The next time I seen him he was bedding in a thicket of blackberries and my brother and I bumped him out of it. The next day we devised a plan where I would hunt a stand to the north of the bedding and my brother to the south. I would go in first ..my brother would count to 200 then move to his... The plan worked to perfection. Except for some odd reason I left my bow hanging from my pull up chord and as the buck walked by at ten yards all I could do was watch. A few months later in gun season we again devised a plan to drive the little swale. It was a windy day and my brother was convinced there wouldn't be any deer in it. I let him position around the back and I would walk through the thicket. As soon as I got in I jumped him. I pulled up n had a good neck shot but couldn't pull the trigger cause he was running towards my brother.. I waited for the shot... nothing..I yeld " here he comes !!!" ...nothing.. finally as I see the buck clear the fence onto the neighbors I see Jerry looking off the other way totally oblivious to what just happened. He was so convinced there was nothing in the hole he was off looking at some other prospects.

I had a few more run ins with him and killed my first deer off the property just before my 17th birthday but never tagged him. My parents split on my 18th birthday and we moved and I lost permission to hunt the land. I live a few mile down the rd today and still dream of the days I chased him around back there every time I pass the old farm house. I cant say he was smart... but he was a lot smarter then me at the time and that's all he needed to be.
Last edited by oldrank on Fri Jul 17, 2015 5:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby welded34 » Fri Jul 17, 2015 5:28 am

Good stories guys!

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Re: The smartest buck you have hunted?

Unread postby WEEGEE » Fri Jul 17, 2015 4:10 pm

i just posted in another thread about a buck ,that lived on an old sheep farmer's place and how smart he was but a few things i watched him do.
on opening day of shotgun season,here in Ohio i knew some locals would get close to this farm, to push the deer out. they all knew the farmer's place was "off limits" but they would get close. i thought, well i'm the only one that can hunt the other side so i set up before day light that morning and waited. around 8:30 i herd some shots on the other woods from the sheep farmer's place and just hoped they would run my way. well all the deer ran a different way from me,except the monster. he jumped the fence at the sheep barn yard and ran out in a mowed hay field that wasn't 3" high grass. the farmer had an old tree he had cut down the year before and piled some limbs around the stump. this was only about 10 ft long by 4 ft wide and 2 ft high.that buck crawled right up in that pile and hunkered down and laid there all day. i watched with my bino's at 50yrds. away and could only see him if he turned his head. around 10 or so here comes 4 does that, about ran over me hiding in this fence row ,they ran right passed that buck ,and he never moved!

at noon, i sneaked out to get lunch, and came back about an hour later, to see ,if he was still there. can't see him ...right about quitting time i turned for the 100th time to see if he was in that pile and up he stood and very close to almost a crawl he went right back to the sheep thicket.
another morning hunt just as i pulled in to my parking place, here he was crossing a plowed field. he saw me and layed right down in a dead furrow and you couldn't see him only the tips when he moved that rack. one smart cookie that lived a nice life until the farmer's brother showed up!
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