Buck of lifetime or not?

[AR Bowhunter]

You are hunting your best spot on an afternoon. The shot oppurtunity came along about 1 hour before dark. You make a decent shot, get down an start tracking what you feel is a 180 class just before dark. Your tracking job goes alittle further than you thought it would that evening. You found your deer about 300 yards away, but the antlers are not onhim.They must have fell off when he took off running right after the shot.
You go back to try an find them but no luck. [:@]

How does that change the way you feel about your buck of a lifetime. I know this is hypothetical but has it happened to you with a buck of that class or a nice one period. This is on my mind an I know it has to weigh on some of your minds.

My thoughts, really can not say,they seem somewhat clouded about thewhole ideal.

[MichiganWhitetails74]

I pray for you. Reminds me of the 170 class I lost with a stick bow in 1995. I would never leave that woods. I would search and search. If it was here in Michigan I would wait for the leaves to drop and look again. Not sure how Arkansas is during the change of season.

[Westslope]

If it was a buck of a lifetime you can be dang sure I'd find them antlers.

[Rob/PA Bowyer]

ORIGINAL: Westslope

If it was a buck of a lifetime you can be dang sure I'd find them antlers.

Same here, I'd cover every inch of that property on that path to and from the treestand to find them antlers. And I'd bring Matt / PA in to help. LOL

[davidmil]

It doesn't change things. It's just the breaks that the horns fell off. In NY you'd have to find them or you're in trouble. I shot a 9 point once with a gun in late Oct. He had been hurt somewhere, somehow months before. He had a bad leg. He was off his weight a bit but otherwise seemed OK. My buddy and I grabbed his horns and started to drag. We made it about 5 yards before one side of his rack came off. We made it another 30 before the other fell off. The meat was OK.

[AR Bowhunter]

What if you could not find them.

[Rob/PA Bowyer]

ORIGINAL: bow huntert

What if you could not find them.

Well in PA I better hope I have an antlerless tag for him then.... That's the law.

[Westslope]

ORIGINAL: Rob/PA Bowyer

Well in PA I better hope I have an antlerless tag for him then.... That's the law.

Good point. Even if you could find them here it would still be an antlerless deer. The horns _may_ save your butt in court but as far as the Fish and Fur cops are concerned it is an antlerless deer.

It wouldn't be if I couldn't find them but when I found them. For a buck of a lifetime I'd hire some archaeologist to set up 1' by 1' string grids and I'd meticulously search each one. What ever it took. Once in a lifetime occurances happen just that, once.

[TJF]

I save one antlerless tag just for that reason up here !!

Say Rob... just out of curiosity... It could very well happen asa few are dropping now and some guys have pulled the antlers off dragging.

Say I shot one.It dropped it's antlers on the death run. I tagged it antlerless to be legal. Does it count as my first buck for the contest???

If it does count. I have the " sheds []" . How would it bescored or would itbe a no score??

I hope like heck it doesn't happen but if it would ?? And no I wouldn't shoot a shedded buck ( even by accident ). Walk out to the shed pile and grab a set ofhuge sheds. And say , hey guys looky what I got . I don't " roll that way " .

Tim

[Big Duane]

change it around and say he'd already lost a horn - would you shoot ? If most of his points were broken 1/2 off would you shoot ?

wise old bucks are what you're hunting for right ? you trick them and thats the satisfaction, right ?

or is it all about horn porn ?