Well....
I got the big (what I thought) 8 point, but not the way I wanted to get him. I saw him twice this season but he didn't get close enough. On the last day, walking in at first light, there he is, within sight of my stand, hopelessly caught in an old hogwire fenceline. He is going crazy trying to get free. He wrapped the fence around a huge grapevine and was suspended from it and wrapped in fence. I didn't want to overly excite him so I continued to my stand and called my dad on the cell phone to come and give his opinion as to what to do. He saw the situation and said it was hopeless. We called the GC and asked them to come out and dart the buck so we could cut him free, to hunt him another day. The arrived and were too afraid to try to cover him and free him. He was too big to handle and somone could get hurt or killed trying. They said that they don't dart deer. If they can't pin them easy enough to cut them loose they have to put them down. I asked the officer if the buck would be donated to the needy and she said no. In those situations, they don't know how long they have been struggling and if the meat would be spoiled from adrenaline. She said that he would go to the landfill. I couldn't live with this idea. He was too fine a buck to waste like that. I asked if I could tag him, take a risk on the meat and put him on the wall for all to admire. She said that would be fine, and most appropriate as I was hunting him and found him that way, and saved him from a most certainly long, agonizing death. I felt this was the best option. He is now at the taxidermist and his meat is in my freezer. Let me note that I fried his backstraps today and they were delicious. Some of the best I have ever tasted.Risking the butcher billpaid off. I am glad to have given up my tag to make use of such a fine animal. I owed him that much. When I get pics back I will post them. He turned out to be a 10 point. His G4's were snapped off so I couldn't see them the other two times. Some people would never understand a hunters mind. He was all I wanted but all I could think of was how to free him. I guess I was chosen to care for him, one way or another.