ORIGINAL: hammerman
You were looking at sticks or something, the deer never existed. I have seen things from my stand I swear are deer bedded or antlers sticking up and so on. The sun shining in the woods creates illusions that look like things they aren't. If you hit the can and got ZERO reaction from 15 yards I bet there was no buck.
I don't think I could have counted 10pts and estimated 140class buck from looking at sticks. I watched this buck for several minutes from the bluff I was on before i ever started the stalk. As i stated I walked over to the bed he was in so with out a doubt there was a buck.
I've heard of deer doing the belly crawl and thats the only way I think he could have escaped without me seeing him.
Well there ya go!
If you definitely saw the buck, body and all, and have no doubt, then the belly crawl is your answer. I saw a nice buck do this to a guy during a deer drive in gun season. The buck was over a hump about 20 feet from him and crawled on it's belly for about 10 yards downhill, then ran very low profile downhill. The guy never knew the buck was there. I saw this from my perch in a tree stand about 40 yards away. I was not very happy with them for driving deer right in front of my stand, but I got to see that, so I didn't complain. I would have shot the buck BTW but the poster was in the line of fire.[:@]
The other time was even better. I was slowly walking through the woods and a small buck was evading another hunter and got real close to me. When it saw me I think it thought I didn't see it, so it laid down right in the open and covered it's head with it's front legs. When I continued walking past it did the belly crawl thing for a short distance and then slinked away. I pretended to not see it and kept walking, but I watched the whole episode with amazement.
What an interesting animal we pursue.