RE: What have you let walk and why?
I've let 7 bucks walk in shooting rangethis year so far, the best one was atall tined8 that has lots of upside in his futurethatwould score 125-130ish; however, this has been the worst big buck movementaction (so far)I've personallyseen happen in years. I letbucks walk becasue it's a personal chanlenge to me to harvest a big buck. I don't get excited anymore when I see a 135 inch ten point and it's that feeling when you seea monster buck at close rangethatonly a bow hunterunderstandsthat keeps me going to the woodseach week, it's an addiction worse than any drug could ever be I imagine?I have not shot a buck now in three years which is my longest drought in 25 years of bowhuntingbut it does not bother meas I'll take a couple of doesin late season for winter meat if the rightsituation does not present itself. I truly believe that it's muchharder to harvest adoe than it is a 1.5year old buck.
I still think the rut was/is a week late this year and I'm thinking this weekend might be some pretty good action if the weather cooperates. Enough of the rain, warm weather and wind already, how about a frosty morning with no wind? The kind of morning that you can hear that buck coming from a 150 yards away.
Bill Winke in Iowalets 150-160 bucks walk all the time, he even wrote about pasing on a 170" buckseveralyears back that he knew was only a 3.5 year old. Theyended up shooting that same buck at 4.5 years old and it grossed 230" just one year later.When a guy can lay off a 170" buck, I take my hat off to him, I certainly couldn't.Mr. Winke argulably has one of the best hunting spots in the worldon the sweet setup theycall "the Ranch" which Ibelieveis about 4,000 stricktly managed acres in one magnificentchunk. I visited the ranch about 5 years ago, if I could hunt free range whitetails anywhere in the world, that would be the place.