Hands down, the one I'm most proud of was not taken. He was a nice 8 pointer I was able to rattle in for my oldest son, who was 12 at the time.

It was just a perfect Indiana fall evening, crisp and cool. I had both our stands in the same big oak tree. As he only hunted with me 4 or 5 times a year, every time out was special anyway. Nothing was moving so I thought I'd liven things up by showing him the rattling technique. Not 2 minutes after the sequence we hear the crunching of hoofs coming out of the marsh. A nice 8 pointer walked right out in the open, turned and came our way. He was locked in and it was really cool to watch my son's anticipation. It came in on the trail I wanted, then turned away. I quickly made a series of grunts that brought him right under our tree. My son stood up at the right time, drew at the right time, but simply did not let the arrow fly. Afterwards I asked why and he claimed there was a branch in the way. It turned out to be a tiny 1/8" twig. Don't know why he didn't just squat down a little or whatever. He was disappointed but I told him that's bowhunting. A lot of things must go right to make a kill.

I was proud to manuever this buck for my boy and proud he did so many things properly, just erring on the safe side of making an ethical shot. It was a fun teaching experience. Incidently this is the only buck I have ever been able to rattle in in my part of Indiana, where the buck:doe ratio normally makes rattling ineffective.

Sadly, girls and video games have since claimed my hunting partner.