Year 2000, hunted a specific deer the year before and my brother missed a shot on him. I set up on him November 20th at daylight. I felt strongly he'd be back in there breeding those does he had the year before. 9:30 a.m. I see a doe moving toward me. I look behind her and there he is. I am thinking you got to be kidding me. He's back same day as last year, same area, on the same doe group, were my brother had shot over him.

He and the doe work by me at about 70 yards. I sit patiently in my stand, bow in hand. I decide I will not call at him. He right on her and I know her travel routes. She always seemed to feed up out of this thicket in the evening so I plan on hunting my stand close to where I see these two deer go into the thicket.

1 hour after seeing these deer go into the thicket I hear a 4 wheeler come up from below. It's rifle season and I am hunting with my "bow." He'd have been a dead deer walking if I had chosen the rifle. I pray this guy coming up from below doesn't spook these deer out of this thicket. I hear the 4 wheeler stop. I hear a shot about 250 yards below me. I cringe. I later hear the 4 wheeler leave the woods about 1 hour after the shot. I figure he whacked a doe.

I stay another 2 hours and leave my stand. I get home and my neighbor has a huge smile on his face. He says, I just shot the biggest buck I have ever killed! My heart sank. I ask him if he was who I heard on the the 4 wheeler. He says yup! I go look at the deer. Sure enough the big heavy dark antlered 4x5 is hanging there in his shop. I don't say a word to him about knowing his buck pretty well. I congradulate him on a fine animal and go home. I didn't want to hunt for a few days, I couldnt believe how that affected me. Then realized this is public land and I could do nothing about it but go find another buck to hunt. I later scored the buck for the guy. It grossed 151 and netted 146 typical.