...Heh heh, there is no doubt in my mind that over the years deer have gone by unnoticed even though I try my best to stay on alert 100% of the time on stand.

Under the right conditions/locations deer can come in silent. Not only have I looked around and wondered how that deer got there without me seeing it, I have had the opposite occur. In other words, I hear the deer approaching and know it is in range but have trouble getting a visual on it!

What drives me crazy is when you know a big buck frequents the area you hunt but in spite of the many precautions you take with scent, stand location, entering and exiting areas, and the number of times you hunt a stand you only see signs of him and never the deer itself.

For the past few years I played musical chairs with a monster buck that I never saw but knew was in the area because of the signs he left behind. Two years ago I let a friend of mine hunt some of my stands and he saw the buck twice. This year he did kill a 140-150 class buck out of one of my stands that I sent him to but that wasn't the monster buck I was after. Some gun hunters finally caught up with him last winter not far from one of my stands. They put on a drive and shot him as he jumped the fence to the road and he piled up in the ditch. The Game Warden measured him at 191 5/8. That is the way it goes sometimes.