Back in 1999, I had been rattling my arse off on an unseasonably warm November morning in my treestand in a draw along the edge of an alfalfa field. It was the last day of a 4-day hunt and with the warm weather we had seen little and at this point I figured I was done and was going home empty handed. My back was against the field and I was facing the woods thinking if anything would come it would come from the wood lot behind me. Well wouldn't you know it, all of the sudden I heard the thundering of hooves and the actual rapid panting of what sounded like a wild beast from hell. As I turned my head I saw the biggest deer of my life only 15 yards away. He was an absolutely huge, massive, hawg of a buck that pushed 200 PY and had to weigh over 300lbs on the hoof. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth like a German Sheperd on a hot summer day, and he was eager to fight as he strutted slowly past my stand. I was caught in a bad way with the antlers in my hand, a grunt call in my mouth, my bow hanging on a limb, and my back to the deer. I moved as slowly fastly as I could and by the time I had hung the antlers, grabbed my bow, and turned around, the buck had wandered to about 60 yards away. Well, just then a 9-point buck walked in and stopped at 22 yards offering a perfect quartering away shot. I concluded that my chance at daddy rabbit was gone so I decided to go for the smaller buck who was not a bad deer for me at that time and scored about 123 PY. When I went to put my release on the string I was shaking so bad that I couldn't get it attached. The frustration made my "fever" worse and then my entire body began to quake and I swear, the whole tree had to be shuttering. I started to get light-headed and thought I was going to pass out. However, I was finally able to calm myself, took some deep breaths and put the arrow in the boiler room on the smaller buck and he died within eyesight just about 75 yards away. After I shot him I was still shaking and that monster buck stood there confused and was looking back at me in the stand. He finally had enough and bounded away. I had never ever had the fever like that before or since.