RE: Ever feel haunted by the one that got away?
I guarantee this is the most heaartbreaking one yet...
My grandpa bought 80 acres in western wisonsin about 6 years ago, it is hilly agricultural land with smallish 40-50 acre woodlots scattered everywhere. It just looks like big buck country. Well 3 years ago, we had heard of this big buck (close to 170") with really white antlers called snowflake... Well, my grandpa had only seen him once while hunting, he was hunting this thick draw between 2 cornfields, and a neighbor hunting several hundred yards away rattled the deer to within 150 yards, but never saw him in the dark. When he got off his stand the deer came trotting, too fast for a shot, past my grandpa. He said it was the biggest deer hes ever seen in person, and hes been hunting for a long time. Two weeks later, on the night before the gun season, we saw the buck about a half mile away in a cornfield. Fast forward to Sunday, the second day of the season, my grandpa takes me for a quick walk to the far end of our property, which is a thick drainage ditch, COVERED with big buck sign, smallish trees just destroyed, and bigger ones torn up. Well, the neighbor had been still hunting this draw in the morning and came across the buck. He was dead, but not from a gunshot wound. While rubbing a tree, his antler became entangled in barbed wire from an old farm fence. The deer could not escape, and I felt horrible looking at him dead there. His hind legs were practically underground he had been franticaally kicking to try to break free. The one that got away, but not due to our own mistakes.