Well, long story short, there is a certain buck I have been hunting for 2 years now, this would be my third. I had a chance at him last year, and blew it. He passed under my stand only seconds after ascending my tree, and my bow was still on the ground.

A friend of mine that lives in that area found that buck lying dead on the highway this afternoon.

He went home to retrieve a saw, and someone had beat him to the punch. I am quite bummed over this deal, but, I know there are more nice bucks in the area. It's just a shame, ya know?

Man, that sucks..I know how you feel though because iIve was watching a doe come into our backyard and munch away for hours for about the past week and then on Saturday morning I found her dead on the road. It's not quite the same, but I think I know the pain and sadness you are feeling.

Been there done that. I know your pain. I once watched 5 bucks all summer,..just about every night and/or morning. I always hung back and observed from a far so as not to mess them up. There was a massive 12 point, a 10, 2 eights and a 6 in this bunch. They were all just really nice deer. The only basket rack was the 6 pointer. I just knew opening day of bow season I was going to have my pick of the 5. I knew within 50 yards where they would be bedded every day and their travel routes in and out.

Opening morning I was back off a gas pipe line about 100 yards(totally private land mind you) an hour before daylight. I had taken the trouble of hanging two stands there at 10 PM night two weeks before in a sure enough downpour just to avoid spooking the deer and stinking the place up. I stayed away from the place the week before the season. That week the 6 point jumped into the front windshield of a car 100 yards from my stand and was killed. Two days before the season the 12 point was killed on the road. We know it was him because of a droptine. So opening AM I"m hoping for one of the eight points or the 10. Just as it got light enough to see the ground I see headlight and a big engine roaring up the pipeline, then another truck, and another, and another. Then up the pipeline a couple hundred yards there's all kinds of racket and machines and I was coming unglued. Finally after about an hour I got down and started walking out to the pipeline. Here comes two more trucks. "What's that big pile of dirt I see through the trees?" Long story short, in the week I was gone they had dug a 10 or 15 foot deep trench about as wide as my house between my stand and where the deer fed. Through them all off their patterns. The final tally. I shot the 10 point, we found one of the eight points in a field with a slug hole in him long before any guns season came in. My buddy shot the other eight. These 5 deer lived their lifes out in a 35 acre long narrow patch. 10 point is the third set of horns on the wall. 22 inches inside.

Thatg stinks.I had a similar one with a 14point a few back,I had been seeing the horse of a deer most evening on a corner patch from my treestand,my farmer buddy told me one morning that fall,he saw it laying on the raod side dead right near the train tracks.He was huge.Toobad,but it happens.[&o]

I can understand your feeling's on this ,I've been hunting 1 particular buck for the last 3 season's and this season will be 4 ,I know he's still around ,but if I was to hear or see his demise I know it would be like taking the wind out of my sail's.I'm sorry to hear that and it's REALLY TOO BAD that you never at least got his hardware.

nubo

Man that stinks......do all that work figuring out what a critter is thinking and whamo.. In Texas its against the law to touch a road kill animal, You see a buck on the side of the road and get caught cutting antlers off its a fat ticket for you..

Yep ,had it happen many times in my life time. I see it everday now.The land around me is being developed in to a village and the develpoper is shooting the deer off of 2600 acres as i sit here. there is piles of them rotting behind my house. Makes me hostile

Same here. I have watched many bucks over the summer months only to find that they had been killed on local highways or by the bullet of a poacher. It can be very frustrating to someone who put alot of time and effort trying to pattern the deer for months if not years.

David,

That is one heck of a rec-room man. Some impressive racks.

Yeah, I know where youre coming from, Where we hunt we found a ~160 inch 10 pointer with his head tangled in barbed wire while he was rubbing a sapling. My grandpas neighbor has the rack in his house.

Sorry to hear it. 3 years ago I was walking to one of my stands when I spotted a nice 8 right n the midst of a few stand sites I have picked out. Saw him a couple of times, but I have to shoot a doe first. Long story short I found him in the same area 20 yds from a corn pile that some puts out. Mind you they left the body and just took the head. I'm pretty sure it guy's from out of state that come to Jersey for the early season. Haven't seen the guy's since their state changed their seasons.