NY Bowhunter

I'll try to make this very long encounter as short as possible.

I was hunting a thicket that borders a hay field last night. No action there. It's so thick and gets dark inside there pretty quick. So I decided to pack it up a little early and creep up to the edge of the field where there is plenty of light left to see what I could see.

So I get to the edge of the field, take a knee and check things out for awhile. Nothing creeping out so I decide to start heading back to my truck. I get halfway across the field and I see a body near the hedgerow on the other end of the field about 70 yards away.

I quickly get to my knees. It's a buck working a scrapeline down the hedge. He turns and starts heading towards me! An absolute MONSTER 10 pointer! He's walking stiff legged and coming straight at me. I'm down in some sort of fetal position crouch with my head barely above the ground and holding myself up with my elbows.

He comes all the way to me about 8 yards away looking dead at me. He didn't seem alarmed, he was just wondering what the heck I was. Now I'm trying to figure out how the hell I might be able to get a shot at this giant in the middle of a field right on top of me. I was also a little worried for my life! [8D][]He starts heading broadside to me now but still looking back at me every other step. I was praying for him to just make one mistake or have something catch his attention in another direction. This continued for what seemed forever.

Now he's about 20 yards away doing the same thing. Just making a circle around me and looking back every couple steps. My instincts were to get to a knee and hope he froze offering me a shot, but I thought the gig would've been up as soon as I moved a single muscle in my body. So I remained patient hoping he'd disregard me, make a mistake, or look the other direction long enough to give me a shot.

It gets to a point where I only have a couple minutes of shooting light left so I tell myself next time he puts his head down to graze or looks away from me for a second I have to make a move. So he turns his head to the hedgerow he came from and looks away from me. I was hoping it was for long enough for meto get to a knee and draw.

I got to a knee and went to draw back and he looked back at me. He blew at me and trotted off 60 -70 yards or so. He stopped and looked back for about a minute and I just remained motionless. He blew again and took off across the field. BUSTED!![:@]

It was a strange encounter to say the least. I still can't believe it happened. I'm not sure what I could have done different in the middle of a field with a mature buck on top of me like that. Maybe I should've tried sooner or maybe another minute or two and he would have given me a shot? Maybe I should have just let him walk and not make him aware of me? I don't know. I've replayed it 1,463,987 times since yesterday.

Rickmur

I can't think of anything other than to maybe stalk across the field with having a few minutes left of shooting light. Maybe you would have caught sight of him earlier and had a different angle on him when he came across the field. Stay patient buddy, it will come.

Dallas sucks tooBTW

MOTOWNHONKEY

Cool encounter to say the least. My theroy is your probably never going to see that buck again so try and make something happen. I have been caught out in to open too but I didn't have success either. I did fling an arrow though, I just missed.[:@]