No kill but I had to share. Friday evening went out and sat in a stand overlooking a stream. Around 6:00 these three bucks I' ve been seeing start coming down off of the hill in front of me. The 4 and the 8 pointer come to the stream right in front of me and the BIG 10 pointer stays to my left. Everything is going perfect until the 8 pointer crosses my trail. He stops, gets rigid and is looking around. The 10 pointer only had about 3 more steps to take to get to my shooting lane so I' m patient, the gig' s not up yet. Now the 10 pointer has his nose in the shooting lane and has one more step to take so I draw!!!!! As soon as I draw the 8 pointer takes off running and the 10 pointer freezes in mid stride. If he had finished that step he would have been done. He waitied for about 6 or 7 seconds and then turned and ran.

It was SOOOOOOOO close I can' t believe it didn' t happen. He would have been my second buck and would probably score in the 130' s maybe 140. He was NICE. Maybe next time. I haven' t been able to get the incident out of my mind for the last 3 days.

LOL I' m not laughing at you, I' m laughing with you! That' s bow hunting. Got to love it. Better luck next time.

That is the toughest part of the pre rut is when the bucks are still in those bachelor groups, way to many eyes looking for you!!!

me thinks its time for you to start using a cover scent on your boots

Dont ya just love it when a well thought out plan goes west

That big guy will slip up and you will get him

Ohh that has to hurt, i know all about replaying the missed opportunities in your head. Get them stuck in there and it can drive you crazy! At least you got close to the big boys and that had to be an adventure in itself!

Ausie-Guy, I wear rubber boots and walked through the stream before going to my stand. I think what happened was that I brushed a dead limb on the way in. I got to my stand and was thinking about it and went back and got the limb and threw it in a blow down. Well when that buck stopped there was another limb laying right there so I think I went back for the wrong one. One little detail like that cost me the hunt. It was a great experiance though!!!!

I had seen these three bucks last Wednesday too. They came by my tree at 10 yds again. Only they were doing about 100mph chasing a doe out of the field so she wouldn' t eat their beans.