RD's EL Jefe vs. Buck!

[Ranch Dog]

Dad told me that back in their first years of hunting as boys his younger brother, my uncle "Bud", ran excitedly up to him on his watch and told him that he had shot at and missed a bruiser of a whitetail buck. Dad was only a few hundred yards from my uncles ground blind and had heard no shot that day. Dad & my uncle walked back to the ground blind where the shot & miss had purportedly occurred and there among the fallen leaves on the ground behind the blind beside my uncles hunting cap was a perfectly intact & unfired 30-30 cartridge. Uncle "Bud" swore up & down that he'd fired a shot.
It seemed that "buck fever" had gripped him when he spotted the buck & played tricks with his mind and he had ejected a carridge on the ground.
That's the story trickled down through several decades of time as I've heard it many times at family get togethers.
I was just a gleam in Dads "girl watchin" eyes those days & wasn't there and don't know for sure.
I'm pretty certain it wasn't buck fever in the case of a season hunter like you but I've heard several stories similar to this one over the years.

Great story. It would be wonderful to capture stories like this that have happened all across North America's whitetail country and record them in print.

[357cyrus]

Nice buck!

[pacificpt]

Nice buck, about how much did it dress out at?

[Ranch Dog]

Nice buck, about how much did it dress out at?

Live weight was 141 and field dressed weight 116.

[Rooster59]

Nice buck RD. When he stopped after the first shot apparently he didn't know who was following him!

[Xshot]

Nice buck RD! I was successful too this year. I got a nice 6 pointer, but not with a Rossi. Nothing came into range, so I bloodied my recent 7mm-08 AI build. 207 yard shot made by a 120 grain Nosler BT - buck was dead before he hit the ground.

[Ranch Dog]

Nice buck RD! I was successful too this year. I got a nice 6 pointer, but not with a Rossi. Nothing came into range, so I bloodied my recent 7mm-08 AI build. 207 yard shot made by a 120 grain Nosler BT - buck was dead before he hit the ground.

Well done!

[Ranch Dog]

Nice buck RD! I was successful too this year. I got a nice 6 pointer, but not with a Rossi. Nothing came into range, so I bloodied my recent 7mm-08 AI build. 207 yard shot made by a 120 grain Nosler BT - buck was dead before he hit the ground.

Well done!

[Ranch Dog]

I know antlers make poor soup but for some reason the self portrait in the opening post just didn't give the complete look of what the deer grew. I had the antlers sitting on the porch and my grandson, Noah, who lives out here grabbed them up and was marching around with them. So, I had him hold them up for another look.



This young fellow is 3 1/2 and is beginning to "live and breath" deer hunting from planting food plots to just helping Joe gut and cut up another spike this evening. In fact, my R762MB Single Shot is actually destined for his use in his fifth year. That is typically when "ranch" kids start hunting down here. He has a Cricket rifle right now. Didn't bother with a BB gun.

[akuser47]

Great pic, looks like you are raising them right in Texas congrats keep it up.