A little story about buck fever....

[deerhunter61]

I took my nephew hunting this past weekend and we spoke quite a bit about shot placement. I showed him last Friday night where to place the shot. Then Saturday morning we went hunting. We saw a couple of bucks but since he was on a doe hunt he could not shoot either one. After the hunt he said he really did not understand why anyone would ever miss. He assure me he wouldn't. I explained that there was a thing called buck fever and when it attacks hunters occasionally miss.

A little background....My nephew is in the military. He is a very good shot. He had never killed a deer before this last weekend.

Well Saturday evening we went hunting. I set him at a location where I was sure he would get a shot at a doe and I moved on to where I was hoping to get a shot at a hog. He had indicated he would rather take a doe than a hog so we split up. At about 4:45 I saw three hogs... I waited a little while and then they grouped together and I decided to try to get two for one...well I made sure I was on the first hog and fired. It fell over dead shot though the heart but the other one behind it escaped unharmed. Less than 5 minutes later I heard a shot ...it sounded like a miss...Well rather than going to see what happened I decided to wait...ten minutes later I heard another shot....and then another! WOW! Ok I decided to go back to camp and pick up my cell phone to call him rather than risk getting shot walking up to him...

Well I made a call to my wife first and as I was talking to her I saw him walking my way in the distance. Well I figured we would need to get his truck and go pick up a doe. When he got about 200 yards from me I saw that he had a deer slung over his shoulder. He had carried that deer that way for over 800 yards. I was a little impressed.

But getting back on track when he got back he admitted he had missed the first two times! Finally he hit her with the third and he was very proud he had hit her in the heart. He took the ribbing pretty good. I called my father-in-law and he gave him a little as well. I told him finally that I was glad that he missed simply because now he will approach deer hunting a little differently and that when he hears that someone made a bad shot he would have an appreciation for what they were going through.

I told him that I can remember missing three times and not only was it frustrating...wondering if you might have harmed an animal but not enough to leave blood behind but that is was very embarassing to me. So I welcomed him to the club of those who have missed.

So now the club is at two...anyone else a member of this club?

 

[SHOOT1SAM]

Well,

Maybe an "affiliate" member here. I've never had a case of buck fever, per se, but I did miss a nice 2X3 mulie this fall. Here's what happened:

My 14yo daughter decided she was holding out for a buck this year. She passed on at least 20 does while we searched for a buck for her. It was a windy day and I saw this little draw we needed to check out. My wife had a doe tag and both my daughter & I had buck tags; only the ladies were carrying rifles-I had a pistol for an up-close shot.

So, these two nice 2X3's come walking up out of the draw as we're walking toward the edge. I see them first, say "BUCKS! BUCKS!" and drop to my butt, flipping out the tripod for my daughter. The two bucks stopped and looked at us, semi-broadside, sort of angled away and I'm trying to get my daughter to settle in and take the shot.

I had completely forgotten that I had a buck tag.

So my daughter keeps aiming & aiming & aiming & aiming as the bucks start walking up the hillside. They keep walking, I keep trying to settle her in to take the shot, when it finally hits me:

I'VE GOT A BUCK TAG TOO !!!!!!!!!!!!

So I turned to my wife & say give me the rifle and as the bucks are about 10 feet away from the brush, I popped off a semi-rushed shot, and missed. Then my daughter finally takes a shot & missed.

Of course, my wife says "I think you both hit them." Grumble, grumble. I knew we hadn't.

So, I say "Stay here & watch the hillside." Then, I trotted off to the head of the draw, went over the top, looked all around where it was fairly flat & saw nuthin', then I dropped back over & started zig-zagging back & forth looking for ANY sign that we may have hit one of them. When I finally saw my wife & daughter I hollered to them "Are you standing at where we shot from?" Of course, they weren't, and so I had even more hillside to cover. Never did find any sign whatsoever that either buck had been hit, but did get a pretty good workout!

I asked my daughter a couple of days later why it took her so long to finally shoot. Her response was that she simply didn't know where to aim because of the angle the deer were to us; all of our practice had been on a broadside target. It never occurred to me to teach her where to aim if it wasn't broadside. I told her to go get a big stuffed animal, and she brought down Eeyore (Thanks for noticin' me.). We then proceeded to go over every angle I could conceive of a deer standing to us, level, uphill, downhill, etc. A valuable lesson learned.

Sam

 

[qajaq59]

The wildest story I ever heard about buck fever happened in front of a friend of mine. He took a new guy hunting and the guy brought a 30-30 lever. When he saw the deer he levered all 6 rounds through the action but never pulled the trigger at all. And until my buddy showed him the shells on the ground he never even realized what he had done.. He thought he had shot 6 times and missed.

 

[DRYHUMOR]

Yep, been there done that.

It's hard to control an adrenaline dump. Some times it happens, most times it doesn't. If it's too bad- like when you have an awfully long time to look at the deer, I just won't shoot.

I recall 8 or 9 years ago. I had found a jam up crossing, and a tree that was barely big enough to climb. I went as high as I could, since I was halfway down a ridge into a bottom.

Well, not long after I had enough light to shoot. I saw movement, sure enough a buck was coming along that trail. I counted 7 or 8 points, nice dark rack, fair sized deer. Anyway he was walking along eating acorns, he wasn't moving fast or slow, but he had a destination in mind. He worked up to my left going up the ridge.

At about 50 yds, over my left shoulder, and nearly level with me, I shot. He dropped and flopped a bit, then got still.

At that point the adrenaline dump got the better of me. I was shaking so bad I had to sit down in the climber, and wait about 5 minutes before risking climbing down the tree.