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The ONE that got away

IowaBowHunter1983

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Let's see your single biggest deer that you were hunting that you didn't catch up with. Let's see some pics of falls past.
 
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Only one? :) I could play this game all night. :)

This was a buck that we followed for several years and came "oh so close" a couple of times...but he was a wise one, as well as being a giant. I am not sure if this pic is from the last year of his reign, or the year prior. He had a 27" inside spread when he was taken and was usually a 8 point frame with split brows and sometimes a couple of crabclaws. He was sporting 12 scoreable points his last year, but we always considered him an 8 pointer anyway.

The body matched the antlers too, a true Iowa giant. We called him Megatron and tracked him between our farm and at least 4 other adjacent farms over his life. He was fairly predictable in terms of which farm he would be on at a certain time of the year, but was pretty nocturnal too.
 
This is the biggest one I have pursued. WA state public land mountain buck miles from any agriculture. Night photo was the first year I found him and daylight photo was the season he was killed by another hunter about 3 miles away from the area he frequented most....ended up being 205 inches of bone. Have some other giants that were never killed by a hunter as far as I know.
 

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Mine isnt huge, but I've always had a thing for big tall 8's and had a lot of history and close calls with this guy. Tallest g2 was 14 inches. A neighbor shot him with a bow 5 miles from where he had been just the day before. So he was definitely covering some ground.Resized_10180046.jpeg Resized_10180044.jpeg
 
I’ve got one buck on my phone from last 2 seasons. This was biggest that got away. He lived across road & he would go onto a tillable farm I owned a couple times a week. I only had 2 stands hung in small draws of timber. Chances were really slim. He made it til 2nd shotgun when group pushed through the ground that had been a sanctuary & his home. Think he was 200-205. This one didn’t really sting as he didn’t live on my farm, I didn’t own the farm for hunting & my expectations were low at ever seeing him.
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This one broke my heart. My uncle had him sneak in behind him while watching another buck. Had him at 10-yards but couldn't get turned for the shot. Caused many a dream for us and nightmares for my uncle.
 

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This one stung. Died in August shortly after these pictures. I watched a couple bigger in front of cameras that were stolen before I could check them, and one bigger that never cooperated with my cameras, but these are by far the best pictures I ever brought home.
 

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I chased this guy for a couple weeks. First year he had an additional main beam which looked like a club which dubbed him the name "50 cent". The next year he lost the club but put on the serious mass. Never heard if anyone else killed him....IMG_1260.jpg IMG_0831.jpg IMG_1261.jpg
 
I chased this guy for 2 years, had a scar on a back leg so I could recognize him. I was leaving for a business trip, watching him chase a hot doe around a fresh cut cornfield mid-day as I got in the car to leave. He got arrowed across the road that week.
 
37957584-A590-44CA-A3FC-4CD9ABEA80BF.jpeg I love Iowa, man this guy had me tied in knots. Hunted him for 10 days in a row in November and actually had 3 encounters, but couldn’t get it done. The first was at last light 40 yards, just didn’t feel comfortable at that range and running the risk of injuring such a magnificent animal. The second encounter he had his nose to the ground and on a mission, stopped at 26.5 yards quartering to me. My ethics said no. The third I had him dead nuts in the morning but had a thermal swirl updraft with the rising sun. Busted and out of my life forever. Neighbors haven’t seen him either. Maybe he’s nocturnal or old age got him, I don’t know. But hey, that’s why they call it hunting.
 
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