I passed him up also back in Sept. also, the night before I shot a real nice 8 point.
As I was driving down the lane at dark but still light enough to see outside the woods I saw a monster buck walking across the lane in front of me and going into the woods I had just been hunting. I said to myself, next week he will start to move earlier and I will be waiting for him. On the way down the the lane today I was flagged down by the caretaker, he asked if I could help him with 2 bucks. Excited to see them I said sure and followed behind him thinking I must have missed one hell of a morning! I followed him to one of the ponds on the farm about 200 yards from where I saw the huge buck, I looked in the water and one of the most heart breaking sights I have seen in my 14 years of hunting. There was 2 bucks laying in the water with their horns locked together drowned! We dragged them out and I couldnt believe how big this buck really was, It was a massive 12 PT. and sure enough it was the huge buck i saw crossing the lane the other night.
Holding his antlers in my hands I staired
in disbelief thinking of their horrible death and about how long they must
have struggled and suffered until they were exausted and drowned in 2 foot
of water. As we tried to seperate them I noticed the smaller 8-PT. it was
the buck I had passed up the other night and also back in Sept. We couldnt
get them seperated. The big bucks sticker point and drop tine made it impossible
to get them apart. I would Have given anything to find them in time and
set them free, ofcourse, if the big boy gave me a shot in the future I
wouldnt hesitate to put him in the back of my truck! He would score
atleast 150 P&Y and was the biggest buck I have ever held in my hands.
I then went to my stand and spent the whole evening just thinking
about these 2 beautiful animals that died such a horrible death.
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