Posts: 4266
| I've shot deer over 150" with my bow, but my largest muskie is still 49 3/4". I've had muskies in the low to mid 50" range on and get away. I've had a buck that was 14 pts and a B&C Booker.....a huge symetrical 12 with split brow tines around me for more than 30 minutes. I didn't kill him because I tried to cover my profile and hide in a group of 3- 8" trees When I did shoot when he was at 10 yards, I was still worried about being hidden, and my string hit the tree that I was trying to hide behind. I could tell you about the scars on his right ear and the hair missing in 3 spots on the right side of his neck. When you are in the pressence of a truly giant Whitetail, it far surpaces a follow or lost 53"er. It's more personal. I might even say that shooting or passing a buck takes on a spiritual nature. I choose which deer I want to kill....I don't say harvest, I kill animals and fish, they aren't ears of corn and I'm not PC.
Deer hunting is a more personal choice, and not a random act of God. I can't choose what fish I want to hit my lure, but I wish I could. I've passed up many deer that other people would have put on the wall, but I was hunting my own land, my own private sections of Georgian Bay. I've passed up 140 and 150 inch bucks because they were on my land, and I knew that they had more growing to do.
No doubt about it, fishing is more of a crap shoot while trphy hunting is more akin to an assassination of sorts. Bow hunting is a more rewarding sport because of the deer that you don't kill and the bonus things that you get to see while you sit in the woods from black to black for days on end. You get to see shooter and no-shooters as well as the rest of what God blessed us with. Imagine if you will, pulling across an 80 acre piece of lake and you get to see all or almost all of the life forms dwelling there. Squirrels could be panfish, bass and other small non-target species. Fawns could be Pike, bigger bass or other fish. Then the does come out, let's say that they are trophy Pike and 40" range muskies. And then the spikes, forks....where I hunted yearling bucks actually were small sixes and eights, then the bodies got bigger and the mass of the rack and neck grew proportionately until you had four-footers and bigger fish eqaul to hefty eights and tens and up to 12's and bigger and as with fishing, the 'drop-tine bucks'. The freaks.
The 150 " bucks that I've killed are in a special part of my brain with my biggest muskies and all of the bigger ones that I've missed. They are both awesome animals and both require a fully devoted heart and soul to persue them. I will close by saying that a muskie has never made me fall down and vomit. I've never sat up for long hours waiting and pacing the dock so I could go look for a fish at first daylight, but I have counted the hours and watched the weather for a slight change so I could go back to the scene of the crime and see if the perp was there again. But now God has taken the thrill of the hunt away from me, the hunt of the Whitetail that is. Little by little I hope that I am blessed and will return to the woods some day. I long to sit from black to black again, but until that day I will spend as many hours as I can on the water, and I will cherish every jig 'thump', every bluegill and perch, every bass and walleye, but at the top will swim the whitetail of the water and I will look forward to every run-in and remember every detail of every fight and flop. But just as when I walked in the early morning black thru the fields and woods, I will thank God for creating the habitat that I get to spend my time in and ask Him to be my guide regardless of the results of the day and I will cherish all of those little moments that happen between the seconds of madness.
Beaver |
