Why Lie and Kill the Fun?

[philson208]

I once heard that if you want to kill big bucks you should hunt areas where big bucks die... The only people that get specifics on my harvest locations are my immediate family that NEED to know where I am. My favorite question is "where did you shoot him?" "Right behind the shoulder!"

 

[SirChooCH]

Yup I understand where you are coming from. One of my buddies in the thumb shot a 166" buck and wont even post a grip and grin on facebook because he doesn't want people encroaching on him and asking questions. Then he complains about people shooting smaller bucks and saying "not the biggest but" and not being proud of it. Told him to post his grip and grin then and be proud but hasn't shown up yet lol. He usually hires a photographer to do those family photos with him, wife, kid holding his buck for the year and posts them but not this one because I guess its just too big for Mi and would attract too much attention.

 

[Molon Labe]

Well if you're reading this you. might as well grab a refreshing beverage, this could get long.

I love seeing any hunter harvest an animal that they are proud of, no matter what the size. The fun part of hunting Whitetail is going to the buck poles scattered through Michigan on Nov. 15 and hearing the hunting stories. It's a large portion of the fun telling your success story, or the heart breaker of losing a Big buck, maybe even the funny crazy wild stories that these tales turn into. You know the "You had to be there Moments."

So here's my Question, Why Lie? Why twist the story to protect a hunting spot, why keep the info to yourself to prevent others from knowing the kill property?

It takes the fun out of it completely, it ruins the camaraderie of deer hunting. It doesn't give the Old wise buck the respect and dignity it deserves.

Heres the Story, just a warning it might get long. Ill try to keep it interesting and thought provoking.

For the last three years I've been watching a buck grow across the road from my house. Needless to say he turned into a Giant the last couple years. It is a somewhat busy road and the property he calls home is public city property that is somewhat normally occupied. This buck has become relatively well know due to talking between locals and his famous November Love ignorance, by standing about 100yrds off the road with a doe for two days in a wide-open field. It attracts the crowd and people driving by to stop and stare, personally I love it. As long as they aren't trying to shoot him from the road, I'm happy people have the opportunity to feast their eyes on his beautiful rack.

This buck has been on my personal property only twice that I'm aware of in the last year, but every night I sat on my front porch this summer and watched him and his other group of 15 bucks grow from Spike horns to Giants. He lives on a property that no hunting is allowed but obviously becomes love struck and wanders off chasing the Love's of his life for a couple months a year.

Lets get to the point right??? So, I arrive home on a Saturday from a long 9 day back country trip, tired and exhausted I look for him in the spotting scope that evening to no avail. On a hunting schedule I go to bed embarrassing early and wake up Sunday morning about 4AM. Sitting on the couch waiting for the sun to come up so I can glass the area across the street I receive a text from a good friend. The text reads "Are you up?" in which I reply at around 6:00AM "Yes Im just watching T.V.". My friend pulls in the driveway about 10 minutes after and says get in.

We are shooting the shit and he says " I feel terrible, I shot your deer." confused I ask what he's referring to. He explains that the Giant we had all watched was in his backyard randomly the day before and he smoked it. He lives about 1.5 miles away on the same road as I do. I'm ecstatic for him, a little pissed he didn't send me a picture. But all in all not one ounce of disappointment or jealousness, I'm literally so happy! So we are on the way to his barn where this buck of a lifetime is hanging.

We pull in and I damn near run to the door, I could not wait to feast my eyes and put my hands on those antlers. He unlocks the door and we walk in, he almost got bigger hanging upside down compared to the countless hours I stared at him from my front porch. It's at this point forward that makes me wonder, why?

He says I told everyone that I shot it on my other property (about an hour south). I asked him in a disgusted tone " Why in the hell would you say that?" He tells me that he doesn't want people to encroach in this area because this buck was killed here. I just shook my head and had a shitty feeling come over me, because that's the end of the legacy. No standing in a barn, just looking at the deer hangin there, no drinking beer and frying the inner loins and listening to the story for the one hundredth time, no showing pictures of him growing. Thats the anticlimactic end to a beautiful 174" net michigan monster. The whole block and every hunter within 10 miles knew of that buck.

If this posts helps deter one person from making the same mistake, then its worth this ridiculously long ramble.

Folks that's the best part of hunting, the memories, the stories, the adventures. That buck deserved to go out different. Now as you can image its a big stink of the town, a few pictures got passed around now everyone knows he's dead and wasn't killed an hour to the south. They all know where he lived and know the story doesn't add up.

You have any interesting anticlimactic stories that should have turned out different, but because of the big antler culture it got twisted into a web of smoke and mirrors for absolutely no reason?

Thanks for reading this, hopefully you enjoyed the story.

I think your friend is in the right and that was pretty cool of him to let you know how it went down.
It is weird thta there are pictures and stories all around town though...he shouldn't have sent any pics out.

If it was me that killed that buck? Well the only people that would have found out are my close family and possibly you since you are a good friend. No pics though. But after the way you reacted...I might start to think we are not that good of friends.

I dont share pics at all via text except for hunting buddies from out of state that are trustworthy. I show pictures on my phone to people and will not send them no matter how much they say they wont share or show anyone else. They will share the picture with one person...and then it gets out. I had a picture of me with a really good buck show up on a website quite a few years back...no clue how it got there and it was only brought to my attention by someone that randomly saw it there...that was infuriating. That was back when I would send pics to all my buddies "look what i got"....no more...lesson learned.

I'm not sure why you are reacting so poorly to him saying the buck was shot elsewhere and he was trying to protect the area. You might be more upset/jealous that he killed the buck or something and maybe you are not aware of that? I would maybe spend a bit of time in your head and think on it a little more. Might need to talk through it with him and you might need to apologize.

 

[Yoder]

I ran into a guy this year at my car when I came out of the woods. We were talking and showing each other some trail cam pics from other areas we hunt. I made the mistake of telling him the highway I hunted off of. No specifics at all, just the road. He immediately knew where I was hunting. He recognized my car when he happened to drive by one day when I was there. Next time I went in there I found a new climber. I don't know if it was him, but I have never seen anyone there before. The only people I tell specifics are family. Even with family we have an agreement to stay out of each other's spots unless it's an area we have mutually hunted in the past. It takes so much time to scout an area and find big bucks, I'm not going to just give that hard earned info away to strangers.

 

[jedi]

Well if you're reading this you. might as well grab a refreshing beverage, this could get long.

I love seeing any hunter harvest an animal that they are proud of, no matter what the size. The fun part of hunting Whitetail is going to the buck poles scattered through Michigan on Nov. 15 and hearing the hunting stories. It's a large portion of the fun telling your success story, or the heart breaker of losing a Big buck, maybe even the funny crazy wild stories that these tales turn into. You know the "You had to be there Moments."

So here's my Question, Why Lie? Why twist the story to protect a hunting spot, why keep the info to yourself to prevent others from knowing the kill property?

It takes the fun out of it completely, it ruins the camaraderie of deer hunting. It doesn't give the Old wise buck the respect and dignity it deserves.

Heres the Story, just a warning it might get long. Ill try to keep it interesting and thought provoking.

For the last three years I've been watching a buck grow across the road from my house. Needless to say he turned into a Giant the last couple years. It is a somewhat busy road and the property he calls home is public city property that is somewhat normally occupied. This buck has become relatively well know due to talking between locals and his famous November Love ignorance, by standing about 100yrds off the road with a doe for two days in a wide-open field. It attracts the crowd and people driving by to stop and stare, personally I love it. As long as they aren't trying to shoot him from the road, I'm happy people have the opportunity to feast their eyes on his beautiful rack.

This buck has been on my personal property only twice that I'm aware of in the last year, but every night I sat on my front porch this summer and watched him and his other group of 15 bucks grow from Spike horns to Giants. He lives on a property that no hunting is allowed but obviously becomes love struck and wanders off chasing the Love's of his life for a couple months a year.

Lets get to the point right??? So, I arrive home on a Saturday from a long 9 day back country trip, tired and exhausted I look for him in the spotting scope that evening to no avail. On a hunting schedule I go to bed embarrassing early and wake up Sunday morning about 4AM. Sitting on the couch waiting for the sun to come up so I can glass the area across the street I receive a text from a good friend. The text reads "Are you up?" in which I reply at around 6:00AM "Yes Im just watching T.V.". My friend pulls in the driveway about 10 minutes after and says get in.

We are shooting the shit and he says " I feel terrible, I shot your deer." confused I ask what he's referring to. He explains that the Giant we had all watched was in his backyard randomly the day before and he smoked it. He lives about 1.5 miles away on the same road as I do. I'm ecstatic for him, a little pissed he didn't send me a picture. But all in all not one ounce of disappointment or jealousness, I'm literally so happy! So we are on the way to his barn where this buck of a lifetime is hanging.

We pull in and I damn near run to the door, I could not wait to feast my eyes and put my hands on those antlers. He unlocks the door and we walk in, he almost got bigger hanging upside down compared to the countless hours I stared at him from my front porch. It's at this point forward that makes me wonder, why?

He says I told everyone that I shot it on my other property (about an hour south). I asked him in a disgusted tone " Why in the hell would you say that?" He tells me that he doesn't want people to encroach in this area because this buck was killed here. I just shook my head and had a shitty feeling come over me, because that's the end of the legacy. No standing in a barn, just looking at the deer hangin there, no drinking beer and frying the inner loins and listening to the story for the one hundredth time, no showing pictures of him growing. Thats the anticlimactic end to a beautiful 174" net michigan monster. The whole block and every hunter within 10 miles knew of that buck.

If this posts helps deter one person from making the same mistake, then its worth this ridiculously long ramble.

Folks that's the best part of hunting, the memories, the stories, the adventures. That buck deserved to go out different. Now as you can image its a big stink of the town, a few pictures got passed around now everyone knows he's dead and wasn't killed an hour to the south. They all know where he lived and know the story doesn't add up.

You have any interesting anticlimactic stories that should have turned out different, but because of the big antler culture it got twisted into a web of smoke and mirrors for absolutely no reason?

Thanks for reading this, hopefully you enjoyed the story.

i get where youre coming from, but people are like mosquitos to a bug zapper. they hear of a giant buck killed, youll see 20 people the next year on every pullout. example, first deer i ever killed was a 4pt md. not a giant but a nice buck. we were seen by multiple people as we drug it off the mountain(dad and i, i was 18). we had only ever seen one other person in this area for years. the next year, i kid you not, we saw 23 people in the little draw we were hunting. i realized then, the importance of keeping my mouth shut and getting stuff out in a quiet manner. its not to discredit the critter by an means! its to keep an area void of people so i can pull another one out of it

 

[jimmy33]

Is this guy serious?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[hobbes]

I didn't bother reading through the OPs full post. Anyone that's hunted whitetails, especially big whitetails in Midwestern states, knows good and well why you keep your trap shut on where you kill big bucks. An explanation isn't even needed.

 

[Zappaman]

It's a culture... those who respect it might eventually get "invited" (over years...maybe) to a good spot. I have many very active hunting buddies... we skin deer together and we party together. We talk about the kills and enjoy the general banter. But nobody EVER asks to hunt someone's spot... it's ONLY by invitation that you get to hunt a buddy's particular area-- and it's ONLY one time (and only YOU-- not your buddies). After that, you are always thankful for that "one time" and maybe in time... you get asked twice.

I told a "former" buddy (starting out) about my "honey hole" and now he's told "Kevin Bacon" about it. I WANT to help out new hunters... but my mistake that I gave up a great spot to someone who doesn't understand the "ethic" involved. I can only hope he's given up interest in hunting at this point, but I've seen sign of more hunters at that spot then in the last 10 years.

 

[TSAMP]

All I'm saying is if it gets to the point you have to drive different vehicles to disguise your big buck killing prowess, you missed a step and go back 3 turns and try again. Or start your own YouTube channel..

 

[fwafwow]

I read the entire first post, and a good bit of the posts through page 2. I have honored the buck.

 

[ammonnhonduras]

I hunt city property. The bucks I kill arent as well known as the one in the story. 3 people know where I hunt. I dont care for anybody else to know where the deer come from cause I really enjoy being one of very few people that hunt the area. Tv show people come with big money these days to get permission to hunt big bucks. Its dumb.

 

[Wrench]

Just look at any otc state and ask why people are tight lipped.

The need to be applauded by strangers killed the sport.