I prefer to still hunt when deer hunting, and I just wanted to say how close I came to a Whitetail buck Saturday. I was close enough to him that he almost hit the barrel when he got up, estimated 3 feet. He was a 150 class 5X5. By the way, I let him go because I only have doe tags. So far I've been within 70 yards of 11 bucks, the smallest a 3X3 the largest I couldn't count the antlers but I believe he was a 6X6 about 27" width.

------------------
JD

I have gotten that close to mulies, but never a whitetail. Sounds great!

Don

Back in '67, on our first deer hunt in Maine, my best friend Charlie comes back to camp for dinner and says he "still hunted" to within feet of a bedded 10 pointer (eastern count). We all laughed and dismissed it, especially after he said it was "too tight a rack", when quizzed as to why he didn't take it. A few days after we got home to Long Island, Charlie hands me a photo he had snapped but never mentioned. Since then, especially when hunting rain soaked ground, swamps or fresh snow, I can say that I have approached dozens of bedded or sleeping bucks to within a few yards and some to mere feet, both intentionally and inadvertently.
In Wyoming, one year, I had a 6 point elk and a cow with young bed down within 25 feet of me, while posted. Another time in Maine, I had sat against a dead-fall and covered myself in snow while overlooking some scrapes. Sometime later, I could hear movement behind me but I dared not turn to look. A minute later, a cow moose licked off my hat!
If your quiet, there's no telling what might happen. I have many happy memories of this sort.

[This message has been edited by Nickudu (edited 11-14-2001).]

When I was a kid we used to go camping every summer on the Idaho side of the Tetons. In the evening while we were eating dinner we would put salt on the rocks a little way from camp and almost every night deer would come down and lick the salt.

One year a deer appeared that had a huge purple wound on the side of its neck. It looked as though it had been attacked by a mountain lion or something. Anyway one night I was walking from our camp to my aunts camp down the narrow road. All of the sudden this wounded deer bounded out of the bushes onto the road. It was facing broadside to me, and just stood there looking. I started to talk real soft, held my hand out, and slowly walked toward it. I was able to get to within about 2 feet, almost ready to pet it, when it bolted into the bushes again. My aunt had been on the other side of the deer and was my witness that it all happened.

That was one of my best camping trips ever.

------------------
Monyhunter

Three feet is as good as a mile. I had one touch my foot once! Of course I was sleeping! It woke me up.

Then we had the big hunter at the lodge who once killed a buck by riding on it's back and stabing it.

One of these stories is true.

Some of the biggest whitetail lay very close. I figure that towards the middle of the season you have to kick them in the butt to get them to move. They like to lay were now one thinks they well be.