Have you ever missed a big buck and watched someone else shoot the big buck you just missed?

I have and it still gives me a pit in my stomach. I must've been 16 or 17 years old at the time. It was opening morning of the rifle hunt here in Utah and I was hunting with my father like I usually do. The place we had planned to go turned out to be a bust because the snow was too deep to take our truck into the area.

So we went with plan B. Which was to hunt some of the lower foothills not too far away from our house. As we pulled up to the foothills we noticed that we were the only ones there which was a good sign on opening day of the rifle hunt in Utah.

It started snowing pretty heavily soon after we arrived so we decided to take a nap and wait out the snow storm. After about an hour the snow stopped and the sun came out. We quickly grabbed our gear and took off for the hills. We had been hiking for about 2 hours and hadn't seen anything not even a doe. Well we decided to head back to the truck and try a different area.

On the way back to the truck when we were just about in sight of the truck. We happened to look up on the hill and noticed that there were 5 mule deer bucks just standing there looking at us. I quickly raised my bino's and noticed that one of the bucks was a really nice 4X5 (9-point in eastern terms) with heavy, thick antlers. I didn't hesitate for a second and raised my rifle and started firing off shots like there was no tomorrow. For the life of me I couldn't hit him (buck fever). Well after I emptied my rifle he didn't stick around and wait to see if I was going to fire more hot lead at him. He took off down the hill and that's when I heard shots coming from the right of us and very close. After two shots the guy who had been firing hollered out in excitement and I knew he had dropped that nice 4X5.

He must've came in after us and wasn't but 100 yards from his car.

I ended up taking one of the two-point bucks that was in the group of 5. That day I learned to control my buck fever. After that hunt I have only been struck with buck fever a few times since then.

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Rifle Scopes Pros' Staff Member

Be safe and good hunting my friends.