During firearm whitetail season, a fisherman is out in his canoe on a lengthy float trip when he hears a distant gunshot.
"I was doing a river fishing float trip in the canoe when I heard a gunshot a couple miles upriver. About 45 minutes later I see this giant buck floating down the middle of the river. This was a big deer, easily 200-plus pounds. I snagged one of the antlers with a lure to get its head up out of the water and slowly dragged it, then pulled it up on shore which wasn't easy."
After pulling the big buck out of the river, the angler had to leave it behind because he had many more miles to paddle before sunset..
"I had many miles left to float and time was ticking. It was a good shot, right in the lungs, so I stuck around for another 30 minutes hoping they tracked it to the water and would come down looking for it, but it didn't happen. I felt absolutely terrible leaving this huge beautiful buck on the shoreline and most likely leaving it to waste, but I had no choice, I had to get going to be done before dark."
Around 4 hours later, right at dark, around 200 yards from where I was ending, I hear this jet boat come flying downriver. I turned my light on my phone and waved them down. They stopped and thought I was in trouble.
I screamed, “Were you guys hunting?!”
They’re like, “Yup!”
“Did you guys shoot a big deer and lose it?”
You could just see the look on their faces — “No way! Are you kidding me? We looked for that deer for over 4 hours!”
I showed them on my phone's GPS exactly where I left the deer 8 miles upriver and gave them my phone number in case they couldn't find it. They texted me an hour later just ecstatic and thanking me, saying they had found the deer. "The meat was still good and the head is going on the wall!"
Just a crazy story with a happy ending. Possibly one of the biggest bucks of their life, and it was a good feeling that I was able to help them retrieve it.
(Story by Dave Maas)
