So Close...

The last day of deer season last year, I decided to follow some advice I had read online. I went out to some public land, but took the time to go deeper in than I thought any other hunter would ever go. I looked for woods that seemed impenetrable, and went through the trouble to get through them. What I found on the other side was well worth the effort, sure signs of a monster buck. I didn't see him that day, but I figured I'd come back next year...
Well, my buddy John and I have been hitting that same public land for the last couple of weeks...and I think I saw the buck that made those signs. We had a fruitless morning in the blind, and decided to do some stalking. He went one way, and I went another. I checked out a place where the main path intersected some smaller deer paths, and went a little deeper...
All of a sudden, a HUGE whitetail jumped up, maybe twenty yards ahead of me, and started bouncing to the closest cover. I raised up, clicked the safety off...and watched him or her bounce off into the distance. I never had a clean shot, so I never took one. (Which I was left wondering about the rest of the day...Should I have taken the shot?) I'm pretty sure that it was my buck, but if it wasn't, it was a 200lb doe...anything is possible.
So close...I guess I'll just have to get him Saturday.