MY WORST BOWHUNTING MISTAKES WITH ROD WHITE

The Four Missed Bucks - Part 1

EDITOR'S NOTE: Many outdoorsmen have called Rod White of Sparta, Wisconsin, a bow-hunting phenom. At age 13, White took his first buck with a bow and began to shoot competitively. In 1993, he won a silver medal in the Junior World Championships. He took an international title in the National Outdoor Championships, placed second in the Intermediate Division of the Junior National Championship and became a member of the U.S. Olympic Festival team, placing fifth in the intermediate division -- all before his 17th birthday. Since then, White won an Olympic gold medal in 1996 and an Olympic bronze medal in 2000 as a member of the U.S. Men's Team, and numerous national championships and world titles as well as participating in ESPN's Great Outdoor Games. White, who doesn't just shoot paper, has taken 17 Pope & Young animals with his bow. Ranked third in the world for his archery prowess, White, will tell you that, "I make mistakes, too."

From 0 to 100 yards, I can consistently hit a soft drink can and am very confident in my shooting skills. But sometimes, regardless of how well you shoot, you'll miss a buck. However, rarely, will you have an opportunity to miss a buck four times like me while hunting the biggest buck you've ever seen.

Last year, I discovered a huge buck in Kansas that would have scored 180-plus points on P & Y and weighed more than 280 pounds. When I spotted the buck, he was chasing a doe across a pasture. I thought I might be able to hunt from the drainage ditches that went through the pasture where the buck might be bedding. The drainage ditches didn't have any trees in them but did hold some small shrubs, bushes and trees not suitable for hanging a tree stand.

Once I decided to hunt from the ground, I tried to rattle the buck into bow range. I planned to walk to the head of each drainage ditch, rattle and see if I could get a buck to come to me. I spent all morning going from drainage ditch to drainage ditch and rattling. Although I rattled in several small bucks, all my efforts failed to produce the trophy buck I'd seen the previous day. I stopped at the first drainage that I'd hunted that morning, which was only a few hundred yards from the truck. I was hot, tired and discouraged. I really didn't think that I had a prayer of rattling in that big buck at the drainage ditch where I'd rattled earlier that morning. However, I rattled, waited about 10 seconds, put my range finder in my backpack and headed for the truck. When I started taking my release off, I looked up and saw this monster buck running all-out, straight at me.

TOMORROW: THE FOUR MISSED BUCKS PART 2