Buddy of mine called the other day to give me the heads up on a heavy antlered whitetail coming out into a bean field along the river where I do a little bow hunting...Now this got me wondering, hmmm I have a good idea where this buck is possibly bedding along the rivers edge...sure this buck will be long gone before bow season so I'm not going to worry about it..

This got me thinking of the years when I was young hearing rumors circulating around of a large buck in the area, there were rumors every year of one or several...This was a fun time in my hunting years with my best friend trying to kill these rumors, which never happened but it sure kept us running and searching for the rumor...Kept me in the stand hours longer and more days were added to my hunting season because of these rumors....Remember my heart pounding every time I had a deer approaching, could it be him...


Also got me thinking about the tech hunting used today, of course now a days there would be several cameras up to verify these rumors, kinda taking the fun out of it...the buck on the river has probably had several cam shots in the area by now....

Any members here go after rumors, not using cams to verify the rumor just go in after this specific animal?
Be it bear, elk, moose, or any species. Anyone ever kill one of the local rumors?

nah,i kill em i won't have nothing to do. ,but it sure was a fun chase.

That is a great picture, tells the story like it is. Lol

Never hunted a rumored animal. I would say if there was a good one most wouldn't say a word to anyone. Lol I could see someone starting a rumor just to see how many will go after the ghost. Lol

I haven't seen anything good this year yet. I don't have cameras out but don't see much for sign. The cover is so thick and high I know they are around though.

i have the shed i found this winter from the deer i will become obsessed with soon.and i agree that the way you tell it is the way it is wether we want to admit it or not.

who am i kidding,i was obsessed with this deer when i went huntin his sheds last winter.

"Any members here go after rumors..."

Yes, every year. The rumor that there are deer in the woods.

I heard a rumor there was money to be made trapping?

I found out there was one around here about a black coyote. I end up trap it.

I use cameras now....but I sure resembled these remarks throughout my deer hunting obsessed life...^^^^^^

I once SAW a rumor. Had a few guys talk about a big buck that roamed a stretch of powerline. Ended up helping my granddad build a fireplace for a guy and early one morning we walked out back getting our stuff ready and saw that big buck walk out of that mans corn patch and head back towards the woods near the powerline. He is to this day, the biggest buck ive ever seen in this part of the country. Noone ever killed him to my knowledge. He got shot at a few times though.

No, no matter what size Buck was taken He wasn't the ONE

Not many rumours of big bucks around me. The bush is too thick to see them. The rut will bring them out and hunters will usually talk about seeing a monster buck for only a second or two while it ran into thicker cover.

Had a guy tell me once about a buck that he saw in the area that was much larger than the 160 class buck he had gotten two years earlier . He told me he had spotted it in the food plot across the road and now was sure he had it patterned and would kill it .The so called food plot was a 40 acre unharvested soy bean field I have spent a lot of time hunting deer looking a deer trail camera pictures ,scouting etc and I am pretty sure I never saw a 160 class buck in the area .I dismissed his rumor before it became one . He claimed the one he had spot lighted made his 160 class look small .It takes a really really big deer to make a 160 class buck look small.Never hear that a buck like that was killed and the way he was going on and on my guess is if he had killed it everyone in the township would have heard about it

I always created my own rumors of big bucks........lol. Dreams....some people call them.

Had what thought was a big racked deer get away, from a shot by a 30/30 right on shoulder blade, found the next day, it was a big framed deer, but only a six point, and looked to an old one. It's fairly easy to get fooled.

Must be from another planet where I grew up...Table talk was always about who had seen a big one in the area...must be growing up bow hunting 35 years ago...lol

We don't have big bucks in my neck of the woods. LOL.

Bout 20 years ago, I seen a fella that was a known " outlaw" when it came too deer.
Seen him at a rural gas station.
He was bragging about all the deer his big party ( legal in MN) had shot.
Out of the blue, I told him I just seen a monster buck cross the road onto his 1/2 mile river bottom property.
He said they just pushed it a bit earlier that day. I told him it was just a few minutes ago.
He rounded up the gang and went back for another ( wasted) push.

I have shot two bucks over 160. I had no idea that they were rumor bucks until the word got out that someone had killed them. Folks have tight lips around here about big buck sightings.

the real fun is making a couple big obvious rubs on a tree on each side of the road,then wait to see how long it takes for somebody to show up and hunt the rub line.