We are hunting whitetail bucks in Nebraska with our bows. We are hunting in tree stands and ground blinds trying to be where the deer are at the same time, and closer than 60 yards. Tonight I was in a ground blind in the middle of an alfalfa field where we had seen over 50 deer the night before. I watched as two monster bucks fed past my ground blind never getting closer than 70 yards and a number of smaller bucks that were close enough, just not big enough. Then about an hour before dark a couple of bucks come into the field and start feeding towards me, and one of them is a monster buck, here is a picture of him.He kept feeding closer and closer to me, 180 yards, then 100, then 80, then 60, then 50, and then 40 yards. My heart was pounding so fast and hard I could feel it in my neck and chest. As he was feeding closer he was also moving downwind of me and I could tell by the way he would put his nose in the air that he was starting to get a whiff of me, and once he got a big whiff he would bolt. He was broadside at 40 yards and I can hit a paper plate every time at 40 yards so I felt pretty good about the chances of hitting him. When I pulled my bow back he looked right at me, and when I released the arrow that buck ducked and spun so fast that he literally dodged the arrow. I never have had that happen in Oregon with mule deer. I was shocked, amazed, then disappointed, then sad, and now depressed. Man, all that waiting in a dark ground blind waiting for daylight, freezing to death in the process, and then to miss ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Oh well, I keep repeating to myself, “It is the experience not the kill that matters”, over and over in my mind. I am having a great experience, probably one of the best ever for hunting, but oh my, it would have been so nice to have hit that buck and have his head mounted on my living room wall at home. I think Patty might be praying for me to have a good experience.