Just wanted to see what your guys' most frustrating and aggravating experience you have had while bow hunting. So just post your story here.
I shot a Beautiful 8 pointer last year on November 4th, at least beautiful for where I hunt, New York. I shot him at last light if not past it. We didn't know if it was a good shot do to lack of blood so we waited until the next morning. It rained overnight and all we could do was search the woods where we thought he might go and we looked for hours, Me and my two uncles, but we never found him. Keep hammerin.
Went out a month ago to hunt pigs after practicing everyday for 3 months. Had one come in perfect broad side 15 yrds, went full draw and peep was twisted. She busted me when I let it down to fix it. Would have been first time I shot anything with a bow but hey, lesson learned. Got peep fixed now just waiting to get back out. Archery is new to me so I'm sure there will be a lot more frustrations to come. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
3 (maybe 4) years ago: I watched a giant white antlered 8-10 point bed down 75 yards in front of me, only to get up and walk directly towards me before turning away at 35 yards without presenting a shot. Last year: I accidentally put a broadhead on a practice arrow that had been damaged during practice (splintered spine front another arrow) and when shooting at the biggest buck I've ever seen while hunting the arrow exploded mid air. I am thankful that neither I nor the buck got injured but I was devastated and extremely frustrated with myself for not paying better attention to my gear.
I got a good one that p##t me off bad. So i get to my favorite honey hole of a spot its the corner of a bean feild that meets a creek that i can only hunt with a east wind . ive waited so long to hunt this spot. So i get in stand after a 20 min or so walk. its around 5 am still dark a few min later Now im fully setup and just waiting . well nothing happens till around 11 am first a doe pops out then another with 2 fawns there about 55 yards away so im waiting for them to get closer and then a nice 10 pointer pops out at 100 yards and is headed straight to me . so a few mins go by he stops at 70 or so yards eats a little and scratches himself with his back leg lol right at that time i hear a noise and racket i couldnt make out what it was ive never heard anything like it . At this time the deer have now looked up and ran off fast. and here it comes the noise louder than ever the neighboring farmer on a 4 wheeler draging pots and pans on a rope to scare the deer . He was p##t that the deer he had been watching and hunting kept coming to our property and we would kill them. I was so mad i actually got down and walked through his property to his house since he had been on our property and gave him some words he will never forget . My second story was last year i shot a nice 8 point the biggest deer i seen all year to and it wasnt that big. But i shot him at last light couldnt tell on the shot so i backed out. Went back at 6am the next morning to find him with my buddy. We found him about 100 yatds or so almost fully eaten by yotes i was so p##t. I never got another shot at another buck .
I had a booner walk right under my tree back in 1999 that I had never seen on the property before, he had at least a 7x7 and was massive. I couldn't accurately count all his points because they actually caused a blur effect from he points and sheer mass. I also made a point to stop looking at antlers because even though I've been past getting nervous for a long time...that deer was breathtaking. He walked under my tree at the drip line, I was up about 10' and he was maybe 3-4' off to my side, I was standing on a big hedge tree limb so had a good shot except for the pretty drastic downward angle...no biggie, made that shot before in years past. The difference was I had brand new expandables that were untested, had just gone from fixed that fall to expandables. I drew, put the bead on his vitals and released the arrow. Knocked him down, he rolled over, laid there a second or two. I started to knock another arrow just in case, he was now at ten yards....he rolled on over, made it to his feet and ran off like a bat out of hell. I waited a bit and climbed out before dark and proceeded to track him, there was a little bit of clean red blood where he laid, a few drops after the first 40 yards and then it petered out and nothing. I checked the arrow and the head had deployed the blades, the rubber band was broken. I went and got dad and we looked for the entire next day and never found another spot of blood....nothing. A neighbor later told me about a monster he had seen the next week while I was in the local elevator. He said it had a big gash down it's side near it's front shoulder and no limp. After that I learned that with those and similar broadheads with kickers that sometimes at extreme angles the kicker on the blade can catch and actually kick the arrow away from the deer, that explains perfectly what happened. As far as knocking him down I expect I hit a rib, maybe a shoulder blade tip and the 70 pound bow had enough umph that between that and the shock it knocked him goofy for a second. He was a freakish brute though....would have been my best deer even now by about 30". I think he may have broken 200".
4 years and 550+ hours of chasing a buck only to see him fall dead 20 yards from me after being shot by my brother's rifle
Three or four years ago during shotgun season, a buck walked out 60 yards broadside shot , he took off shot three more times. Climbed down to find a blood trail and nothing. Not a track no hair no blood nothing. It's almost as if he wasn't even there? Still can't explain it Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
In the 90's I shot a buck which to date would have been my biggest. I made a good shot on him right at dark. I decided it would be best to wait until first light the next morning to make the recovery. I tracked him to where he had crossed a road. He entered the ditch and never came out. I could see the drag marks where someone had loaded up my deer.
Probably last year when I had spent sunup to sundown in the stand on Thursday and then didn't go on Friday because I was planning on an all day sit on Saturday. When I checked my cams on that Saturday, four shooters had passed within 18yds of my stand on Friday when I WASN'T there. Totally my fault for being lazy. Blessings........Pastorjim
Mid November 2012, my last fall living in Iowa "Yes I miss Iowa more than I can explain"...Hunting a farm a friend of mine owns and had been chasing a mid 160"s 9point, had 2 or 3 encounters with him but he was always chasing does and never could get him in range...Passed a ton of bucks that year holding out for that 9. Hunting 1 morning, saw the 9 chasing a doe, he went the opposite way, set until about 10:00 and spotted a big 8 in the upper 140" range, watched him cruise the neighbors field and knew that most of the time when bucks check that field they make a loop and come back through the CRP field I was hunting. Hour goes by and no sign of the 8, start getting my stuff together to climb down and in the process look up and see antlers coming across the grown up field headed my way...Re-nock an arrow and grab my binos expecting it to be the 8pt, WRONG, big typical 10pt that would gross in the 180"-190" range...I'm scrambling to get my crap together and end up stopping him at 30yds "only lane I had", rushed the shot and watched the arrow slam in the ground right behind him...Missed directly under his heart. He ran out to 50yds and stopped, I nocked another arrow, ranged him and at about half draw he walked off....Never saw that deer again. Hardly a day goes by I don't think of missing that deer.
This past yr I had 1 opportunity to put my bow to use and I was in a stand had a deer pop up in a decent shooting lane about 30yds I pulled back thinking I had him dead to rights let the arrow go and it nose dived just under his belly . Turned out I clipped a tiny branch I never saw just enough for deflection. I can't imagine being brand new to bowhunting this will be my only hard loss...
Last October I shot a monster buck at 11 yards. What I thought was a deer that would score in the mid 160`s was no where to be found. Me and a buddy followed the blood trail that looked like a murder scene, found absolutly nothing. For 2 weeks we looked, had other guys help, but never found my giant. I`m still upset about it now, not that I couldnt hang him on my wall, but for the fact that he might have suffered and died somewhere off the property a long way away. Cant wait til` October, maybe we will meet again!! Shoot straight boys and best of luck this upcoming season,GROMMEL.
First year hunting shot a turkey with my bow but was a no find and the same week had a nice 8 pt come within 10 yards of me went to draw back and he spotted me snorted and ran off. This is gonna be my 2nd yr hunting don't worry I'll get one haha
I was patterning a nice 8 point... cleared out a travel lane for him.. and he was coming in every afternoon like clock work. I had a stand already hanging over his trail. I hear a gunshot from the road at 1100 o'clock one night, ran to the door and saw two poachers. Yes they shot my buck... took off and were planning on coming back for it later. I spent the next three hours sitting in the woods with my game warden buddy until they came to get their... uh trophy... I had passed on that buck 3 or 4 times the previous season, waiting for him to grow one more season. Anyway we caught them both. They were charged with shooting from the road at night onto posted property inside the city limits. One was on parole and went back to the pokey. The weird thing... it turned out to be the GWs nephew. The other boy was 17 and came back to my house a couple hours later. We had a nice long chat about where his life was heading. A bad night turned into a great opportunity to make a new friend but I still would have liked to get that buck with my bow.
You want just one? I have like 50! One that doesn't go away is many years ago while scouting I saw one of the biggest bucks I have ever seen, a typical 12 point probably 170-180", which is an absolute unheard of monster for this area. I hunted harder than I ever have that year, probably 350 hours on stand all over that area, and the last week of the season, between Christmas and New Year, I finally had him coming into bow range. When he got about 50yds away he stopped and looked behind him. He stood there for a minute or so looking back, and then took off running, right at me! He ran directly under my stand, out the other side, and just kept going. I turn around to see what spooked him, it was a family out for a stroll. No one EVER walked in those woods, except for at that exact, worst possible, moment! Never saw him again, except in nightmares!.
