2/2 with my bow. Within the next couple of years I will be trying an archery antelope hunt and some spot and stalk muley hunts, these will have a lot higher percentage of being loses.
I'm at 96% 49 of 51 on whitetails. And that's hits to recoveries. I flat out missed a lot of deer when I was younger.
Sometimes I feel like part of my issue is just plain bad luck too. If I miss my mark by more than a couple of inches, it seems like the arrow manages to work its way into some body part that the deer doesn't need in the short term, and I don't find it. Whereas other guys seem to make a foul hit on them from time to time but still recover them. I'm guessing this is the case with you since you flat out missed a lot when you were younger. You must have also hit some in places that you didn't want to hit them, but recovered them anyway to be at 96%, right? The worst case of jumping the string I've ever seen happened to a guy I know. The deer whirled around as the arrow was released, and took it right in the rear end. The deer ran off with the arrow sticking straight out of a hind quarter, ran 30 yards, stopped, and died. He got the femoral artery. Never in a million years would I be so lucky . . .
My #'s are very close to rybo's....I can say Im at 100% kill rate on the last 45 or so I've shot, I struggled a little at first getting way to excited and nerves.
I have lost 5 out of nearly 100. Three of those were in the first two years I hunted. I am EXTREMELY conservative on shot selection. Probably too conservative, but I HATE losing a deer.
I am 17/18 as of now. I lost a buck 3 years ago to a bad hit. I was 18, and my biggest buck then was 86". A decent 130" buck came by and took roughly 20 minutes to get to a shooting lane. I was pretty shaky by that point, and I ended up hitting him high. I searched for 17 hours and never did find him. I'm convinced he is still alive.
I'm 7/7 as far as hits to recoveries go. My first bow buck ever took me 3 days, but I recovered him. I've straight up missed 2 though. A doe my first year (She came out at 30, I followed her with my 30 yard pin as she walked all the way in to about 15, and I forgot to adjust which pin I had on her) and a 140" buck last year (Hit a twig, grazed his knee, he was perfectly fine).
