A little story about my experience from this morning. I got to my ground ambush location, tucked in between a couple of short, but stout spruce trees at about 5:30am a solid hour before shooting light. Had my decoy to set out, and the top half of my ghille suit ready to go. I dropped most of the gear off at the field edge before parking the truck. Walked the several hundred yards in and started to get set up only to realize that I forgot the stupid decoy stand in the truck. I would have had plenty of time to go back and get it before shooting light but decided to skip it. To cut this short, because I could go on with the details and devastation currently running through my heart, an 8 pointer that I had to let walk past me the prior morning, whilst in my tree stand, because he showed up about a half hour before shooting light, did exactly what I hoped he would do, stepped out of the woods... staring in my direction, took a couple steps, ate some been chaff, looked in my direction again and repeated this process a couple times. After several of these cycles, I tried to draw, he busted me and trotted from 25 ish yards to 52 (at that point I lasered him to get an accurate distance) drew fully... and then let down the draw because I couldn't take the shot on an alert deer at that distance. Having not shot a buck before (I've been bow hunting for 6 years, three years in high school and the last three), it's a good feeling to be getting super close to getting a shot, but I can't stop feeling like I completely screwed up by not going back to get the decoy stand. I'm fairly certain that if I had done that, he would have been focused on the decoy, rather than me. Not to mention that I completely lost my marbles, and after making the decision not to go back to get the stand, I also failed to put on the ghille suit. The lesson I'm taking away from this is that being prepared and sticking to a plan are two entirely sperate things, but to succeed they need to be in alignment. Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
Hard to say if the decoy would've really turned this encounter in a different direction. I wouldn't beat yourself up, and you're doing something right to find a good spot and have an encounter with a nice buck. Keep doing what you're doing and it'll happen. We've all forgotten stuff or messed up. I've been busted more than once by drawing at the wrong time or not setting up where I had some cover to get drawn. Just last weekend I went up a tree in my climber, got my bow hung up and an arrow nocked, started arranging my gear. Immediately dropped my deer call. I decided I wasn't going to climb back down and retrieve it. An hour in I hear brush popping and breaking, something was near. No call meant nothing I could do, perhaps a few grunts and...? It happens. I've been hunting since I was 12 and am 47 now. Don't expect experience to make these kinds of things go away!
Not the vote of confidence I was looking for. I'll never know if the decoy and ghille suit would have changed the outcome and that's the frustrating part. If I had done everything according to plan and had the same outcome, I'd be more accepting of it. However the lack of commitment is what make me mad at myself. Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
It happens. We can second guess ourselves till we are blue in the face. Get back out there and try it the way you wanted.
