Don't know where to start. Great Saturday morning........dominant buck cruises by out of range(2nd time this week) and I watch him push around a good buck at the end of the corn field. 30 minutes later the castoff shows up and beds down 25 yds. away, with heavy brush between me and him ..........he is a shooter too. After an hour he gets up but heads the other way. Sat. evening finds me watching a young buck circling around looking for does. A little later 4 does walk by at 10 yds. THEN here comes the buck I've been working for all week, 150 class.........and what do I do? Clean miss at 15 yds, right over his back!!! Wide open shot and admittedly I was excited, totally rushed the shot. I'm a jackass.
It really sucks to blow a shot after weeks of work. I hope you go back out today and make things right. Good luck.
Wow... De javu.... reading your story is like reliving the past bunch of years of my bowhunting life ... Sorry Coug ... you'll get him .. your dialed in on him
Me too! Getting a shot on a decent buck on the public land I hunt is a rare occasion. I called into range (22yrds) a good 8pt with the Can, stopped him with an errrr, and took my shot. He was slightly quartering away and the shot looked good, except I didn't get a pass through! It hit the far leg/shoulder. He left good blood for about 30yrds though, then it stopped. After about 8 total hours of searching three of us came up empty! I should have shot a bit further back and I would have gotten that all important pass through. It's so easy to figure it out after the fact, isn't it?
Just glad your seeing deer, Greg. I went home and hunted all week and hardly saw any movement at all. Being hotter than the 4th of July didn't help much.
Had to laugh Cougar, just last week a good friend of mine called from WV and told me he had been teaching his Step Brother to bowhunt. Long story short, a Much larger buck come in than they had expected and the step brother wanted my friend Keith to shoot it. Keith having several State and National titles to his credit gets the buck to stop at 15 yards broadside and thump, Right in the dirt under the buck! All was quiet for several minutes when the step brother asks, Will he be back? Keith says, Not Today Buddy, Not Today! Said he was wearing his Gillie suit and the string had hit it, at least that was the best excuse he could think of.
It happens to the best of us. On thursday I thought ****ing around with my phone was more important than noticing the 10 point bruiser standing 12 yards broadside staring at me.
If we couldn't enjoy the close calls, then we couldn't stand to be bowhunters. Sounds like you got every one of the best parts of bowhunting except the kill. Good luck the rest of the season.
The jittery feeling that made you miss is why I do this. If I didn't get the buck fever it wouldn't be fun for me anymore. You think that miss is bad... I had a nice buck wander into the camp and start nibbling at the hay bales I use for shooting. A marked yardage buck and I shot clean over his back. He didn't stick around after the SECOND arrow whizzed below him either!!!
