I have two uncles who are both incredible hunters. I always grew up going to their houses and seeing 20+ whitetails mounted, along with plenty of turkey, moose,elk,bears,coyotes, you name it they've probably killed it. I really 100% think they could both quit their day jobs if they wanted to and start professionally hunting. I finally got my hunting license in December of 2015, and got permission from my uncle to hunt one of his local spots where we live. I was so excited! I had been shooting a Matthews solocam LX that he gave me to use and practicing almost every day. So finally the day comes for me to hunt his property. He drops me off at the spot for an evening hunt. It's a small wooded area in between a neighborhood and a creek, and he knew deer were walking by my stand almost every night. Well sure enough as its getting dark, the deer start moving (he had put out some corn right at 20 yards, which is legal where I'm hunting!) two does trot right past me and the corn at about 40 yards, then make their way from behind me to the corn. At this point you can imagine my excitement and how much I am literally shaking in my boots. Here I am on my very first deer hunt ever and I have an opportunity to kill a deer right in front of me! I grab my bow and clip my release. These stinkin deer are facing right towards me though so I can't get a good shot yet, or even move really. Finally one of the does turns broadside for me. I draw back,find my trigger,find my target, and let it fly. This is where it gets interesting/confusing. I hit the doe at what I thought was a good shot. However, I didn't get much penetration. She immediately drops after I hit her, so I think I spined her! Oh great, my first deer hunt and I screwed up my shot. I'm freaking out, but also trying to stay calm and nock another arrow to finish her off. As I'm getting another arrow nocked, she rolls over,snaps my arrow in half, gets up and runs off! I was so confused! Since it was my first deer hunt ever, I saw that my arrow went in her shoulder,she dropped, rolled over and ran off. I thought she was a dead deer for sure. Well I call my uncle and let him know and he comes back to help me track. There was a little blood by where I shot her, but we found almost no other blood when tracking and never found her. I was devastated. He tried to tell me that the deer was probably still alive and would be fine, but one thing I really wanted to make sure I did as a bow hunter was put good shots on the deer I try to go for. As a hunter you owe it to the deer to put a nice clean and humane shot on the deer, and I felt like I had let myself and my uncles down, and I felt awful for the deer I had just wounded. This encounter stuck with me all off season. For at least a month or so after, I had convinced myself that maybe bow hunting wasn't for me. However, I realized that bad shots are going to happen from time to time and it's just a part of hunting. I decided I wasn't going to let this one bad encounter ruin my whole hunting career. I found some public ground by my campus during the offseason, and started walking all throughout it, looking for any spot that I thought would be good for this season. I spent hours on hours in these woods, determined to find where the deer were and to make up for my screw up last season. And I did! Harvested my first deer this year, a small buck but I don't care. This deer was about redemption and proving to myself and everyone else that I could be a proficient bow hunter! Looking back, I'm not glad that I wounded that doe, but it did give me the drive and motivation to go out during the offseason and scout like hell, and gave me the drive to go out hunting a couple times a week whether it was before/after classes, or all day hunts on the weekend (yes I go to college. Yes I stayed in multiple weekend nights to wake up before sunlight to hunt. And yes there were times when I would wake up to go hunting and my roommates were still up drinking lol). Anyways, that was a very long story! I hope it may help other hunters who may feel discouraged after a bad shot. Also, what do you guys think happened with that doe? My uncle wasn't sure what may have happened, he said he's never seen a deer drop like I saw mine do without hitting the spine, what do you guys think happened?
Side note: I've only told this story to my parents and my brothers. My brothers (not hunters) immediately started giving me crap about losing the doe, which contributed to my original doubts in myself. They still give me crap about it, but they really just don't get it ya know? Wounding an animal or puttin a bad shot on it is not something to joke with someone about. Luckily, the last time my brother brought it up and tried to give me crap about, my uncle was there and put him in his place! He realized how depressed it made me after, and I'm sure at some point in his hunting career he's had the same feeling as me, so it was nice for him to come to my rescue and let my brother know that putting a bad shot on a deer is something that happens from time to time and isn't something that you should make fun of someone for or give them crap for. Bad shots will happen! If you're a bow hunter and have never put a bad shot on a deer, then....well then you're pretty good I guess lol or lucky!
My guess is you hit close enough to the spine to cause momentary paralysis. It's almost like hitting your funny bone and loosing the ability to make a tight fist with your hand or when i put someone in the Figure Four Leg Lock and they can't walk afterwards until the feeling comes back.
Do not let those guys that have no experience affect your enthusiasm. Until you try and pull back that string on a live animal that respect and want to kill quickly you really cannot understand the emotions involved in bow hunting. Learn from the experience. Log into your memory bank every single thing that happened. It will make a difference next time.
Buck fever does strange things to your ability to do things properly. Yes it happens with does also and for the love of god please go to an English class and learn what a paragraph is.
