So we can hate ourselves!! Geeze you scout your arse off. Find that buck of your dreams... well a good one anyways. Practice, practice and practice shooting some more. You plot and plan. It all pays off... you get the buck in bow range and at the moment of truth... you screw up a 30 yard shot you should be able make in your sleep. Dammit !! It still hurts!! LOL Tim
I wouldn't know I turn into a quivering bowl of jelly with a bow ........ one more thing.... xbows arw so much easier for this reason ...aim and shoot ... compounds or trad ..pull back...bendx at the waist ...anchor right .... pick a hair...aim for the exit hole.... I am looking forward to gun season
Just so you know it's impossible to pick a hair I come up from the elbow of the front leg and put the pin in the middle of the deer. Using two reference points is way easier and faster IMO. I have better than 20/20 vision and i cannot pick a hair out
After you solve this problem, invent an aluminum magnet! It's part of the game we play. There are so many factors, many mentioned already. Adrenaline, Hunting clothes, Masks, Gloves, that limb you didn't see in fading light, panic, unpreparedness, pressure internally and externally. I like Germs theory, chose your best miss..why try that hero, heart shot, at a softball sized target when the double lungs are the size of a pie plate and most times are more quickly lethal. Shoot the big killing zones save the 12 ring for the 3d course. Pick your opening, repeat your practiced draw and anchor, pick an exact "area", squeeze and follow through. Most importantly focus on past successes rather than dwelling on a failure. As you said you went 7 years...like a good quarterback, you need amnesia to forget about that last interception.
I hate chiming in on these threads because it always comes across wrong. But I've been doing this a long time, have had A LOT of opportunities and I'm not a liar. Simply put.... I just don't miss. No other way to put it lol. I'm not remotely proclaiming to be the best bowhunter in the world. God knows I'm far from it. I guess I'm just blessed or lucky or something. I think a lot of it is the shots that I do take. I pass on a lot of shots that are slightly less than perfect that I could "probably" make with relative ease. I don't rush or force anything. I practice my rear off at every conceivable angle, elevation, lighting, wind, terrain, surroundings, etc.... My practice routine is borederline obsessive trying to mimick the real situation. I think i'm prepared for every possible scenario. I think I get it from golf actually. I'm as calm and calculated as can be with EVERY deer that is in bowrange. It really is no different than target practice when it comes down to it for me. Until after the shot it is... then I hyperventilate until I about puke. Again.... not proclaiming to be anything. It just is what it is (knocking the hell out of wood right now).
"We" miss, because as humans we make mistakes. Some continue to miss because they don't learn from thier mistakes and do the things needed to correct them. Some continue to miss because shooting at game frazzles them & they loose all focus. Some miss becuase they push the limits of thier abilities. Then there are the "oddball" limb deflections, & cases of missing for no reason. Back in the day of slow bows & in experience, most of my misses were due to wrong yardage estimation. Then I got a pendulum sight that corrected that. I still had a few cases of where the deer ducked which led me to out thinking myself(aiming expecting it to drop and it didn't) The biggest reason I haven't missed very often in recent...or not so recent years, is that all the shots that I do get are ones that are really hard to mess up.
For me it is a combination of rushing the shot and that deer not being in the same place as when you pulled the trigger then when your arrow gets there, This is over exaggerated with my crappy bow thats shooting about 220 fps and the fact that it sounds like a gun shot going off.