I actually spoke to Rybo on my worst day ever.... I tore muscles in my shoulder and lost my first ever whitetail. It was a double blow that day.
Not really a bad day.. just one that still haunts me. It was when I finally had Frank the Deer standing broadside from my blind at 10 yards... and I completely whiffed the shot. I think I knocked my arrow off the rest... but I really don't know. I missed. I think I might have screamed. He looked at the blind.. flicked his tail and walked off unscathed. Frank the Deer. The only deer I was really ever 'after'.
3 times stick out in my mind, 2 duck hunting and 1 deer hunting (rifle). 1. Rifle hunting: I had been hunting in an area previously where my shot would have been at the longest between 50-100yds and I had 180 gr bullets in for a little heavier knock down because it was surrounded by thick cutovers and I did not want the deer to go too far. Well it started raining heavy so I moved to an enclosed tower stand on a field edge. About 4:40 in the afternoon the biggest buck I have seen yet on that farm steps out about 250 yds away. I took my time aimed and squeezed the trigger only to have mud splash up on him...I had forgot to replace the 180 gr with my normal 150 gr bullets and shot under him. Never saw him again. 2.Duck Hunting @ 8 degrees in a frozen swamp: 15 min walk from the truck to water edge if you walk fast (through the woods), then another 15 min through the water to the better spot if there is no ice. About 90% of the way there a piece of ice sliced my wader boot about ankle high and about 2 1/2" long. Boot filled quickly!! All I could do was hurry to the first piece of land and sit it out. I shot 1 drake Mallard and my buddy retrieved it for me. Sat there for 2 hrs. and had a long miserable walk back. I don't think my feet have ever been that cold. 3. Duck hunting same swamp: Hiked the 30-40 min to the spot where I wanted to set out my decoys. 45 min before hunting light so I am not rushed. Get ready to set out decoys and realized that my 2 boxes of shotgun shells are still sitting pretty on my tailgate. Not to worry unless you are ALONE!!!! Quickly throw out decoys in some pattern resembling a game of Jax or pick up sticks, stash my gear and practically run or try to run back to my truck. I finally get back to the water's edge (soaking wet with sweat) about 10 min or so AFTER shooting time has arrived only to look out where my decoys are sitting and see 2 mallards sitting about 10 yrds from my spread!!! Keep in mind I still have about a 10-15 min walk in the water's edge to get to my spread. About 2-3 steps in the water is all it took for those 2 and they were gone. After about 1 hr of nothing I finally had a couple working the spread and called them in close enough for a shot. I shot 1 and he fell on the other side of a creek channel that ran through the swamp. Too deep to cross so I had to go around...about 20 min instead of 5 min. Never did find that stinking duck...picked up decoys and limped back to the truck. Got to the truck and 5 min later my wife called to tell me she had an "accident". I told her I could not talk about it right now and was she and the kids OK. She said yes so I hung up, drove the 45 min. to work thinking she had been in some type of "car accident". Got to work, changed clothes and took care of my gear. Next I called her back to find out what happened and she said she had tripped at home and took a chunk out of one of our walls...WHAT??? All this time I thought she had a car accident!!! I calmly asked again if she was ok, she said yes and I said good but next time please only say you had an accident if you were in a car accident, I don't care about drywall. I DID NOT go duck hunting anymore last season!!!
My first season ever bowhunting I was 13 years old. As soon as I got in my tree I noticed that my arrow rest was loose. I finger tightened it back into place ( so I thought) and continued hunting. There wasn't enough time to go to the truck and fix it and come back. I had a nice eight point walk right past me on the hillside behind me, I shot over it's back at 7 yards and level to me in the stand. It should have been the easiest shot ever. When the deer ran off it ran uphill and must have kicked my arrow sticking out of the ground because it was bent at a 90 degree angle straight up just under the fletchings and only hit dirt. I was almost in tears after missing that buck. Huge learning experience. This is why I love the Whisker Biscuit.
tracking my great uncles wounded buck through a swamp with water thigh high at points, luckly he hit him high and could see blood on the grass. oh ya and did i mention it was november in twenty degree weather, with just overalls on. and not so water proff boots, probably the worst track of my life, never did find that buck........
Thought I killed, still do, a nice little 8 on the last day of the season last year in the midst of downpours. Didn't think he'd make it out of the 2 acre field that I was hunting. Searched for days and never found him. Still baffles and bothers me that I couldn't locate him. Other than that I didn't have too many "bad" days. I had what is commonly referred to as an "arrow flinging meltdown" at one point last year, that might have been one of the best days I had though. That's what keeps me coming back for more.
Nothing truly bad as some of you have had happen, but bad where hunting and heartbrake is concerned was last year. Peak of the rut and the trailcam buck appears at 45 yards in front of me scent checking a grown up field. He has 2 direction to go and both bring him less than 15 yards broadside...As I start to swing to the right (shoot right handed) and draw, my safety vest stops me. I try to draw anyway as he is behind a shrub row, when I realize I can't I turn all the way around and start to draw. He is already in the shooting lane and the last thing I saw through the peep once it came to my eye was my pin in the middle of the body as he dissapeared into a thicket. I have posted before about him, we have a pic from 3 years ago, a pic from 2 years ago and 2 from last year. Clean 10 that will score very high. None of our neighbors have a single picture of him over the years and this has been the only sighting as well. I was tore up for quite awhile, still am a little.
Grouse hunting... Me and 3 buddies put up a covey of birds, I was fortunate and shot two. We then regrouped and headed towards a few that got away. Up and over a steep ridge and then into the ravine at the bottom. Once at the bottom we lined up to push the birds and I lost my footing. My feet flew up in front of me and I landed on a jagged boulder on my back. I lost feeling in my left leg and couldn't lift my foot more than 6-8" off the ground, so the rest of the day I limped around carrying my gun in quite a bit of pain. I finally went to the doctors office two days later and found out that I bruised 3 ribs, my kidney and my lung. However I was lucky, as I landed 1 inch from my spine and could have been 'REAL bad news. I didn't cry or nothin'
Well once I had a real big tom coming in, he got into range...I drew, and CRACK! myy string snapped and needless to say the tom did not come back. My second year of bowhunting...I set my blind about 30 yards too far off a trail. Watched deer after deer after deer use this trail one morning and I couldnt stand it. I got out of the blind and knelt down behind some brush. A minute later a HUGE buck came by. 25 yards out, I grunted and he stopped right there. Perfectly behind a tree! So I shifted while at full draw until I could see his vitals, released and watched in total dismay as my arrow went only 1" under his brisket. Thank gosh I missed but that would have been one heck of a buck to shoot from the ground!
I'd have to say last year.. late October I think... I'll never forget it.. I met Dan and Johnny Miller... Boy did that day suck.
I was only 14 and was sitting on the ground on the edge of a cedar thicket bordering an alfalfa field. Just a few minutes of light left and I was starting to get ready to go until hear something coming towards me out of that thicket. Getting excited that its a big buck I hold tight. Now its too dark to shoot and getting tough to see but its still coming towards me so I sit tight not wanting to spook it. Finally at about 5 or 6 yards, up stands a black bear on its back legs and stares right at me. There are no black bears in my part of the state! I fell off my stool, pretty sure I screamed a little, crawled then ran as fast as I could the other way, the bear took off the opposite direction no doubt scared of my little scream, I absolutely p!ssed myself a little and sure wouldn't doubt if I sh!t myself a little too. I came back the next morning to get my stool , bow and everything else I left behind. The one and only bear I have ever seen in the wild.
In 2005 I took off 2 days of work to go hunting. I was teaching at the time and only received 3 days a year of annual leave. The first day off work I got up early and hit the woods. About an hour before sunset I started feeling sick to my stomach, real sick. I crapped about 5 times before the sun came up. I fell asleep after crapping so much. I woke up to two doe standing 30 yards from me, staring at the sleeping/crapping man. I toughed it out and walked another 200 yards or so to get set up next to a thicket. I had two 4 pointers come through about an hour after sun-up. After that, the CRAPATHON was on....I crapped right out of my treestand, not once, not twice....more like 5 times in about 2 hours. I had to leave b/c my spot was all crapped up. I went out the next day and crapped it up again. So all in all it was a real crappy experience. I wasted two days of leave and crapped myself to death.
Once upon a time there was a bowhunter that was hunting the family farm in the first week of November. As it started getting light this hunter saw many deer pass he tree stand, all were small bucks and doe's. But he knew this farm well and knew of a big buck that was running the farm. At about 10:00am the cold front he was waiting for came through and the temperature started dropping and even a little snow start falling. Although he had four layers of clothing on he was getting cold. So he pulls a heaver coat out of the pack that was handing on the tree. He looking all over the tree for a bow hook and there was none to be found. He had been holding the bow in his hand this morning so as to be ready for the shot at any minute. Now there are too many items to hold. So he put the coat in-between his legs and set the bow with the arrow on the string down on the seat and leans the handle of the bow up against the tree. He starts to put the coat on. He has one arm in the coat and is try to pull the coat over to put the other arm into the coat. As he is doing this the bow starts to fall off the seat. As fast as the bowhunter can you grabs for the bow. He catches the bow by the handle and set it back on the seat and starts to put the coat back on. It is at this point that he sees the arrow alongside his arm and not on the string. When he takes a better look at the arrow blood is running off the arrow like water running out of a hose. He has just realized that the arrow has gone all the way through his forearm just below the elbow. His mind is racing as to what to do. His first thought is to get to the truck. If I get to the truck I will live. He has seen many deer shot with his bow and with a good shot they do not make it more than 100 yards. The truck is a quarter mile away, if I can make it to the truck I will live he thinks. He tries to climb down from the tree stand but he still has his safety belt on and is catches him and swings him into the tree. The arrow is still in his arm, blood running down the side of the tree now splattering on the leave on the ground. He climbs back into the tree stand and thinks I cannot get out of this tree with the arrow in my arm. Now he thinks I am shooting screw on broad heads. I can unscrew the head and pull the arrow out. He gave the arrow one quick turn to the right nothing, one quick turn to the left nothing. You see on this day the arrows he was shooting were tipped with zwickey’s and was glued on the shift. In desperation he knows his mistake now and just pulls the arrow out of you arm. Now the arrow is out of his arm but it will not go through the layers of clothing. So after a couple tries he just hold the arrow in he hand on the same arm that the arrow in stuck in the coat. Now he thinks I can get out of the tree, unbuckles the safety belt and starts down the ladder on the tree. Finally, on the ground and his thoughts go back to if I can make it to the truck I will live. He Jumps the four strand barbwire fence that is in front of the tree stand, and starts running a crossed the picked corn field. With only one thought in he mined “get to the truck and you will live”. No thoughts enter his mind of I am running, so my heart is beating as fast a possible. Or the arrow is still stuck in my coat and the broad head is pointing right at my chest as I am running a crossed a picked corn field! One missed step and he would fall and the arrow would stick him again. After the quarter mile sprint he made it to the truck and his mind start to slowdown for the first time in the last five minutes. It is amazing now many things can go though your mind in a very short time when the adrenalin kicks in. After getting to the hospital the Doctor told him how lucky he was. The arrow went in-between both arteries. The doctor could not believe that when the arrow was pulled out it did not cut the arteries on the way out. The bad news was this bowhunter could not hold the bow without the stitches blowing out. So no more rut hunting for that year. There are many lesions to be learned here, and I have the scars to prove I learned them. I would call this a bad day in the woods.
Worst day... I've had several less than desireable days in the field, but one sticks to me and think about several times and it occured just last year. While perched in tree, on a crisp 31 perfect, cold, foggy, no wind morning, I used a small series of doe bleats and grunts as a doe came cruising in just a few minutes after 6. Now my hunting buddies and I have been chasing a nice 170" class buck that none of us have been able to get visual on, but many have witnessed his massive head gear while driving to work in the wee hours of the morning. So, as the doe came cruising in I placed my sights on her shoulder at 25 yards and let the Muzzy eat, not checking the field behind me. When the arrow made contact, she bucked, and I heard a loud snort that sounded like it was practically in my ear. I knew it was a buck, but didn’t realize it was in such a close proximity, and I didn’t know where it was. I quickly spun around peering through the brush and glancing over branches and around trees as I tried to get a visual of the fleeing deer. The only thing I saw was a small flicker of whitetail some 150 or more yards away as it bounced over the hill out of site. To this day I still have no idea if that was Browitne or not and never will know. But I did learn to be more observant of my surroundings while in the woods. I guess that’s what keeps us going back for more, at in my case. I recovered that doe some 30 yards away.:D
