First Shot and Miss of the Season

[wibowhntr]

Sunday morning I was in my stand around 05:30 am waiting for legal shooting light at 06:15. Around 07:30 I am finding it very hard to stay awake so I decided that instead of falling asleep and risk falling out of my lock-on(I had my safety harness on) that I would get down and do some in season scouting since this was only my third time on this property. I slowly walk the ridge line while watching for deer down in the valley and on any benches. While walking I catch sight of a deer but she saw me first and ran down into the valley where she proceed to stand and blow at me. I thought oh well I am just doing some scouting no damage done. I continue along just below the ridge line and am coming to a corner in the ridge when I see the same doe standing in front of me. Luckily there was a small rise between us so she could only see the upper part of me. I decided to slowly knee down so that she couldn't see me over the rise. I then started to slide myself forward to get by a tree. While sliding forward the doe being curious started coming toward me to see what I was. I again froze waiting for her to turn broadside so that I could get a shot. After what seemed like an eternity she finally turned and trotted off to the right but offered no shot. I then stood up and proceed in that direction but keeping a tree in between her and I. I made it to the tree and saw her standing about 30yards away trying to see me. I then decide to try to crawl over to another small tree with a deadfall next to it. Slowly I made my way to the small tree keeping my eyes on the doe to see how she was reacting. Once to the small tree I got up on my knees and waited for her to turn. Finally she turned and offered my a shot. I had about a ten inch opening through some branches of a down tree. When I touched of the shot all was looking good until I saw my arrow shoot up over the deer. Immediately she took off and I sat there confused. After she was gone I went to see why my arrow shot over her back and found that it had hit a small branch that I didn't see. Even though I missed her I felt fortunate that the arrow hadn't deflected and just wounded her.

By the way there is some good to the story.....I decided to walk in the direction that she ran and found and are with tons of old buck rubs(mostly on 3 inch + trees). Hopefully next time I will be able to share a sucess story!

[JoeRE]

Deer must be kinda tame in your parts. j/k next time double lung it

[NCRemington700]

A similar thing happened to me Saturday evening. I had a doe come in from behind me and I never heard her until she started stomping. Once she finally settled down she started working her way from behind me right towards my left. I stood up and, of course, my stand creeked and she stopped. Once she settled back down and kept going I came to full draw. She stepped in the opening that I wanted her to and let it fly. The shot was true until the end. When I got down to investigate, I found my arrow...well most of it. The back 6 inches was gone. It deflected off of a limb/branch. Ended up my shot was not as clear as I could see. Like you, I'm glad it was a clean miss instead of an injured deer.