This is long, short version in next post under this one.


I haven't done it with a bow, but I did it with my muzzle loader the first time I hunted with it. That season was a fiasco any way. It was only my second year hunting, and the first with a gun. The previous year I went out with my bow and shot one half an hour after being in the stand on opening day. I thought "Heck, this ain't so hard?"[]. Wrong So now buddy talks me into getting an inline and gun hunting the folllowing year as well. I spend the summer finding a good load and zeroing my ML and practicing with it. Quite an impressive weapon out to 120 yards or so. Very accurate I thought.

The day before gun season I am cleaning my ML and the breach plug was stuck. I ended up breaking the trigger trying to get it out![:@]. Don't ask, that's another story in it's self. So now I have to take the mossy 500 smooth bore that is only good for about 60-70 yards with a red dot and winchester rifled slugs. Sure enough, this monster deer walks onto the property at around 100 yards. Too far for the shotgun. It mills around for a little while and hops the fence and is gone. Had I had my ML that would have been a piece of cake shot (so I thought).

Well I get POed and leave and decide to find a gunsmith that will fix my remington on opening day, or at least sell me a new trigger. I call all over michigan and no one can help me, well they can, but I won't get my gun back until after deer season. I find a place in ohio (clealands outdoor world) that said they would take a look at it. I grew up in this area, so I knew them, just hadn't been there in while. I drive over and they fix it while I wait! Took about an hour, but the archery guy there is Matt Clealand an olympic archer. So I bs with him most of the time. The smith put an older trigger assembly out of a center fire on my 700, cost me 90 bucks and I was ready to hunt the next day. Yaaay. And to boot this trigger is 3 times better than the stock one, breaks like a glass rod.

Well I didn't see anything the next day, but the day after I see a nice 10 point about 80 yards away. I rest my rifle against a tree (actually a real tree EZ hanger screwed into a tree) and take the shot. The deer hunches up and just starts walking around in a cirlce. My buddy had just shot a deer like 5 minutes before this and we were talking on the radio. I had to put it down to shoot this deer. Well he calls back and asks if I just shot a deer. I said yes and told him what it did. He said "reload dummy and shoot it again". I was a bit nervous you know. Well I do and the deer has no reaction. But it does finnally lay down a few yards from where I shot it.

I tell him what happened and he says I think you gut shot it, just sneak out and meet me at the barn. We will take care of my deer, and then go look for yours. About an hour later we go back to the same spot and jump the deer. I take another shot while it's trying to run a way from 20 yards or so and miss. I'm like WTF! Then my buddy shoots but it still doesn't bring it down. Finally we just follow it until it runs out of steam. We had to finnish it off with a knife because we were out of bullets (muzzle loaders and all). We examined the deer and found that I only hit it the one time right behind the diaphram. He clipped it in penis because it tried to jump when he shot. I was mad, sad and disgusted. I mean we got the deer, but what a goat rope it was. I was ready to quit hunting after that.

My two hunting partners talked to me and explained this happens sometimes, just study what happaned and learn from it. It can't always go perfect. They found it hard to believe I missed three shots, one at point blank range. They like to brag me up about what a good shot I am. I said I wanted to shoot the gun at a target to see if something was out of whack. Because the first two shots were pretty simple shots at a still target, and they felt good when I pulled the trigger. Come to find out my windage adjustment on my leupold rear scope mount was broke. One of the screw heads broke off. So my first shot was probably a bit off, and every shot after that more so most likely. The gun would not even print on paper at 25 yards!

Moral of the story; Check your equipment before EVERY hunt!

Paul