cmscat50, I believe that you are toa gooddegree, sorry for your lack of judgment. However, defending yourself from atlasman's or anyone'sobservations/comments for that matter only go to counterbalance your remorse. I can't offer you any advice on how to recover your buck since I'm a new bowhunter but I can suggest that you just take everything said here like a man and learn from it. 150 times in the woods makes you no rookie. What you did was extremely unintelligent, especially for a seasoned hunter. It is inexcusable. Just nod your head and continue to offer your apologies, not to us but to the animal and mother nature. I'm sure you agreethat doing so has to be a thousand times easier than what the animal is going or went through.

atlasman, your approach and choice of words was a bit harsh but I do feel as you do. All the "candy coating" and "pats on the back" have to stop in this country. It's bad enough we're teaching our children that failure is ok, now we're reciprocating it with other adults too? I think wemust put a stop to this perpetual motion and quit raising new generations of excuse makers. Doing wrong is only excusable when you don't know any better i.e a child or in this case, rookie hunter.And sorry doesn't make it okay or better.If this were a thread about a guy not being sure of his target and rushed his shotonly tomistakenly hita hiker would we be so forgiving?

A life is a lifeeven if a deer's.So if you're going to take one, try your best to make sure as much of it as possible ends up on dinner plates and not in a swamp somewhere. Be safe everyone, and cmscat50 get a hold ofa tracking dog.