I took last week off to hunt. Temp's here in Central Indiana have been a little warm and most of the movement I've been seeing is before 10am. Have seen a few in the last hour of light.

On Oct 2nd, 2nd day of our season. I had 3 does pass by my stand in the worst place (behind me) around 9am. I had a beach ball sized lane to shoot thru at 30 yds. They were feeding on acorns on the main trail and were passing back and forth. There was a young doe, another that was a little bigger, and one that was obviously older. I wanted the older one. She finally passed thru my lane. I let out a little bleat to get her to stop, she did, had my 30yds pin on her shoulder, released a good shot..............and it was deflected by a tiny branch that I didn't see. Went right over her back.[:@] ARGH!!!!!

On Oct 5th, I was in another stand near a beanfield. It was about 6:60pm.....maybe 30 minutes of shooting light left. I could see ALOT of deer crossing a creek going into the beanfield about 80yds from me. While I was watching them, I heard a stick break. I looked behind my stand and at 15yds saw a good 6pt also watching the deer cross the creek. The way the ladder stand is, there is a branch that kept me from turning to shoot. I had to let him continue down the patch to a clearing to be able to shoot.

By the time he got to a clearing, he was at 42yds (a distance I practice frequently and am comfortable with). Release my arrow and it went over his back by about 6 inches.

As I'm sitting there puzzled, going over what happened and wondering if I had some how bumped my sights at some point to knock them off I came to realize that I didn't account for the change in elevation. The ladder stand I was in is 15ft. By the time the buck got to a clearing to shoot, he was down a fairly steep hill. I'm going to guess I was at least 40ft higher than him.

I assume at such a steep angle my arrow trajectory was a little flatter causing the high miss.

The good news is, I took my 16yr old cousin on Sunday and he got his first deer with a bow. A doe out of the same stand I missed the doe out of. His kill was at 14yds. I was very proud of him!