jackflap

Funny you bring this question up as I was just yesterday telling this story to a 20 something friend of mine who has justed started bowhunting. He missed a deer over the weekend (shot high out of a tree-imagine that) but told me he was still hooked on bowhunting and that he couldn't see himself ever gun hunting again.

I told him that my fondest and most vivid memories of bowhunting are misses and mishaps more so than a lot of my kills.

One of those was a few years ago on a very cold morning during the rut. Here comes a doe on a fast run through the brush and I know there will be some type of buck sure to follow within seconds.
Because of the extreme cold, I had thicker than normal gloves on and because of that and the fact that I was really cold, I couldn't get my hand through the bow sling. Knowing time was of essence, I quit trying and just grabbed the bow and attached my release to the string.

Sure enough a shooter buck is quickly following and is about to come into a shooting lane about 22 yards out. As I draw the bow backabout halfway sans the bow sling, I accidently hit the release trigger because my hands were so cold. The bow springs out of my hand and falls from about 16 feet up, hitting every branch and making all kinds of noise all theway down.

The rutting buck looked at the bow as it was coming down, stopped for about 2 seconds and then went right back to chasing the doe as though nothing ever happened. Suprisingly, the bow was not damaged nor was my sight even altered.