Wolfen, you just pointed out what I went through last year.

Big 8 pointer comes out 20 yards away, faceing towards me. He stood there 15 minutes. Not the 15 minutes that you think and it was really 2, but 15 actual minutes as accounted for on my watch. 15 minutes is a long time to say I can make that shot, no I can' t, sure I can, no I can' t. Well I passed on the low percentage shot.

Now the bitter/sweet part. He turned went into another shooting lane. 18 yards broadside. Took the shot, got a little high and never recovered the buck. To this day I still think it was a good shot, I was a little high on the entry, but I was probably 20' in the air. Should have been a lower exit hole. 3 solid days of looking and no deer, if you don' t believe me ask my wife....she still cusses me up until now. I kicked him up out of a bed over 24 hours after the shot and he ran across the field. Not full tilt, but he wasn' t walking either. After the harsh part of winter, someone found him dead. I think he made it until the cold part of winter. After I got my hands on this deer, we measured him at 150" 8 Pointer. Beautiful!!!

I still kick myself everytime I think about it. I kick myself about the shot, don' t know what happened(why I was high), kick my self for not trying to get closer to him when we seen him bedded down that night and go for a second shot. Kick myself for just plain not recovering. But I am always glad that I did not take the bad shot, even though I might have had better results. But then again, I may not have. I now live with sitting in this stand a couple times a week and replay after replay after replay of the events. Burned into my head with no erase!!

But to answer your question, NO I will not take a marginal shot.

But every situation is different and I couldn' t tell you what I would do with a Booner in front of me. Why do I say a booner in front of me? Last year I probably watched Stan Potts on a video shoot his booner headon less than a week before I passed the head on shot on mine.