BeltedMag

Okay so i screwed up, after the season last year i put my bow in the closet and didnt touch it until last week. Except for occasionally picking it up and looking at it. It fell off the shelf one time but appeared to be fine since the stabilizer stopped it from hitting the sights on the floor.....or so i thought.
I got out in the woods 2 times last week, and hunted a game plot on national forest land. I saw deer both days and got to draw on a nice doe before she realized something was up and took off. I am hunting from the ground, using a deadfall for cover. It makes it pretty difficult to draw on a deer especially when they are withing 15 to 30 yards which all the deer i have seen have been.
So i go out this afternoon and jump 2 does as soon as i get to the game plot, i draw on one but she stays in the brush and i cant get a shot. I go to my stump behind the old dead tree and set down. Twenty minutes later 2 does come out into the game plot and start grazing. I estimate the yardage at about 30 yards give a take a few feet. I draw my bow and put my 30 yard pin right behind her shoulder and let loose a thunderhead tipped goldtip. I watch the white fletching fall several yards short of the deer as they take off.
I set in disbelief cause i would have bet my months pay that the deer was no more than 30 yards. So i suck it up and set back down, 25 minutes later two more deer appear in the field. A doe slips behind some brush and a nice wide 4 point walks in behind a tree. All i can see is its head so i wait, it works out from behind the brush and heads towards me, when it stops to eat draw my bow, i had a little difficulty pulling it back. The buck spotted me and took off, and hour later out comes another doe and walks within 10 yards looking right at me and turns and runs. Ten minutes before i was planning on getting up and going to retrieve my arrow, a spike trots into the field. I stand and draw my bow, and bet busted. The spike runs about 10 yards into the woods and stops. I give a few soft blows on my doe bleat and he comes running back into the field looking around. He is about 10 to 12 yards closer than the doe i had missed earlier. So assuming that i shot low with my 30 yard pin earlier i put the 30 right behind the bucks shoulder and touched it off. Same dang thing the arrow drops short and the deer runs off. I know there is no way that im that bad at distance judging. There is no way that i could come up that short twice with the same pin shooting at a deer that were diffrent distances from me. So i guess i should have shot my bow a few times before the season and definetly after it hit the closet floor. I also couldnt locate either arrow, so i guess im going back in the morning and searching the field for my arrows and building a better ground blind. Well i figure a clean miss is better than a bad, crippling hit anytime, but it still ties my stomach in knots. I have got to get the bow to the range and see what happened, i wouldnt mind getting a second chance at that wide 4 point.

Dave

MO_Bowhnter

Do yourself a favor and go sight in your bow tonight. Take a couple shots at known yardages and find out if something might have moved. Kinda sounds like it. You owe it to the animal because the next time you shoot at a deer you might not be so lucky to miss and you gut shot it or something of that sort.

Sounds like you got a real good spot to hutn though. I wish I had that many deer running around my stand.

buckmaster_27

i dont know why people dont shoot before the season???im lost on this.its crazy.i know people do it with guns also and then they wonder why they miss.practice makes perfect.plus why dont you put a stand up if all these deer are spotting you?is there any trees around?

early in

There's no reason to have hunted without shooting that bow first!

wolfen68

Put on your best flame retardent suit because you are about to be FLAMED!!!!!


Lucky for the deer you were waaaaaay off and not just a little...absolutely no excuse.

MDManiac

Practice makes perfect, and obviousely you were far from perfect!! PRACTICE.

Kybuckhunter

Do you want sympathy or what? You reap what you sow. It's funny to me because this is one of the things people where saying that crossbow hunters would do if they passed in Kentucky. They think bow hunter are somehow better than the rest of the other hunters. I said there are lazy hunter in every group and you helped prove my point. Now get your lazy butt out there and practice and don't hunt until your completely confident in your shot. Most of all you owe it to the animals your hunting to make a good quick kill.I hope you learned a lesson.

BeltedMag

Yeah i know it was a stupid thing to do, i could give a hundred reasons why i didnt shoot it, but it still wouldnt make up for the fact that i wasnt prepared. There are plenty of trees around to hand a stand, but ive never used a tree stand. Im not a very big fan of heights even 10 or 15 feet up would make me weary. I do have a ground blind that i used last year, but havent replaced the tent poles that were broken last year, and dont feel comfortable putting it up on government land. I like to leave it a few days before i hunt out of it and dont wont to do that on public lands. I think im going to go out tomorrow and try to brush it up some more to help hide me better. Then go to a friends house and shoot the bow and find out what happened to my sights. I usually shoot 3-D all summer long with my friends from work to get ready for the upcoming season, but didnt get a chance to go out this summer so i just left the bow in the closet and didnt think about it. I always shoot my rifles every year before season to make sure they are on but got lazy and didnt do it with my bow, and now im regreting it. So i deserve all the slack im getting, and a very valuable lesson was learned.

Dave

bob d

do everyone a favor and stay out of the woods till you can hit something with some semblance of accuracy,the deer will appreciate it so will other hunters

James Vee

LIKE THE BROADSIDE OFA BARN, you numbnut.