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i always hear about how many times guys missed and when they do connect they never find the deer...im sure its a lack of practice and bad hits and poor tracking but i was wondering about how many times it happens to real bow hunters...how long have you been hunting and how many times have you missed the whole deer all together?? how many have you lost?? just wondering...

I've shot 1 arrow at a deer in my first season and one double lung kill. I'm sure it happens to everyone at one point or another, but I hope I never make a poor shot or lose a deer.

I have lost two deer in my life, both with a bow. I have got 3 deer with my bow, and missed a few. Mauser, one thing that I am gonna tell you about archery is DON'T UNDERESTIMATE IT!!! It is nothing like rifle hunting. You shoot a deer with a rifle and get a terrible shot and the deer can still drop, with a bow, your deer is running and not stopping. Practice is very important, but, a statement such as yours

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quotequote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>im sure its a lack of practice and bad hits and poor tracking <hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote>

Practice is only part of the game. No matter what type of target you practice with, you can't get the same feelings as when a deer is walking in, it is just never going to happen. Also, a deer hit with a bow is not going to pour out blood with every shot. Sometimes you can get a drop or two every 10-25 yards. Buck Fever will take its effect on you and that is when bad things start to happen. When you have a deer at 12 yards, and you are thinking about movement (you don't want it to bust you while you stand up in the stand, clip your release on the string, draw the bow back, move the pins onto the vitals, ect..), you are thinking about the wind (you don't want him smelling you and running away), you are thinking about noise (are you going to make noise while standing that is going to spook him, are you going to make noise while drawing that bow that will spook him, ect...), and you start loosing your confidence. You start shaking because of buck fever, you heart starts pumping, ect... now this is the time that makes or breaks a hunt. Can you control this? Can you get your body to act as if you were just shooting a target? That is what makes or breaks a hunt.

Like I have said, you gotta be able to control yourself, make yourself calm, and you just gotta get everything together. If you don't have yourself calm enough, you could move a slight amount (1/4") and that is enough to turn a good shot into a bad shot. Trust me on this one, I have a bad case of buck fever, but, this year I have been able to almost entirely control it. A good thing to do would be go out this summer, get into a stand, wear your hunting clothes, but dont take a bow. When you see a deer, practice standing up with the deer in front of you. Act like you are drawing your bow back on the deer, and act like you are shooting the deer. This will give you a little better insight on what happens when the deer are in close enough.

Archery is a whole lot different than what you are use to. When you squeeze the trigger on your rifle, the deer doesn't have time to move because the bullet is there. When you squeeze the trigger on your release and send that arrow flying, the deer can move more than most people think. A fast bow shooting at 275 f.p.s. will not guarentee that a deer won't move when shot at 20 yards. Your bow isn't going to have the knock down power of a rifle, its never gonna happen. A bow producing 63 pounds of kenetic energy is good, now, some guns are doing 50 times that much kenetic energy.

I am sorry for rambling on, but this post made it seem like you are underestimating the challenge of hunting deer with a bow.

Good Luck This Season: Buck Magnet

Check out my hunting PICS here http://community.webshots.com/user/buckmagnet

I've been bow hunting deer since I've been 12 yoa old and Im now 54yoa.
I have recovered every deer I've hit. I have clean missed a few and Im glad of that rather than a bad hit.
There are a lot of reasons hunter with any type of weapons hit game and lose it. Some times it a poor shot and other times poor tracking or giving up without really checking it out completely.
You are responsible for yourself and those you hunt with. If you learn all you can, practice until you are the best you can be, know your limitations, make every effort to stay within those limitation and most importantly make every effort humanly possible to recover your game no matter how long or what it takes you have done everything you can do and have to live with that.
That being said, everyone risk losing an animal everytime they shot, just don't release that arrow until you are totally sure of your shot.

Work hard and be true to yourself.
http://www.hunting-pictures.com/memb...kas/index.html

thanx guys...buck i been told all that on here a few hundred times now it sunk in the first time i understand all that..i know its alot diffrent and more challenging thats why im taking it up...and because fall turkey i always see nice bucks and come rifle season they are nowhere to be found...buck fever really isnt a problem to me but thats because all year im in the woods and i have deer extremely close to me often...once tree rat hunting o was sitting against a tre adn a nice 8pt comes out and walks on a trail right behind the tree and when he got to me he sniffed me!! i could easily wacked him with my stock and bagger me a buck...he i kept my coal and he kept his and just walked along surprisingly...sure i didnt have anything to worry about but things liek that is what i think causes me to not get the fever when i see a deer...im definently ready to start bow hunting and am ready to practice until i am the best..if i practice all spring and summer and still am not good enough to take a deer you can guarentee im not bow hunting next year...im ready...i posted this question just to see if it happens to alot of people or are the guys at school having the problems because they dont practice and things like that...

I really sucked when I started at bowhunting. I just about hung it up a couple of times. I had a bow that was not fit for me, and caused me many problems, especially with my confidence. I thought I was good enough at the range, being that I could hit a 3-D caribou in the vitals 7 or 8 times out of 10 at 20 yards and over half the time at 30 yards. I passed the state archery certification with ease, and was roaring and ready to go within a week. The first big game animal that I had a chance on was a grizzly bear. I set up an ambush on him and watched him walk right into it at what I thought was 20 yards. The range was more like 28-30 yards and the arrow ended up passing completely through the bear, but low. I watched the bear for hours, and went out the next day with a buddy to hopefully find him where I saw him lay up the night before. Sure enough he was still there, but still alive, and he didn't look that enthused about us being there. I saw that bear four more times till the end of the season, but never got closer than 80 yards.

That fall I had a good opportunity at a bull moose. I called him in and kept him close for quite some time, and finally got a quartering away shot at 20 yards. I sent the arrow right in line with the peep sight and 20 yard pin and SMACK, it hit the bull right in the shoulder blade. I watched him go about 50 yards on a full run, then lost sight of him. I watched the arrow hit the bull and fall down, only hanging on by the broadhead on his hide. It got no penetration whatsoever. We tracked for a couple days regardless, and we were able to find blood, but not much at all, and it didn't go more than 30-40 yards. The bull went into a swamp and from there we couldn't tell where it would of went.

After that I was ready to hang up bowhunting. I did manage to kill a caribou that July, but only killing one out of the first three animals that I shot was unacceptable I thought, as would anybody I hope. My fellow board members here and my family, especially my wife, talked me into sticking with it, practicing harder and getting the bow set up for me. I couldn't really stand sight of that bow anymore, so my wife took me to the pro shop for an early Christmas present and dropped over a grand for me for my mathews fully set up. I practiced through the winter, and was stacking arrows, my confidence was higher than it had ever been, and I was creamating the small game even out to 40 yards. I was ready for the grizzly again come spring.

Nearly 1 year to the date, plus a couple of days, I find myself in the same area setting up an ambush on what I could swear was the same bear. I had him at 30 yards the first night, but he wouldn't take that step I needed so I passed on the shot. The second night we broke out the video camera and headed out again. We spotted the bear in the same area, and I set up behind a mound in the tundra. The bear came by right where I thought he would, and instead of staying still, he turned and came right at me. He started to turn slightly broadside at about 13-14 yards, and I drew back. He saw me draw, turned and started a low pitch growl and snapped his jaws. A couple of steps turned him to face right at me, and at 10 yards he stood up on his hind legs. I was perfectly calm, believe it or not, but figured this would be my only chance before he dropped to all 4's and charged me. I put the pin just to the right of the center of his chest and released. The arrow hit right where I was aiming, burying all the way past the fletching into the bear. He fell back, spun in a circle trying to bite the arrow out and tore off like a stuck pig. About 400 yards out he sat down, looked up in the sky and fell over. I could of sworn he was dead! After 5 minutes, which felt like an hour, the bear got up and walked off as nothing had happened! We followed him for 4 hours, never getting within 40 yards of him and being able to get a shot. The bear made it through the river and up the hills and laid up. We spent the next two days trying to get over the river, but couldn't get there. The next day I spent all my new bow money on a charter flight to go find the bear. We found him, but he wasn't dead, and didn't appear to be mortally wounded.

The first two shots were because of your statement, not enough practice, not knowing my equipment, not having the confidence. The second grizzly I stuck could be thought of as bad luck, maybe bad shot placement (although two articles in two months came out with guys shooting grizzlies in the chest while they were standing). Ever since then my shooting has been good. I've taken 3 caribou, a black bear and one bull moose since that grizzly. I passed on an iffy shot on a big bull elk, and have had a couple of clean misses, generally misjudged yardage, on caribou.

I don't consider myself an expert or top notch bowhunter, but the experience I learned from those few animals that I shot and didn't recover helps me quite a bit I think to make sure when I touch off on that release, that I'm 100% certain. I could use the excuse that hunting on the ground, one on one with the animal is more difficult that waiting in a tree, but there is no difference when you send that arrow off to the animal. I would however consider myself pretty good at stalking and getting close to animals, that's something that I haven't had much of a problem doing.

So far I have bowhunted three seasons. For big game I have shot:
2 grizzlies
2 bull moose
4 bull caribou
1 black bear

I started out one for four, now I'm five for five since then. I'll never condone or bash somebody for wounding an animal, unless they don't take that experience and use it to better themselves.
ArcticBowMan's Hunting Photo's

mauser,

I didn't mean to sound like an idiot, I just want you to be entirely ready for archery hunting. My father was a hunter, and, he loved bow hunting, but, when I got into archery, he had lost all his interest in archery hunting, now he doesn't hunt anymore. I had to teach myself EVERYTHING. I made mistakes. Lets see how this has gone for me, 1st deer I shot I recovered, second deer I shot I recovered, 3rd deer I shot I didn't recover (a good looking shot that produced little blood, and I saw the deer for about two weeks after the shot, 4th deer I shot I didn't recover (a freak accident where another deer ran in front of the deer that I just released an arrow at), and my 5th deer I shot I recovered.

I was alot like Artic when I first started, I was okay with my bow, but it didn't fit me properly. I could hit targets pretty good, but, I had that thought in my mind "as long as I stick an arrow in somewhere behind the front shoulder and in front of the back leg, I have got a dead deer" I was so use to rifle hunting that I thought it was the same with shot placement. Little did I know how small of a area that actually is.

I hope you the best of luck and if you ever have any questions or need any help, e-mail me, [email protected] there is a underscore between jason and lowmaster

Good Luck This Season: Buck Magnet

Check out my hunting PICS here http://community.webshots.com/user/buckmagnet

15 years bowhunting. I have found ever deer I hit. 1 was found too late to eat the meat. AS far as clean misses go, I have a lot. BUT I figured out why I was having those misses and corrected the problem or problems, and I can say now that it has been 8 years and a lot of deer since the last time I have missed one.

Just one more further peice of advise that cannot be stressed too much in archery hunting....when in doubt, WAIT. what you do from the moment the arrow strikes the deer on, maybe more imprtant than all your preparation leading up to the shot. Never underestimate the will to live of a deer. They can leave blood trails like garden hoses or tiny specks. They don't always read the books of how they are supposed to react when hit. And also don't force a shot or hope you can make it. Every arrow should be released with full confidence that that deer is a "gimme", even though "gimmes" don't exist in archery hunting.

I agree with everyones post, but one more thing that I have to add. Practice in a way does make perfect but...... when you have a deer coming into you, a person is always worried about drawing at the right moment(so you don't get busted moving), making the right shot, figuring out yardage and just simply trying to make a good shot. One thing(atleast for me) that I sometimes forget to do....is making sure that my anchor point is the always the same, any kind of breathing technic a guy uses etc.... In practice, these are easy things to do all the time. But when you have a deer coming into you, it's the easy things that a guy forgets but are extremely crucial in making a good shot(atleast for me). Even on a doe my heart gets pumpin!!! It's not always like that when I gun hunt. God isn't bowhunting great!!!!

Articbowman and Buckmagnets post seem reel to life honest post similar to my expereances in the woods . The first few years you have learning experiances , that leads to experiance with experiance comes sucess . Instead of lack of practice I think its lack of experiance the longer you do something and the more time you spend doing it you learn what works and what does not,when to move when not to move exc . If someone has found every animal they hit but have missed some animals completely its a mater of time until they get the average of those two results a woulned animal , something noone wants but everyone who hunts long enough will experiance . last year I shot at 3 deer missed one completely found the other 2 within 30 yards . Two years ago I shoot a a BIG 8 point at 10 yards missed completly {hit a twig I did'nt see} shoot again at 25 yards and hit in front of the shoulder , good blood trail trailed that deer for 12 hours and over a mile until he started doing circles and lost the trail . I went and slep for a couple hours and looked the next day also never found that deer . Thats my worst story , but I have tons of good stories also so dont give up the longer you do it the better you get .
We all have different oppinions , if we did'nt the world would be a BORING place

Edited by - ijimmy on 01/21/2003 09:33:53

Three years of bowhunting, three shots, two dead deer. Missed on my second shot completely, the doe jumped the string and only ran 5 yards, nocked another arrow and double lunged her. All the deer I have shot at I have recovered. I for one believe it's futile to believe you can go your whole life without wounding a deer. It's going to happen sooner or later. You can't avoid it. I'm not looking forward to that day it happens to me. So I practice and practice to put the odds in my favor. That's all anyone can do.

http://community.webshots.com/user/gvdocholiday

mauser as already well said by others, bow hunting is entirely different from gun, I have killed a lot of deer with a gun, buck fever only got me once with a gun, but I was lucky, recognized it and put it under control and got the buck of my lifetime. You would think that with a lot of deer under your belt you would not get the fever with a bow, WRONG! The first deer I ever had a clean shot at with a bow, presented me with a perfect 20 yard broadside, head down feeding shot, I was calm, I obviously was over confident also, I had this deer already field dressed by the time I put the pin on her, the second I released I realized I had missed my anchor point and sailed the arrow right over her back!!!!

I have to say there were two things that helped me out getting my first bowkill, one was I mentally double checked everthing before I released, but it was also weird in a way, because unlike in the past with a bow, I had practiced so much that shooting the bow felt just as natural to me as shooting a gun. Don't get me wrong, I practiced a lot before and was putting 6 out of 6 in a pie plate at my maximum comfortable range, but it had never felt "natural" until then.

The Tazman aka Martin Price
Proud father of a Devil Dog

I've been bowhunting for 30 years, the first two I never even seen a deer. In '96 I lost the one and only deer to coyotes; shot in the last minutes of shooting time, no light or lantern and had to return the next day. Bummed me out pretty bad.

Practice. Granted that alone will not fully prepare you for what decisions have to be made in hunting situations, but lack of it will affect your shot.

I've had people say they couldn't even pull their bow at the moment of truth, later to find out they hadn't practiced or even shot an arrow after the season opened.

As for misses, I've had two. First one was misjudged yardage, second time was failing to account for the armrest on my stand. Bottom cam hit it causing the bow and my bow arm to jump 2-3 " straight up, sending the arrow another 15-20 foot higher into some adjacent pines.

Bad hits: One. Luckily when this doe stepped forward while the arrow was leaving the string, the broadhead severed the femral artery. She went about 20 yards.

It is a challange, but one I will continue to persue as long as my health allows.

Shoot often - Hunt always

I've been at it 32 years. I don't miss many. I wound fewer. I kill most. An example... this year... 8 shots, 7 dead deer, one grazying shot across the top of the back. Stuff happens and we learn. I've had the good, bad and ugly. It's all part of the game.... just as long as there's more good than bad. Numbers don't matter as much as "Are you having fun".<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle> I'll go years without a miss and then have a year like last year(the worst I can ever recall).... missed 2, wounded 1 and killed 5. That's 10 years of misses in a one week period.

Edited by - davidmil on 01/21/2003 11:48:51

Gfource {Bottom cam hit it causing the bow and my bow arm to jump 2-3 " straight up, sending the arrow another 15-20 foot higher into some adjacent pines. } that brings back memories except it was the top of my thigh trying a sitting shot had a bruise for a long while .

We all have different oppinions , if we did'nt the world would be a BORING place

I've missed at least a handfull due to buck fever until I found out what I was doing wrong. In times of stress I didn't anchor the same way I did when I was shooting on the range. Once I figured that out I began to make good heart lung shots. I lost a deer with a muzzleloader due to using the tiny pistol sabots that came with the rifle. I didn't know any better, they shot great so I assumed that they would be great in the woods. Well I shot a small buck (heart lung) at 20 yards, knocked him flat on his side, then he got back up and ran off without leaving any blood, never to be seen again. Switched to 380 grain buffalo bore bullets, and the problem went away. I wounded a doe with my bow a few years back when the bottom limb of my bow hit the rail around my stand when I shot, the arrow hit the deer in the back leg. I never found the arrow, or the deer or any blood. It happens to everyone at one time or another. The important thing is that we learn from the experience.

"Hey ya'll, watch this"

Can't remember missed shots (35+ years)
but there have been a few.

Lost 3 deer total and you NEVER forget them!

Near 100 WT's and mulies
2 Lopes
2 coyotes
1 redfox
lots of rabbits

practice alot...miss less

"Semper Fi"

ijimmy - OUCH!!!

Shoot often - Hunt always

Interesting topic... I've hunted 4 years shot 18 ..10 bucks/8 does . I've lost 4 of those 1 shldr hit and 3 high behind shldr just below spine no blood trails did everything I could do to find all of them .Most of the misses I had early and all were trying to shoot beyond my range(luckily I never hit any). I have friends that don't shoot extremely well at targets , but consistly make great shots hunting and other friends that are completely the opposite ! Good luck with your hunting!

Ive killed over (30) deer in the past 21 years. Completely missed twice that many (most in my first few years of bowhunting). Non lethal wounded 2 (Saw both deer later in the seasons. Mortally wounded but never found 2, (actually one of them I found the next day when the coyotes dragged her out of the bushes.