How many missed opprotunities have you had with a bow on a buck that you would mount? A miss, not being ready,wrong tree, orbad shotand couldn't find. I had at least 3. One was a bad shot, one was the wrong tree, the last was shot the wrong deer and then right one came by and saw the dead one and freaked out!!

Too many to count......I had a tremendous run of badluck up until about 5 years ago..... I've had atleast 6 or 7 boderline pope's within 20yds that never came home with me!

3-4 at least. Why did you have to bring up those bad memories now I have to go back to therapy.[:@]

Luckily for me......I had 2nd chances at both bucks on my wall. I clipped the one I shot last year in the leg in 2006. I had a couple later encounters (and one previous)with him that resulted in no shot opportunity.

I took a shot at my '06 8-pointer (day after Thanksgiving)that hit a vine and deflected. I found that arrow, lodged in a tree, last year. I ended up killing him on 12/12 of the same year (2 weeks later).

I needed a possible P&Y caliber 8-pointer to take 2-3 more steps last year.....hunting PA. He got as close as 22yds....but offered no ethical shot.

In 2005 I had a real bad year. I missed three bucks, all of them would have made P&Y easy. One was a high 150-low 160 deer. I had messed up my shoulder that summer and the doctor wanted to cut me in July, but said that there would be now way I could pull my bow back by the start of season. I decided to wait until December to have it cut. Big mistake on my part, with the pain I was having I should not have even been in a tree. The mistakes we make I guess.

Missed a 150" 10 pointer about 4 yrs ago, I got buck fever, and as Forrest Gump says "That's all I got to say about that."

i was torn between hunting an old wooden stand down in a draw, or hunting a satnd on the edge of the field just 250 yards away......my uncle sat in a stand where he could see the old wooden stand at about 100 yards.right around 8:30 the biggest buck my uncle has ever seen(he has harvested a 174" 12 point) ran right by the old wooden stand chasing a doe

Once, My first year archery hunting. I started tracking to soon and found where he laid down twice but I kicked him up. I still kick my self to this day for that. I have since recovered every deer.

Where to start on this one![>:]

I know of 3 different 140" range 8 point bucks that got the free pass from me because at the time I didn't think they would make books. All 3 of these bucks on different occasions were at 12 yards with my bow hanging on the bow hanger being I had no intentions on shooting them. This all happened with in the last 4 years. For some stupid reason the last 4 years or so I've had trouble scoring bucks up in a tree, specially 8 pointers. I've been consistently low while scoring them. Normally I'm pretty good at this but as of late these big 8 pointers have been fooling me with there size of rack. Last year when I shot my 140 1/8" 8 point I didn't know if he would make books or not, I knew he was close but I figured he was 5" or so short if not more. I was 20" off on him. The only reason I shot that buck I got last year was because something in my gut said this is your buck, maybe it was because he came in so awesome to my rattling, who knows I guess. I had him at 10 yards for 25 minutes before I decided to shoot him. I had no intentions on shooting him the 1st 25 minutes he was under my stand tree. Boy am I happy I went with my gut feeling or I'd still be letting bucks like this by this upcoming year. It opened my eye's on my scoring no dought! Those other 3 bucks I let go were damn close to him in size and tine length, maybe even a tad bigger! I can't believe I've been that far off the last few years. This year I'll be paying a little more extra attention to this.

About 7 years ago I had what I thought was an 8 point coming down the trail to my stand. I seen him coming and I thought to myself, nope he won't make P&Y, he's about 120" to 125". I always let border line P&Y bucks walk. So I left my bow hanging on the bow hanger and watched him come by at 12 yards broadside. When he was broadside I then noticed I just screwed up and let a P&Y buck go by. He had 4" end forks which I didn't see earlier which made him a 10 point and would of easily put him at 130" to 135". Man I was depressed after that, no ones fault but my own though. Thats just stupid on my part!! From now on my bow always comes down if I see a deer coming whether its a doe, fawn, or a small buck. One just never knows.

I've let allot of nice bucks go by as well that were in that 25 to 30 yard range. A little to far for my recurve.

Really only 2. One slipped in on me and walked through my shooting lanes before I had the opportunity to shoot him. I grunted to him a couple times when got about 70 yards out, but it didn't work. That was a 120 class 8 point.

This one hurts. I hunted the morning, had some errands to run, so got down around 10. At straight up noon I climbed back up my tree. I no sooner got to hunting height when a 140 class 10 point ran a doe directly under my stand.....Yeah, that's right. My bow was still on the ground, I hadn't even been able to pull it up yet. And yeah, he stopped perfectly broadside at 15 yards......Didn't have a clue I was there......Just to rub it in a little, he came back several minutes later and was w/in 20 yards, but never stepped into the clear.....I still have tears over that one.....