feel terrible
#1
Spike
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 34
feel terrible
All,
Not much anyone can do, but had to vent a bit.
I shot a doe last night, just before sunset. She was at most at 40ft and I had a perfect shot. I found the arrow full of blood. After she was hit, she darted off to the woods where I was expecting to find her very quickly.
After 7h of searching we have found nothing. At one point there were 5 of us looking. Bad thing it was raining so no blood trail.
This is my 1st shot ever at a live animal so feel kind of blue. Does this happen often? I have replayed the scene a thousand times and know my shot was good and hit the vitals (if not it was a narrow miss which I now have to think is what happened); I was stable and have taken many practice shots with my Excalibur.
That is all!
M.
Not much anyone can do, but had to vent a bit.
I shot a doe last night, just before sunset. She was at most at 40ft and I had a perfect shot. I found the arrow full of blood. After she was hit, she darted off to the woods where I was expecting to find her very quickly.
After 7h of searching we have found nothing. At one point there were 5 of us looking. Bad thing it was raining so no blood trail.
This is my 1st shot ever at a live animal so feel kind of blue. Does this happen often? I have replayed the scene a thousand times and know my shot was good and hit the vitals (if not it was a narrow miss which I now have to think is what happened); I was stable and have taken many practice shots with my Excalibur.
That is all!
M.
#4
Spike
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Livonia, NY
Posts: 71
All you can do is, pick your head up and keep hunting. Shooting at game is always different than shooting at targets. If you took a high probability shot, feel you did everthing correctly and something went wrong, then just try move on. NONE of us like to wound a deer and not recover it. In the excitement, it is easy to make mistakes. Believe me, I have shot and not seen the small tree right in front of me. It happens to everyone. Good luck and safe hunting.
#5
You did all that you could to recover that deer, so don't be too hard on yourself. Anyone that has bow hunted very long, more than likely has had that happen at least once. Good luck the rest of the year and I hope that you get one soon.
#7
#8
It's all part of hunting, and just another lesson to be learned in life...........that is, if you hunt.
So, consider yourself lucky - non hunters never get to experience the close "relationship" we were originally intended to play in the balance of nature.
It's how you conducted yourself after the shot that really counts..............
I think you can sleep well my friend.
Enjoy your time in the great outdoors.......................it's what life is really all about !
So, consider yourself lucky - non hunters never get to experience the close "relationship" we were originally intended to play in the balance of nature.
It's how you conducted yourself after the shot that really counts..............
I think you can sleep well my friend.
Enjoy your time in the great outdoors.......................it's what life is really all about !
#9
Fork Horn
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 120
My main question is how soon after did you go look for her? If you moved in quickly she could have jumped up an ran off.
#10
Fork Horn
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 320
Question for the OP: How long did you wait before searching for the deer? It's possible that you didn't wait long enough and bumped it. See the bow hunting forum for a sticky-thread on tracking (what to do after the shot)...some great advice in that thread.
As others have said, this does happen occasionally, but you owe it to yourself - and the animal - to learn as much from this incident so that it doesn't happen again if at all possible. Tough luck...best of luck to you the next time you get a shot.