If you miss while hunting...

[shoots_5]

Miss....you mean you guys miss? :wink:

Ok, I'll admit, I've missed a few shots that I really shouldn't have. Most when I was young and had a REALLY bad case of buck fever. My first time out mule deer hunting the first buck I saw was about a 200 inch 4x4 that stepped out at 75 yards....I had a rest on a huge boulder in front of me and was still shaking so bad that i missed him! Ended up killing a tiny little forked horn at about 200 yards....go figure. Anyway, killing a giant buck my first time out would have set way too high of expectations....at least that's what I tell myself to sleep at night!

My first elk hunt was even worse....I think I shot at 13 elk before finally harvesting one....and that elk took 5 shots to finally put it down. Since then though the most I've ever had to use was a second follow up shot to put the animal down and so far I've harvested 18 elk out of 20 years of hunting for them. Thinking back on it, my dad was incredibly patient with me that first year of hunting! Although he does bring it up occasionally to bring me down a peg....

 

[6mm Remington]

It's easy to get all wrapped up in determining if a rifle will shoot .2's or .5's, or even break an inch at a hundred yards from the bench. Most of us need more shooting time, and perhaps some coaching, more than we need better ammo, better rifles or better scopes.
Just a thought. Guy

David I have tears in my eyes that was great. I am 100% with guy. I do PT almost daily , (I am nursing a leg injury so I have been off for to long now) shoot from the bench way to much and have never blamed my gear for a bad shot, and I have made more than one.

My story is opposite many years ago in Meachum Creek Canyon (almost straight down) I was setting on a rock 3/4 of the way down waiting for the sun to come up behind me so I could see into the timber across the canyon. As it came up I saw a you bull feeding directly across from me. This was pre rangefinder days. I got all steady on the pack, good rest and great light with the sun directly behind me directly on the bull. Clear blue sky no wind. As I held mid elk behind the shoulders, I could smell the backstraps frying in the pan. The 180 gr PT sailed across that clear air and struck. There was no resounding wack, nor did the elk even quiver. He looked up and around and stood there, I was perplexed at the least, so I readjusted and sent another on the way. Same result , no flinch, no wack, but he started moving toward the timber. Just as he approached the timber, he again stopped, (not the brightest elk I have run into). I held what I thougt was just over his back sraight lined with the center of his shoulders and sent the last shot I was to have on the way. Just as the rifle kicked off I saw a bullet strike just below his near front foot. I was shooting the 300 WM sighted in probably around 3 1/2 inches high. Clear mountain air, and the rising sun, makes things look really close. He was out there quite a little ways. Never saw him again.

Glad to see someone else is feeling my pain! Great story. I see that you too have not thought about that day hardly ever, at all! :lol:

 

[aka Hunter]

Do you consider it the fault of:

The ammo?
The rifle?
The scope or sights?
Or the shooter?

When I shoot and the deer doesn't drop within sight I never know what/who to blame; however, I ususally think, "How could I have missed?" Most of those "misses" have been short-range, easy shots, and when I check my sights/scope later they've always been within minute-of-deer.

Thus, I typically blame the Gremlins. :shock:

 

[Guy Miner]

"Thus, I typically blame the Gremlins."

Good call! :grin:

 

[onesonek]

It's always me, the one making the decisions.

 

[Teknys]

Miss while hunting........ I can only think of two occasions that I can blame the equipment. The other times ... well there might have been just a few, were me.

Equipment - Both times it was a scope. By the way did you know a Leupold can not with stand the weight of a gun bouncing upside down on a 4-wheeler for a couple of hours!! :shock:
I have been shooting black powder for the previous 20 years and this was my first year with a scope in a long time. When I realized the gun was upside down in the rack on the front of the wheeler I thought "Hope it's OK" :?
We'll the next morning I had a herd elk coming up the hill right in my face and I am sitting there with a cow tag. At 25yards I shoot for a neck at a standing cow and in my mind it was "cut, wrapped and in the freezer". Well she turned trotted off with the other 30 elk. Nope still didn't figure it out! Shot at a doe to fill that tag in the afternoon at 100yds. I was laying prone and solid. Shot twice and I emptied the gun, got back to the wheeler, drove back to the ranch. I had to get with in 25yds to hit a 1' x 1' box. The scope / mount was off that far. Re-checked everything and sighted back in.
I "saved face" with my hunting buddy the next day by taking a 21" whitetail at 355yds (measured) with one shot and a hole in his heart.

 

[Polaris]

Depends. I did have one "miss" definately the fault of a loose scope base screw. Changed poi aprox 1.5' at 100 yards. Hit him in the back of the head instead of high quartering in the lungs. I checked it before the hunt but it must have loosened while walking around.

Every other miss I can blame on myself not seeing a twig or branch. One really long shot I attempted on a known wounded deer missed due to my not knowing correct el. hold at 500+/- yards. I'd never shoot that far on a healthy animal.

Never had to fault the rifle or the ammo. I know my equipment. I Practice from many non-bench shooting positions. I like to use the metal airgun silhouettes and set up a field course around the yard. Some long shots where you have to hold kentucky windage and elevation, some short, some partially obscured or tough angles. No benches, just standard field positions, mostly offhand and field expedient rests. Sometimes I even jog a bit first to get the heart rate up. Really makes a difference shooting at game.

 

[Polaris]

Another note related to this topic, make sure a miss is a miss. Even with todays super bullets (perhaps especially with them) a game animal will not always bang-flop. Sometimes they don't cooperate and leave a well defined or any blood trail to speak of. I've recovered several deer for other hunters that left little or no blood trail with good hits. Know how to call your shot. If you practice enough this should be second nature. I shoot high power and can usually call my 200 yard offhand shots to the number by where the sights were when she went bang. I know where I missed. If the shot felt like a hit, it probably was unless there's a splintered oak limb below line of sight at 5 yards with powder burns .

I hit a 235 lb buck some years ago with 3 154 gr SSTs from a 280 rem at about 50 yards right in the chest cavity. There were only a couple flecks of blood and a few tufts of hair to indicate a hit if you looked really hard. Deer didn't show any signs of lead poisoning either as he bounded away. I heard him drop and thrash some 150 yards away so there was no trailing involved, but many hunters would have thought they missed.

 

[Gm weatherby man]

Oh I have missed plenty, mostly free hand long running shots :roll: , plenty with a bow :lol: . have taken up skeet shooting, bought a range finder, bi-pod.the misses have droped right off for the most part. :wink:

 

[Guest]

Another note related to this topic, make sure a miss is a miss. Even with todays super bullets (perhaps especially with them) a game animal will not always bang-flop. Sometimes they don't cooperate and leave a well defined or any blood trail to speak of. I've recovered several deer for other hunters that left little or no blood trail with good hits. Know how to call your shot. If you practice enough this should be second nature. I shoot high power and can usually call my 200 yard offhand shots to the number by where the sights were when she went bang. I know where I missed. If the shot felt like a hit, it probably was unless there's a splintered oak limb below line of sight at 5 yards with powder burns .

I hit a 235 lb buck some years ago with 3 154 gr SSTs from a 280 rem at about 50 yards right in the chest cavity. There were only a couple flecks of blood and a few tufts of hair to indicate a hit if you looked really hard. Deer didn't show any signs of lead poisoning either as he bounded away. I heard him drop and thrash some 150 yards away so there was no trailing involved, but many hunters would have thought they missed.

Polaris is spot-on. I shot what I thought was a doe early in the rifle season last year, right at the last few minutes of legal shooting light. It was literally about 5min before the "30min after sundown" timepoint. Overcast day, dim light, and I was hunting over a finger of a huge field. I got a slightly quartering broadside shot, at just over 100yds, I estimate, maybe 120 or so. Shot from my 8x57 with a 180gr Nosler BT, and I see the deer hunch a little and run like heck. I give it a few minutes, and walk down to the field where I think the deer was standing. Not the first drop of blood. I search a bit, and find nothing. No blood, no tracks, nothing. So I decide I need better light and I walk back to the truck. After about 2hrs of looking - eventually settling in to evenly spaced transects of the brush the deer ran into, about 80-100yds long per pass, I end up about 60yds from the field and there lays my deer. It turned out to be a screwy buck with awful genetics, points on one antler going three different horizontal directions, with that spike ending in a blunt "fist" of bone, and the other antler a smooth spike with a graceful point. He tastes good, but if I'd listened to my discouraged thoughts after searching for 45min, I'd be hungry instead of full.

 

[300WSM]

Guy,
that is so true.
When a person doesn't shoot very much they get rusty. Even if you don't think you do...the rust factor is there. Everything is a factor, from concentration to the feel of the trigger and the break over of it, to even the way the target/game looks in the scope.

Ideally the best thing to do is to shoot the rifle you will be doing the hunting with as much as possible. And especially turning that on when the season gets closer.

Having said that shooting anything is still better than nothing and it keeps the rust to a minimum.

Shooting nothing and then grabbing the rifle and head out on the hunt is asking for bad shots and missing when that trophy once in a lifetime presents itself.

Personally if my shot misses it is all me. As I have crossed all "t's" with the hand load to zeroing the rifle I leave nothing to chance. If I miss it is my fault. Exception being something freak happening like a reticle becoming detached from inside the scope.