What’s better than a miss?
How about a miss with an audience.
We all friends here for the most part so I’ll tell one on myself.
I pulled in down at a place we hunt to eat my lunch. Then I was going to hunt a little. Well. I sold my brother Mitch’s Drake pullover for him and he was going to stop by and get the money. We’re shooting the shucks. He says “Hey. There’s a doe right there.” A big doe has stepped out on the edge of the field. I step out with the muzzleloader. Boom. Miss. He’s watching through his scope and said no reaction to shot other than running.
In my defense I got a cataract in my shooting eye that’s getting worse. Also, I set up the muzzleloader for thick woods hunting and zeroed at 50. The deer was a shade over 100. I still shoulda hit it. I rushed just a tad because she was looking hard.
.My wife said “You poor thing.” I told her it was okay. It was “catch and release” deer hunting. I woulda been sore if it’d been a big buck. I’m going to shoot at 100.
Funny thing is there’s a stand in that corner. It would have been a 30-yard shot if I’d been in stand.
Dammit.

That’s how it goes, go get in that stand tomorrow

I’ll tell one too AC. Several years ago I went with 3FFarms and another buddy to his old hunting camp in Louisiana. Well I was a green deer hunter and had probably only killed 3 or 4 deer in my life at this point. I think that morning I saw 1 doe and then we made plans to meet at a big shooting house and eat lunch. Well we are sitting there eating funyions and gas station fried chicken when a couple of does step out in the lane to our north. Brandon asks who wants to shoot a doe and I grabbed my rifle. Immediately I start breathing heavy, dang near hyperventilating. Here I am with 2 buddies watching me and I could feel the pressure. The big doe is walking towards us and I calm myself down and get down on the scope and she turns to the right and starts to trot into the woods. I relaxed, set back, and said well I’m not going to get a shot on her. I no sooner got the words out of my mouth when Brandon let out this blood curdling banshee scream HEYYYYYY that scared the shat out of me and the deer. She froze and in half a second I sent a round down range that I’m sure was closer to hitting the moon than the deer. I was embarrassed, my buddy matt is sitting in the corner eating fried chicken laughing his arse off and Brandon knows I’ve completely whiffed on this deer. I couldn’t get out of that shooting house fast enough. I asked brandon where the property lines were and just started walking 😂

If it's AU haybale matt he's got no room to be laughing at you for missing! I'll just leave it right there

When I was about 17 i had 3 nice rack bucks across a big dip in a pasture and ran out of shells cuz they didnt know I was shooting at em...it sucks to be hunting and have shot but no bullet.. i was holding over there back and shouldn't have been...i got one of em later tho lol

I missed one in front of dogs With probably 10 people watching back in the day, with a shotgun and with YOUNG eyes, haha.

I have missed one or two does in my 5-6 years of hunting. However, the misses that were about to really hurt, were my first buck. Most deer I had shot within 50 yards. This buck was around 320 yards, at the far end of a power line plot. I believe my scope was a little bit off, not enough to really notice at closer ranges but enough to make a pretty good difference at that range. I shot, and missed. No reaction from him except just looking around. Second shot, missed again. Same reaction. Just sort of looked around. Thankfully I saw the bullet hit the ground and that gave me enough to adjust my hold, and I dropped him in his tracks on the third shot. A minute later he got up and tried to walk off, but fell back down 5-6 yards from where he originally fell. I was so thankful. It was my first buck.

This would have hurt to miss a third time and he get away.

Mitch was by the house just a little bit ago.
He said “Ain’t you glad you didn’t kill that doe?”
I said “Hell, yeah.”
I woulda spent whole afternoon “skinning up” as my uncles used to say.
I did have to break down the muzzleloader and clean it.

When I first started I wanted to shoot any deer I saw. After a year or so, I realized how much I hate cleaning them myself, and how much I also hate paying a processor. It makes it easy to keep it at 1-2 deer a season.

That’s who it was.

Never, and I mean never, hunt with someone that’s a better shot than you.

That’s also the trip that did me in on gas station fried chicken and funyons. I don’t know how many lbs of each we ate, but it was a lot. And for those of you wondering, Southwood did end up walking to the property line and more to get away from the all out hell we were giving him.

Many a time my dad has told me, “don’t screw up a good hunt by killing a deer.”

Pretty sage advice as I’ve aged.

I missed one 10 times running across a field chasing a doe. I had to get back in the truck and get more bullets then shot the last 5 shots off the top of the truck. Finally he stopped at 350 ish at a barbed wire fence and I held high and shot he spun immediately and I knew he was hit. Trailed him toward the county rd where a truck stopped and did something then shut the tailgate and continued on down the road. Last drop of blood I found from him was in the county rd about where the truck stopped.