Gonna have to disagree with you on the bow shooting, General. It’s impossible for anyone to hold a pin on a bow sight perfectly still. Once you get to full draw and line everything up, you start letting the pin float around or back and forth on the spot you want to hit. Once you have your float under control, you should focus clearly on the spot you want to hit. If you’re focus is on the pin when the bow goes off, that where you’ll hit. Since you can’t hold the pin perfectly still, the majority of the time the pin is not on the exact spot you’re intending to hit. Target panic with a bow comes from people with ocd tendencies thinking the pin has to be perfectly on the intended spot when the bow goes off. This leads to them hammering the trigger as soon the pin crosses the spot.

Dang,

Why didn't you just go on ahead and call me out by name...

Tupi - I know what you are talking about with target panic. Every so often with a doe I’ll just amped up so badly I don’t feel like I can make a controlled shot. It normally happens when I’ve been watching one for a while before finally getting the shot opportunity. Then sometimes it completely goes away. Doesn’t seem to happen with bucks, especially if there’s not much time to think. All I can say is it seems to happen more toward the beginning of the season when you haven’t seen a deer in the crosshairs for a while. I would take the advice from these guys here and then try to shoot your way out of it by killing a couple deer.

Thanks scout , I’m trying to do that as we speak , still in the stand . I have a “ I will redeem myself “ mentality . It’s nice to know so many others have experienced it .

Something that I think helps out is you’re overall mentality going into the situation…..My high school football coach used to make us sit before a game and sorta meditate I guess you could say…..We were suppose to envision what winning looked like…..see ourselves doing our job…….focus on accomplishing what we came to do….etc......I take a similar mentality into the woods with me….I don’t spend my time thinking about “Oh I hope I don’t mess up!”…….I spend my time thinking about getting the job done…..thinking positive......you came to kill something.......get yer game face on!!......Mental focus

......I spend most of my time thinking about the little debbie cakes in my bag these days.......

Haha! I think we are all at that place some point in life

Update ! So I hate this and it’s terrible but the the buzzards found my deer from yesterday about 75 yards in some thick stuff from the field , we looked a while for blood and come up with none . I don’t know how I feel about this I had rather missed than the deer waste but it’s helped my confidence that I hit the deer . Weird

2nd deer I killed this year - I did not find until next day - it had ruined - Hated it - no blood - ran into briar thicket - once I saw him - probably took me 25 minutes to cut my way to him - he was sitting up on his knees w head up - briars so thick he did not make it all the way down

It happens - congrats on your deer
Did u get any pics?

Thanks , it was a doe , I was going to top off the freezer . As a spiritual person it was really bothering me the waste and then it it kind of hit me that it was meant to be and was ok that I really tried to find it yesterday with help and I had done what I could reasonably do .

I use to let it tear me up worse - but if u put up good effort to look and put in good time Looking - Go home and sleep good

If no blood - it makes it hard

😆😆😆

I know a few more people that have had it, not just you.

I never get it bow or gun hunting. Calm as a stone cold killer. Now turkeys are a different thing altogether....

X2.

I dont shoot does anymore-havent in over 20 years but I do know the bucks do not bother me until I get down to track. I guess it is my minds way of making me think he may get away if I dont see him fall. I always try for lungs just behind the shoulder. Daddy would make an awful fuss about shooting one in the shoulder and making a mess of the meat. Most deer for me dont drop in their tracks when shot through the lungs, so I get excited every time they run away. At my age now, this is about all that will give me the shakes!

B

I don't because Deer don't shoot back..... there is nothing to worry about.

I used to miss, wound and mame alot of deer when I started hunting. It all came down to how fast I pull the the trigger. Id get too excited and rush the shot. now I try to pull the trigger as slow as I can. but I did skim the bottom of ones belly one time, !/2" from the bottom of the belly and killed it. you wouldn't believe it till you saw it.

I used to struggle with this bad many years ago. Then I started shooting a lot more. When I say shooting, I'm not talking about off rests from a solid bench. I'm talking about shooting in a way that's similar to the ways I actually hunt. I do a lot of front rest only shooting since plenty of my hunting is from ladders and shooting houses. This time of the year, my 12 year old son and I will go through 200-400 22's a week. None of which are off of a bench. Practice builds the muscle memory necessary to naturally settle the reticle where it needs to be. Do I still get nervous, of course, that's part of hunting. Been a lot of damn years since I lost one and he's killed 20+ animals without a loss.

That’s just part of it. It’s why we hunt. Seems the first deer or two I see at the beginning of a new season I get the shakes and shook up bad. As season goes on, I feel like I can control it a lot better.

Same here rack hunter

I agree that its all just a part of it....If we were all stone cold killers then there wouldnt be anybody's shirttail to cut off and poke fun of around the campfire.

Create a firing sequence and do it the same way ever time.
Then you don’t think about it.
When you flip the switch in your head to kill, it just happens. Get excited after the shot.