I've had three big blunders in my day that cost me respectable bucks and a few fist-fulls of minor mishaps that pissed me off and left me shaking my head! On more than one occasion, I have forgotten vital pieces to a hunt that essentially derailed things before they ever got off the ground. The small screw ups I can deal with, but the "big three" will haunt me forever...
The first came during my first full season of bowhunting in 2001. I had a P&Y 8-point work out an oak flat to within 18 yards of me offering a perfectly broadside shot. I was 25’ up a red oak in my climber and it offered the first lesson in bending at the waist when shooting from an elevated position. Failing to do so, I shot high in the “dead zone” but to a rookie hunter, it looked like the perfect shot. Within 20 minutes, I was on the trail and I jumped the buck twice before backing out to get help. Despite hours of searching with two veteran trackers and a dog, we failed to locate what would have been my first buck. I’m convinced I only hit one lung on that buck and had I simply walked back to the house for a few hours after the shot, I would have found him. That was a very important lesson in giving deer time to die.
The second FUBAR came during the 2008 season. I passed on a handful of deer that season I wish I would have shot, but none more than this beautiful 10-point that Greg and I had on video at a mere 8 steps! In the midst of my quest for a 180” deer, I made a piss poor decision not to shoot this deer and I took TOO long to do so and it cost Greg a shot at the deer as a result. We are both fairly certain this is the same deer the next year and he was essentially the same size in 2008. At 8 steps, you could hear his breathing and it would have made some great video. That was a lesson in taking the shot at a mature buck when you get it because that dream buck you are hunting could already be dead. And in my case, he was dead…
The third screw up is the one that taught me attention to detail is SO important when it comes to killing deer at crunch time. In 2010, I was hunting a deer I called Crazy Rack and I was fairly confident I could kill him early. This was the first mature buck I felt was killable early in the season and he showed me my thinking was spot on when he nearly gave me a shot on opening night. Although I may have screwed up that night by trying to make him stand at last light (he was bedded at 30 yards for several minutes), I would do that same thing again. However, the big mistake came 3 nights later when I made an adjustment to my stand location and put myself right in his wheelhouse on a rare, cold early October evening. I was putting my jacket on when he showed up at 45 yards and in the rush to get ready for the shot, I forgot to zip up my jacket and tuck in my collar. When I came to full draw, my hair trigger of a Stan Shootoff release caught my jacket and slung an arrow in to the tree 15 feet from me at eye level. I never had a chance to recover for a second shot. This deer was within 30 yards of me on the first 2 hunts of the 2010 season and I couldn’t get it done. I never saw him again after that. It was a great lesson in paying attention to detail…
