The very first deer I shot at was with a Bear Whitetail back in the mid to late 70's. Ron and I each had 3 pins on our bows(20-40 yards) and were pretty efficient at those distances. We were both still pretty green though in our yardage estimation and mainly just shot at marked yardage targets.
It was one day during the rut in the middle of the day I grab my bow and head out to kill me a deer, any deer! I walked 500 yards thru the middle of a huge hayfield to a haul road leading back to a pump jack and tank that sat in the middle of a clearing that was about 70 yards wide. To the right of this tank was a very small pond surrounded by cattails and briars. Its about 1:30 in the afternoon on this cool and partly cloud day and I'm still hunting to my stand which lies 100 yards ahead down over the hill beyond this pump jack. As I get to within 50 yards of this jack I glance over towards this pond and I see nothing but big horns walking from my right towards the jack and tank directly in front of me. These were BIG horns and prolly the biggest buck I ever shot at to date. He was at least a 10 or maybe a 12 mainframe but prolly a booner. I was actually not nervous or shaken, I just took an arrow out of my quiver and nocked it on, fastened my release and waited till he was right out in the wide open directly in front of me with his head down. He had no clue I was around! I figured, Oh, he's about eh 25 yards...drew my bow back and anchored split the 20&30 right behind his shoulder and touched it off. It was a beautiful shot, got the surprise and everything but he was more like 55 yards away instead of 25! Rotflmao
Needless to say even though my arrow looked like it was headed towards the sweet spot it dropped way short and he looked my way, rocked that wide huge longtined crown back over his shoulder blades and bounded straight away from me. I simply went looking for my arrow in the tall brown weeds and couldn't find it and turned around and went home! That memory still haunts me to this day but it's still a fond one. Lol