Notice : No animals were harmed in the telling of this story.
Since my wife and I just had newborn twins, yesterday afternoon was my first time out this deer season.
But I have a 3D range in the backyard and practice every single day. Frankly, I've been shooting lights out good, at least on a lifeless plastic target.
I pre-prepped around a dozen natural ground blinds over the summer, using lots of pine tree's, deadfall, etc. I have a few for every possible wind and they are "decorated" nicey with natural camo.
My place has been timbered in stages, so we have tons of very thick new growth. It's a mix of pines, oak, beech, maple, choke cherry and spruces we've planted. Lots of it is so thick you have to trim openings with a chainsaw in order to have a decent window.
That also makes for pretty fast shooting and you have to stay alert because when the deer show, they're right there.
I have a few set up for east winds and we had that yesterday, so I knew where I wanted to go, plus it's on a great trail.
We've killed countless deer from this location over the last 40 years. And range is no mystery, it's 15 paces. My buddy killed a 9pt there last year.
So, I get situated around 4pm. Light east winds at first but then it died and got chilly by 6pm. About 6:15 I hear a deer trotting down the trail and slowing down right near my opening, coming from my left to right. I can see thru a couple peep openings that it's a nice mature doe.
So, as she's behind a small clump of pines before my 8 foot opening, I start to draw...she hits the spot where I want her...and I shoot about 2" right over her lungs! Arrgh!
But, she didn't know what happened. She bounded only about 15-20 yards and started stomping her feet for a minute. I quickly knocked another arrow and then you could tell that she wanted to go back where she came from, now from my right to my left.
I see her nose and legs hitting my shooting opening again and I can't believe my good fortune. She's mine now! So I draw, she's perfectly broadside...and my arrow zipped over her back in the exact same place! 2" over the lungs! ARRGH!
She bounded off for good and I almost fell off my chair with a self mocking laugh saying "you gotta be *@#$ing kidding me!". ARRGH! LOL
To make matters worse, I just got some new 210 gr Silver Flames and couldn't find one or the two. (I'll go back and look later).
So what did I do wrong?
To be honest, even though I've killed roughly 200 deer over the years (we've had lots of antlerless/crop tags) this was my first sit this year, my first deer seen this season, I was geeked to be out hunting with the new twins and all and I did get a little doe fever when everything worked perfectly, but for my shooting form.
In hindsight, I think I picked my head up instead of bearing down, because I wanted to watch the arrow on my "can't miss" dream chip-shot.
I hit my anchor, thought I picked a spot, but I think my head was straight up, but I don't normally shoot that way.
Any thoughts? Both arrows were in the same spot, perfect right to left, except about a foot high. Both shots were about identical. I did not misjudge the range because I know the range and I've hunted this area forever.
I'm going to shoot in the yard later and shoot normal and then try picking my head up to see if the arrows hit high.
That or was just doe fever and I lost concentration and didn't pick a spot well enough.
Oh well, at least it was 2 clean missed. But now I've lost some confidence where my confidence was very high prior to the choke, I mean chokes, with an S. LOL
Topic: Arrgh! Missed a chip-shot...twice! Opinions? (Read 816 times)
