I wasn't going to share this, but after two days of reflection I thought if just one person learns from what I may have done wrong....
Thursday, my new Ground Seat arrived from BigJim. So I grabbed it and my ghillie. I set up in the same area I was in two weeks ago (Ghillie Close) where I almost got run over by two does. We finally had a north wind, but a storm was still rolling through. I don't usually hunt in the rain, and it didn't rain for most of the day so I went out in the evening. Of course as luck would have it, a light rain started ten minutes after getting into the woods. I stayed for the two hours until sunset.
Five minutes before sunset, I look over my left shoulder and saw a "fern" move. It was an antler, attached to one of the biggest racked bucks I've ever attempted a shot at. He was feeding/browsing and didn't have a clue I was there. He grunted once and came trotting down the trail. I started to draw and he saw me...stopped at no more than ten yards broadside. Some brush protected him from mid lung and back. Since I was at half draw, I thought the movement would be the same whether I let down or came to full. I went to kill mode. I held for a couple seconds and picked my spot. Released and immediately knew I had (screwed) up. The arrow hit high, about an inch (maybe two) below the top of his back. I could only hope he would drop from a spine hit. He didn't. He hauled butt with my arrow sticking out both sides, with what looked like 3-4" of flesh between each end of arrow. It was no where near lungs and I think over the spine.
More rain came and of course by this time dark too. We looked for a while and found nothing, but I'm 100% sure it was a simple flesh wound.
The Ground Seat worked great.
The ghillie worked great.
I shot at a deer at ten yards that was broadside and looking directly at me. I shot for center of lungs (instead of low heart area, mental mistake). I don't believe I was shaking at all, but adrenaline is funny. Certainly not as much as when the does almost ran me over.
At that range, is it possible my shot went where I aimed and he ducked or did I just shoot high?
I took a bunch of shots today at the same distance, same position, all shots were true in the target.
It's hard not to be disgusted when all the practice ends in failure time after time. I'm confident in my ability to shoot accurately, but for some reason, I have not been successful with deer - 0/5 with 3 consecutive lost animals.
Thanks for listening/reading.
Brian
Topic: Ghillie Close II (Read 491 times)
