Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game When is the last time you missed?

The last thing I can remember missing was an elk cow 30 years ago. Using my buddy's '06 complete with Tasco scope.....which he never sighted in ( but didn't tell me till later).....
She was a loooong way away and I used every method I could think of to estimate the range , held where i thought I should, and fired.
I was so wrong, and the range was so far that the noise didn't even scare her.....




Thats my story and Im sticking to it.....

Poobs, about 20 years ago I borrowed a 250-3000 Savage(99) and used it to shoot a buck antelope.


Maybe 300-400 yards away.


At the shot the buck dropped and the owner of the rifle thought it was great.


One small problem, it wasn't the buck that I was even aiming at....

I haven't borrowed a rifle since!

I missed a cow elk this year at about 250 yds across a draw.

Shot, no reaction. Moved 10 yds and stopped. Shot again. No reaction. (Herd on the move now).

Hiked over there to look and there she lay - one perfectly placed shot. the other? clueless. both were identical on my end and about as "gimme" a shot as one could dream up.

Last time I missed:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/8511244/BBQ,_Beer_and_the_3_shot_buck#Post8511244

I was with a professional wolfer one time when we met another coyote hunter coming down the two track. We yarned a few minutes and the other fellow mentioned that he had never missed a coyote. As we drove on the old wolfer squinted and said, "He's either a liar or he ain't shot many coyotes."

I missed a 3 point whitetail two years ago on snow, shooting 150 yards into shadow with the sun just rising over a bank 30 feet above his back. Not a hair nor a drop of blood did we find. Turned out that the buck was behind a thin screen of leafless brush I could not see and my grandson with me defends my shooting by claiming that the bullet hit one of the twigs and deflected.

I missed one time. Actually emptied my whole mag and didn't kill one. I 'heard' an elk mew in a patch of brush. Since I had a either sex tag, I opened fire. All that shooting musta pissed off a hunter on the other side. He was a cussin' up a storm before he left. I never did find a dead critter. But then again, I was using a 270......

Pretty sure I hit the rim 3 or 4 times a try....the floor or the wall maybe.....that ain't a miss is it

Isn't that what that fancy fuzzy and absorbent hugger rug is for

Missed a whitetail in VA 3 years ago. Since then I'm 5 animals with 5 shots.

Missed a cow elk once at about 80 yards. I was rested with a rest, she was standing broadside. Few evergreen dead limbs between us no bigger than large twigs.
I tracked that elk for about 3 hours, over and over again, and never found one drop of blood, or hair, nor could I ever find a limb that had been broken.

I will never know what went wrong, but it did.

Missed a buck once at a couple hundred yards, again rested with a rest. Second shot hit picture perfect, right where the first should have. There was some brush between us, maybe 40 or 50 yards from the deer, but nothing closer. Again no idea except cold gun in both cases, but that is not an acceptable excuse.

That's the only two I can recall of many big game critters, over several decades of hunting

I missed a big coues buck in the light fog twice last year. The deer just stood there at each shot. Both were good shots.


The next day the fog had cleared and I reranged the area. 440 yards. The previous day the fog was giving me readings of 560.

I missed a running mule deer buck about 190" this year. He was bedded in a giant thick flat. I got to with 60 yards of him and still didn't see him. He jumped up and I shot him. Unfortunately in front of his vitals at the time was a 2" palo verde stem which I center punched.

Good stuff Sam -

Wisconsin late antlerless season a few years back, I missed 2 shots in a row a half hour apart. And this with a rifle that I didn't think I could miss with.

I decided I was going to kill a deer with a handgun, S&W 629 Mountain Gun, open sights. I had hunted for 2-3 days and never saw a buck to shoot, doe were not allowed. I stood up to stretch, turned around and there was a nice 8pt about 15-20yds behind my stand. I eased my gun out of the holster, cocked the hammer, leveled down and fired. At the shot the buck mule kicked, jumped a bound or two and stood there. My heart is in my throat, I'm shaking, and I am patting myself on the back at the great shot I just made. He stands there for a minute and starts feeding. My mind, not working, is thinking he's fixing to fall over. I watched him feed into the pine thicket and walk off. I figure my bullet is still in orbit.

This fall, took a new antelope hunter with me, Air Force Cadet, and his dad. We drove up to WY, introduced them to the landowner and began hunting. We drove out behind his house and there they were, about 20 of them standing in a field. I eased closer and stopped in some brush on the road. We crept out, antelope oblivious to our existence. I told my buddy he was up first, gave him a range of 302 and waited, he looked at me once or twice as if to say, is it really this easy? He fired, she dropped.
I had my scope on one at 210 yards that he didn't see. I squeezed from a sitting position on a good solid rest. Shot right over the back of her and the whole herd took off.
Still not sure what happened, but both dad and Cadet said, you shot right over her! I was feeling stupid.
We found some later and I dropped her at 320, I'm chalking it up to "she was too close."

First shot I ever took at an cow elk, 75 yards and I threw 2 of them over the cow elks back from the prone position non the less, ah buck fever...... LOL..

A couple of years later I had gotten over the bug, and was planting my shots, and took my first bull.

Saddlesore had a lot to do with me getting my first elk. I had shared a story with him about shooting pickle sized cucumbers off hand at 100 yards when I was a kid. I still remember that night in the wall tent after missing that cow elk... Perfectly quiet as we're turning in, and I'm trying to remember pulling the shot....
Out of the darkness I hear - Hey Spot would it help ya if went out tonight and tied some pickles on those elk..

About ten years ago, I built myself a sweet Remington 700, 300WSM. Bedded, blueprinted, glass stock, yada yada yada. Had some loads worked up and ready to hunt!

I was sitting on a giant soybean field in a tree stand, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. When at 2:30 pm, a nice 9 point came out at 300 yds. He was munching beans and broadside when the shooting began. I emptied my magazine, reloaded, and emptied it again. The deer never moved. No rushed shots, actually, as the sweat started, I got more intense and focused with each "bang". Out of ammo, I watched the deer meander out of the field.

Dumbfounded, I got down and headed home. I checked my scope with my bore sighter, and found it to be about a foot high and a foot right! Checked rings, bases, all was tight. The only thing I could think, was someone twisted my turrets, without me knowing about it at camp! Still use that scope today, on another rig, without issue.

Never found "the joker", but it was way to far off both ways for it to have just been bumped.

Obviously a BS story. If you'd been shooting a .270, you'd have left with that other hunter.....

It was 2004 outside Jackson Wyoming. An offhand shot at a very nice 4x4 maybe 80 yards away. He was broadside looking away from me. Just flatazz missed him with my 338-06.

I can't believe this is the only rise I could muster about the 'sound shot' miss.

I missed a 40 yard shot on a white tail a couple years ago. I had a problem with my rifle and borrowed another hunter in my partys. It was a nice rifle but firing hand-loads of dubious origins. After a total miss we took 10 shots at a target 100 yards away. 6 or 7 were more or less on but several were no where to be found!