Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Your most disappointing "miss"

It's a slow Saturday afternoon. I'm sure I should be doing something productive.

Nah, this is better

So with that in mind I thought it might be fun to see whether anyone else ever "missed"..........



My most disappointing miss in the last couple years came about after a long hot September day at the lease last year. I had been filling up feeders and fixing things that seem to just quit from month to month.

I have a spot that is at the back of our lease. It is about 1.5 miles in off the main gravel road we use to access our hunting areas. The path to access this spot is just wide enough to get an ATV through. I'll park my ATV and walk the last half mile uphill as its too thick and steep to access it any other way than on foot.



I call it "The Cliffs" as where I sit is a sheer rock face that is about 100' above the floor of a 350+/- acre bowl. Directly below is a dry creekbed that runs in an east/west direction






If you look closely you can see the spin cast feeder. It's about 160 yds out, to the right of the dry creek bed.





I had been working all day in the heat and had let myself get too hot and somewhat dehydrated. IIRC I got out about 5 PM. This time of year one can see until almost 9 PM.

I keep game cameras set out from time to time and Had picked up pix of a group of javelina that would come in from time to time. IIRC I had a half dozen pix over a three month period. Guess they would range in and out of the area as they did not show up on game cam regularly.



I was jazzed as I've been on this lease since 2004 and had not seen the first Javelina.

It was about an hour before dark and I was glassing the bowl. Sometimes will see Aoudad up high near the tops of the surrounding hills. I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I lowered the glasses and got just a glimpse of the hindquarter as it entered the brush and was lost to sight. I thought to myself that was strange. Sure didn�t walk like a hog. I watched the area for a few minutes and went back to glassing. About 10 minutes later I caught motion again on my left at the same spot where the critter had disappeared into the brush. I put my binocs on it and damn if it wasn�t a javelin and not only that, a monster of one at that. The javelinas I�ve killed are usually mid 20 to low 30 lbs. This guy had to have been at least 60 lbs. He was a stud puppy for a Javelina. He was walking a game trail on the far side of the creekbed and I figured where he would come out would be about 150 yds. Too far for me on a freehand shot.
I was not in the most appropriate spot or position to make the the shot.

This afternoon I was shooting my Rem 700 KS in 300 H&H, zero�d for 200 yds.

[img]http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e129/glenn1221/latestgunstuff/IMG_0366_zpsd8f606f4.jpg[/img]

I was on an incline with my feet about 12 inches below my butt. I tucked my shooting sticks into my boot tops in order to get a rest, but due to my quivering from the heat and dehydration taken with the �buck fever� I was experiencing I could not seem to get a steady rest.

He came out of the brush and I knew I had a small window to make the shot before he disappeared for good.
I couldn�t get a steady sight pix, but I figured this might be the only chance I got and I let fly. I didn�t hear the "whop" and I sensed that I shot over him. It takes almost 30 minutes to get down from my perch to the ATV and then drive to where the Javelina was when I shot, but only 10 minutes or so to scramble down the cliff, which I did. I looked high and low till dark for any evidence of blood or fur, but to no avail. I was elated that I had got the shot, but bummed that I had missed. I hate missing.
Best,

GWB

40 yard miss with a 30.06 in a tree stand, at a doe in light brush. Never new what the heck happened and it still haunts/taunts me to this day? A humbling experience none the less.

This one. Northern Arizona and on national TV for all the world to see. Ugghhh!

heres a good one. 2010. sittin in my box stand. chair facing my left opening. i look to the right of me and here comes a nice buck making his way thro the field. i crouch down trying to turn my chair around. expecting him to still be a ways off i lift my head and there he is. maybe 8 yards from my stand. i slowly get up and lift my rifle but of course he sees me and darts off about 70 yards then stops. i got him in my crosshairs but ive never shook so bad in my life. fired a shot thinking i got him. no blood. found a very small chunk of meat which one of my friends said means i probably grazed his leg or something. looked for days for that deer. took awhile to get over that one. ida done things a bit differently if i could go back

I just watched that the other night Randy��for once, you don't suck.

I missed a warthog on my first safari with an open sighted 8x57 at about 70 yards. I had soooooo much practice with that rifle Id swear I could hit thrown clay pigeons with it. Apparently couldn't hit a stationary warthog out in the open�..

Was elk hunting in Colo many years ago with my buddies from PA. They set me up in a tree stand. This is the first and only time I have ever hunted form a tree stand and it was up a lodgepole right on a game trail.
I hear something on my left behind me and here comes 2 bulls. Since they are up slope from me I am right at their level and totally exposed. I started hyperventilating and my heart was pounding so loud I couldn't believe they couldn't hear it. As the bigger one passes behind a tree I tried to turn and raise the rifle but they saw me and start hauling down the mountain. I swung and shot at the bigger bull but he didn't flinch or slow down. Climbed down and tracked him several hundred yards in the fresh snow but found no blood and he didn't show any signs of slowing down.
A couple of days later one of my friends is hunting towards the bottom of the canyon and tells me he found a dead bull tangled up in a fence at the bottom of the canyon. Next day I go down there and here is the bull I shot at. Looked him over real good and could not find a bullet hole in him.
About 50 yards down from where I gave up looking for him he came to a fence and when he tried to jump it, he caught his front feet between the top and next wire and it flipped him over and he broke his neck.
If I would have tracked him just a little farther I would have found him. Also, if I had just relaxed, he would have probably walked down the trail right under me and I could have shot right between his shoulders from about 10 ft above him.

I saw you do that. You suck. Shoulda took me.

Man, I'm sorry to hear that Bt.

A miss? Buck fever walloped me and I plum forgot the rifle in my hands, I can still with eyes closed see it.

while a senior in high school I sat in an oak dropping acorns with by Ben Pearson Hunter. I had never taken a deer with a bow. A bobcat stalked in on a doe and two fawns of the year and I hit it in the shoulder with the Bear Razor Head tipped MicroFlight.

After retrieving the cat I climbed the tree again. 30 minutes later a big 10 point buck came by in front of me on the same trail the bobcat had used. I don't know if it dropped at the sound or what but the arrow went right over its back.

It was many years later before archery videos would show how often deer duck an arrow, but the misery of missing that shot had already stabbed at me for ages.

BigFin Please keep it real as allways I'am fan.

Couple years ago, I hurt my ankle pretty good at work about 3 weeks before my deer hunt, so I wasn't very mobile.. Opening evening I glass up a stud 105"+ Coues deer.. I couldn't get to it in time so I sent my buddy and his girlfriend after it. She missed him at 200 yards.

The next morning I glassed him up again but couldnt make a move on him

Two days later I glassed him up again and headed after him. I got to 672 and let it rip. My buddy who was spotting said I drilled him and that he was DEAD! We walked over to where he was and found out I missed just a touch low. That was the biggest coues Ive shot at.


I also missed another 105" type buck a couple years ago...

If only I would have connected with both those bucks, I would have two very nice bucks on the wall!

8 yard herd bull with a bow and a 55 yard shot at this deers twin, ducked the string. Except, he was in the velvet and it was one year later and one mile away from where I got this one with a bow.

I had a chance to take out a coyote a couple years ago while sitting in my tripod. The tripod was on a little knoll and there was a pond below it. The 'yote pocked his head out of the grass by the pond about 70 yards away. I put the crosshairs right between his eyes and squeezed off a shot.

But forgot my Tikka was zeroed 1.5" high at 100 AND I was shooting downhill. Flew it right over his head.

I missed a prairie dog today. The shot musta been real close, because it scared him so bad he lost his brain in his haste to escape down his hole.....

I have missed twice
6 by 6 bull 50 yards/ rifle/witness
Sheep killer responsible for 50+ lambs under 100 of sticks/ 2 witness

interesting deer

The gal next door getting the paper,I had spam sandwiches..grin

To eat the gal has to be pushing 70ish though she rides the depends rather tight..