Ever mess up a ten yard shot?

[Yoder]

Friday morning I had a doe come in around 8:30. She came in pretty quick on the trail I was sitting on. I thought she was going right under my tree and she turned and went by on my right side. I bleated and stopped her, had my pin right on her chest and pulled the trigger. She mule kicked and then just walked away like nothing happened. Once I seen how she reacted I knew I screwed up. I sat for two more hours then got down to check my arrow. There was no blood on the arrow, just fat and hair. I followed drops of blood about 200 yards. She stopped at two different scrapes. I'm pretty confident she will be ok. The shot was 10 YARDS! WTF? I could have made that shot in my sleep, but I didn't. I know exactly what I did. I dropped my left arm. I was 25ft up and the shot angle was a little steep. I wasn't thinking about keeping good form and bending at the waist. I wish I would have missed completely but luckily it was a grazing shot. Just something to think about next time you are hunting from an elevated position.

 

[KoolBreeze]

I emptied my quiver one time at small buck underneath my stand when I first started how hunting. Never touched him. Had to stand up and yell to run him off. Shit happens.

 

[505Wapiti]

Unfortunately about 25 years ago I messed up a 12 yard shot on a beautiful buck from a tree stand. Still unsure how and why, only thing that made me feel better was my buddy killed him with a rifle about 6 days later, and he was barely hanging on. Surprised coyotes hadn’t taken him down in that amount of time. I still feel terrible about it.

 

[92xj]

Shot a foot high at 8 yards on a doe, ran to 54 and stopped, smoked her there, go figure.

 

[eltaco]

I’m curious how you determined he was 10yds. Was that line of sight distance or compensated for angle? It’s a pretty common mistake in archery, actually, as “directly under me” typically means the shot is really only 2-5yds horizontal distance. When you start getting below around 11-12yds, you actually begin shooting with a lower pin due to parallax. A 3yd shot may actually end up being your 50yd or 60yd pin, for example. A lot of these shots are missed low with the archer using their 20yd pin since it’s a close shot.

This is one aspect I really enjoy about a Garmin Xero sight. It compensates for angle, and even on really steep shots will present the pin needed to hit the exact spot you intend to when pulling the trigger.

 

[nphunter]

Missed a bull elk at under 10 yards, arrow hit a branch after a 5 minute stare off at like 10 feet. The arrow hit a tree next to him and stuck like 1” in the tree nock first and the broadhead broke off and was stuck in the tree right next to it like a Chinese star.

The bull only ran out and circled at like 20 yards and I killed him a few seconds later.

Missed a 170” mule deer at 3 yards, he was bedded under a rock. Got right on him after like a 2hr stalk. Thought he was standing so I drew and he just shifted but when he did I could see his eye and antlers right next to me. I thought if I stepped forward I could shoot him down though the neck but as I stepped forward at full draw I hit my trigger on the release and sent an arrow through his antlers and into the bottom of the canyon. The hillside blew up with a dozen bucks running off and that was the end of the story.

My son missed a nice 160” 4 point mule deer this year twice at 20 and he’s an excellent shot. He’s 6” tall and we were shooting from a ground blind, the buck jumped the fence and was feeding in front of us. My son drew and made a good clean shot, his bottom limb hit his lower leg and the arrow hit the ground and bounced up and hit the buck sideways. The next morning we chased some different bucks and he dialed his 3 pin slider to 50 but never got a shot. We sat the blind again that night, the buck came in again and did the exact thing. My son drew when the buck jumped the fence, pulled through with his hinge and sent an arrow right over the bucks back missing him two days in a row at 20 yards.

The buck my son missed.

Screen shot from the video of day 1.

 

[Coveyleader]

Man, have I. Everytime I get in that stand I say to myself, how in the hell!

 

[SmokeEater2]

I feel your pain!

I missed one of the biggest bucks I've ever drawn on at maybe 5 or 6 yards.

He came down a trail through some thick stuff and I could see the rack coming in plenty of time to be holding at full draw when he ambled in front of me broadside and stopped to stare at me.

I shot and watched the arrow scream right over his back and thunk into a tree and the buck instantly went to mach 1 never to be seen again.

I just stood there staring at my arrow stuck in that tree trunk trying to figure out why I wasn't hauling that toad to a taxidermist when it finally dawned on me that I couldn't remember looking at a sight pin before I shot. Apparently I just pointed somewhere in his general direction and let fly.

That happened in the early 90's and I'm still not completely over it.

 

[Yoder]

I’m curious how you determined he was 10yds. Was that line of sight distance or compensated for angle? It’s a pretty common mistake in archery, actually, as “directly under me” typically means the shot is really only 2-5yds horizontal distance. When you start getting below around 11-12yds, you actually begin shooting with a lower pin due to parallax. A 3yd shot may actually end up being your 50yd or 60yd pin, for example. A lot of these shots are missed low with the archer using their 20yd pin since it’s a close shot.

This is one aspect I really enjoy about a Garmin Xero sight. It compensates for angle, and even on really steep shots will present the pin needed to hit the exact spot you intend to when pulling the trigger.

I ranged my arrow stuck in the ground. My rangefinder compensates for the angle.

 

[Yoder]

I feel your pain!

I missed one of the biggest bucks I've ever drawn on at maybe 5 or 6 yards.

He came down a trail through some thick stuff and I could see the rack coming in plenty of time to be holding at full draw when he ambled in front of me broadside and stopped to stare at me.

I shot and watched the arrow scream right over his back and thunk into a tree and the buck instantly went to mach 1 never to be seen again.

I just stood there staring at my arrow stuck in that tree trunk trying to figure out why I wasn't hauling that toad to a taxidermist when it finally dawned on me that I couldn't remember looking at a sight pin before I shot. Apparently I just pointed somewhere in his general direction and let fly.

That happened in the early 90's and I'm still not completely over it.

I've done that before too. This time I even went through my little shot mantra in my head and still managed to screw it up. My peep was centered with the outer sight ring, pin on the chest and no face pressure on my kisser button, squeeze the trigger. I did the exact same thing about 10 years ago. I shot under a doe and it was even closer. She moved out to 30 yards and I made a perfect shot. At least this one wasn't the big 8pt I've been seeing.

 

[Coopsdaddy]

O ya!
Sometimes the easiest to mess up.
Biggest buck ever seen or shot 13 yards and shot him high,never a single pin movable sight again!

 

[sodaksooner]

Yep, on the biggest buck of my life. He later scored right at 160 (my brother shot him during rifle season). 12 yards. Marginal shot angle, didn't know deer anatomy well at the time. Arrow went right where I aimed and just slid under the skin. Broadhead was still in him just under the skin two weeks later. Funny part was it was unscrewed from the arrow, not broken off. I was physically ill for days.

 

[MallardSX2]

Never messed up and missed a deer that was close but I did spine shoot a couple that were right under me.

Had I not hit the spine it would have been lungs.

 

[kpk]

I once grazed an easy 160 class whitetail with muzzleloader. He was at the bottom of a ravine probably 30 ft below me and 20 ft across. Was using a scope and put the crosshairs on the heart. Like you, as soon as I saw the way he reacted, I immediately realized I had messed up. Found some hairs and that was about it. Made me sick.

 

[S.Clancy]

I've shot TWO!!! 6x6 bulls under 15 yards that both survived due to deflections. One, deflected off an unseen dried up sweet clover into his shoulder bone, penetrated about 2". The bull walked away like nothing happened.

The second, the broadhead (a shitty broadhead) bent and deflected off the rib on a quartering away shot. The arrow deflected out the brisket, never touching vitals. That bull pushed his cows over a 10,000' mountain like nothing happened.

I also completely missed a bull at 19 yards because I guessed him @ 35 (never ranged). The arrow flew just over his back. From that day I shot heavier poundage and a flatter bow so my 30 yard pin is good from 0-33 yards in the kill zone. Oh the archery, I love and hate you.

 

[Duh]

I missed this guy at about 2 yards from the rocks on top of him. Held my 20 pin on him instead of the 50 haha. Didn’t make that mistake again. This is still the one that got away haha.

 

[sasquatch]

I missed this guy at about 2 yards from the rocks on top of him. Held my 20 pin on him instead of the 50 haha. Didn’t make that mistake again. This is still the one that got away haha.

So close why would you want to use the 50? Curious to the thought


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[Beendare]

One advantage to shooting Tourneys is you learn how to shoot those short and angled shots. I’ve had to use my 50y pin on very close Javelina.

Its counter intuitive that a very short shot might need a long sight pin.

10y at that angle from 25’ up is a tricky shot…then add you have to bend at the waist so you can maintain good geometry…sounds like that geometry is what got you.

 

[Duh]

So close why would you want to use the 50? Curious to the thought


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Because my 20 yard pin sailed the arrow right over his body as he was laying down. When I went home and recreated the shot, I found that a straight down shot at that close of a distance required my 50 yard pin to hit exactly where I was aiming.

 

[Scoot]

I missed a very big buck at about 3 yards once- he was running full tilt and I panicked. I've missed several inside of 10. Most of those were all when I was a young buck myself.