Let's hear those PBM Stories!

[ShooterMcgavin]

Let's hear those Point Blank Miss stories!

What was the situation and gear that made you miss a -50 yard shot!!

What happened and why?

 

[Davyalabama]

I’ve PBM on a bunch of doves, quail and ducks. Missed a few deer while running dogs years ago.

 

[Scoot]

I missed a huge buck at about 3 yards one time when I was a kid. He was coming through and I couldn't see anything until he was directly in front of me. I didn't expect him to be moving at mach 5 though! I had to ID him as a buck I wanted to shoot and let the arrow go, all in a split second. I failed! I'm not sure if I missed high or in front of him, but I missed him clean. Never did find my arrow.

 

[Steve300xcw]

Watched a blacktail come outta the timber and start walking a trail that paralleled me. I shot at about 20-25ish yards. He hunched up, and I didnt even chamber another round. Cuz he's goona fall over anytime now

Then he straightened back up and started walking again like nothing had ever happened. Hit him on the second shot and he damn near ran me over on his lil death run.

Only thing I can figure is it was such a simple shot. I just shot at a deer and didnt pick a spot. Thats also the second deer I have seen hunch up like it was hit, only for it to be a clean miss

 

[Pharmseller]

Bow hunting. Walked right up on a nice 3x3 Blacktail. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or him. He was standing near an old root wad. Maybe 15 yards.
Draw, anchor, release, all very smooth.
One pinky-sized old dried hard as iron root sucker that I didn’t see deflected the arrow neatly into the dirt.




P

 

[LeftyWilbury]

thanksgiving week, about zero degrees for a high. had every layer on that i owned at the time, think i counted seven layers with three of em jackets. big mittens. multiple pants. could barely move. coming down a trail i see a nice buck walking up the trail towards me. bring my trusty savage 30-06 up, easy 25 yard shot, gotta shoot before he gets too close! CLICK i'm thinking something froze. i'm incredulous at my misfortune. deer is still walking up the trail towards me. i'm trying to reach my sidearm. trying to excavate layer after layer. deer walks past me at 3 yards, still trying to find a gun that's somewhere on my belt. finally get it out as the deer's 30 yards away from me, looking back over his shoulder at me like it's confused how i got there. bounds over the hill.

thought i was being smart leaving my safety on the middle position, one less click to make noise...except the bolt knob had been bumped so bolt wasn't fully closed so firing pin never found a primer. had the blood in my brain been less slushy maybe i would have realized i could just pop the bolt up to cock it and pop the deer. oh well. still amuses me to this day. should have just jumped on the deer. he probably couldn't have gotten an antler through all my layers.

 

[ShooterMcgavin]

thanksgiving week, about zero degrees for a high. had every layer on that i owned at the time, think i counted seven layers with three of em jackets. big mittens. multiple pants. could barely move. coming down a trail i see a nice buck walking up the trail towards me. bring my trusty savage 30-06 up, easy 25 yard shot, gotta shoot before he gets too close! CLICK i'm thinking something froze. i'm incredulous at my misfortune. deer is still walking up the trail towards me. i'm trying to reach my sidearm. trying to excavate layer after layer. deer walks past me at 3 yards, still trying to find a gun that's somewhere on my belt. finally get it out as the deer's 30 yards away from me, looking back over his shoulder at me like it's confused how i got there. bounds over the hill.

thought i was being smart leaving my safety on the middle position, one less click to make noise...except the bolt knob had been bumped so bolt wasn't fully closed so firing pin never found a primer. had the blood in my brain been less slushy maybe i would have realized i could just pop the bolt up to cock it and pop the deer. oh well. still amuses me to this day. should have just jumped on the deer. he probably couldn't have gotten an antler through all my layers.

Next time just throw the rifle at him! Sorry for your loss though.

 

[MNGrouser]

I think I've told this story on here before already. My first year of deer hunting in Wisconsin. About midday, I make my way over to the ridge where my dad was sitting. He reclines back on an uprooted big old aspen tree. The 45 degree angle where it got hung up is perfect for his mid-day nap. I'm watching for deer but not very well because a little basket forkie walks in and feeds across the little saddle in front of me before I even notice. I pull up my .243 and fire one off just as my dad is waking from his nap. He watches as the deer runs off over the next ridge. He tells me it looked like it was running pretty healthy but we need to check for blood.

I go down to where the deer was standing broadside... 30 yards, maybe a little more. I start scouring the leaves for blood.

"What are you doing?" Dad asks.

"Looking for blood."

"THAT is where he was standing?!?!??"

"Yep. But I don't see any blood."

I go back and sit next to my dad and wait for the next deer to walk by.

"What do you think happened?" my dad asks.

"I think I forgot to aim." Nearly 34 years later, I still agree with my assessment.

 

[HuntHarder]

My story haunts me..
Last year, my little boy (5 years old) insisted on me taking him javelina hunting. I had an archery tag and over the years have killed 20 or so of these things. I love hunting them and they make great chorizo. I decide on the opener to sleep in and get my boy out in the evening so it's not to cold and he enjoys himself. We go to one of my pig holes that is very flat and easy hiking. Within 30 minutes I glass up 5 or so pigs about 300 yards away.

We slowly make our way, avoiding cactus, picking cactus out of his boots and dodging wait a minute bushes. About 20 minutes later, we are getting to where I think the pigs should be. I put Cody in the front and we take 3, very slow steps and crest the hill and he looks like he sees a ghost. He turns around and says "it's right there."
I step in front of him, draw back and pick one at 10 yards that is in a tiny bush. Vitals are partially blocked, but I have no doubt that my fixed blade is gonna blow right thru this tiny bush and destroy him.

I shoot, the pig bites at his side, squeels and takes off like a bat out of hell. Knowing I just hammered him, I quickly get Cody in the action and we proceed to watch 15 other javelina all stand in the wide open. Cody is pissed that I am not shooting the other pigs, but I explain that I already have one that we shot and it is dead.
We wait 15 minutes and pass on probably 10 different <30 yard shots and begin looking for my arrow. I can not find it which is odd. Usually it is 20 or so yards behind them laying on the ground. Cody goes about 10 yards further than me and says I found it. I look at the arrow, missing the broadhead and find 0.0 blood on it. We follow the tracks for a 100 yards, 0 blood. I absolutely missed at 10 yards. Pretty confident I shot high, but man that one hurt. Thank god the next day we went back out and I got one with him in tow. Otherwise he would think his Dad is a terrible shot

 

[Wyo_hntr]

Knocked some feathers off a couple of chukar last week...sub 30yds off of points. Some days...

 

[SloppyJ]

My son wanted to go hunt after Thanksgiving dinner 2yrs ago. He was 5. We went and sat on a fence line behind my inlaws hoyse watching a field. I had my M70 supergrade in 30-06 with me. This gun and I have never gotten along. But it's so beautiful in maple that I keep it around.

A doe hops the fence and lands 10yds from us after we sat there for about 15min. My son was so excited and was trying to hide his giggles as I just kept whispering "be still and watch her". I'll never forget how jacked up he was.

Well she trots off about 75yds because she knew something was up. About 5min later a buck hops the fence in the same spot. I about shit my pants because he's the one I've been after. He stares right at us. He hops off to about 40yds and turns back to look quartered away.

I knew what was coming so I had moved my son off my lap and had the rifle on my shoulder. As soon he stopped I aimed in his ribs imagining the bullet coming out the far side shoulder. I fired one off and he got hit and stumbles into the woods. My son jumps up screaming in excitement. I quiet him down and we sit there for about 5min and call my wife to bring the side by side down to come haul this deer back.

We get to the scene of the crime and it looks just as such. Huge blood splatter all over the tall dead grass. It's on the ground, it's on the grass where he rubbed against it, it's everywhere.

We track that deer about 300yds and the trail just stops after it progressively dwindled down. The last sign was a tree we saw where he rubbed up against it and left a 3" blood smear on it. I spent 5hrs out there until I called someone with a dog. The dog ran down to the creek bottom and sat down. No luck, never found him.

I'm devastated, embarrassed, annoyed, you know all the things that come with an unrecovered deer. Made it even worse because my son was with me but hindsight is that it's good for him to see me fail sometimes.

I had very little confidence in that rifle before then and lost the rest of it that day. I start to strip it down to go through it. Maybe it was me and I just pulled the shot in the heat of the moment? That's when I find the front action screw completely loose.

Hard to imagine it made it shoot that bad so I still think some of it was me but that didn't help. Still don't know where I hit that deer where he would bleed that good and not go down. That rifle caused me to start reloading and I still don't have a solid load for it. I think it's just one of those dud barrels.

 

[Hunt eat repeat]

Followed a herd of elk into the timber and found a lion kill mule deer. The lion poked his head out of the jack pines at 15 feet. I pointed and fired. Shot right over his head. He had the same look of disbelief on his face as I did. Think about that all the time.

 

[OMF]

15 years ago I was bow hunting, sitting in a tall oak tree enjoying a beautiful, frosty, northern WI morning. I hadn't seen anything all morning. Around 11 am I was just about to get down and move to a stand 100 yards down the trail when I hear crunching behind me. I hold still waiting (hoping really...) and low and behold two nice bucks come down the trail walking right to me. The both stopped to browse about 15 yards away broadside. I already had my bow up and arrow knocked. I picked the larger 6 pointer, drew my arrow, held just behind his shoulder, and less loose. Whack! My arrow porpoised and went right into one of the oak limbs. Stuck there solid, mocking me. The deer trotted off about 50ish yards into the brush and kept looking back to see what happened.

I don't know if it was a cooked arrow, bad fletching, bad broad head, or any number of other possible problems. What luck. I got down, chuckled, and went back to camp and had breakfast.

 

[Yoder]

Friday, I had two doe come in. There was a huge pine tree in front of me and I had to wait until they cleared the tree. By that time, the lead doe was only 15-20 yards away. I had my inline muzzleloader. I had the crosshairs right on it's shoulder. I was totally calm, and I squeezed the trigger. They both ran behind another pine after the shot. As the smoke was clearing, I heard one of the does stomping her foot. I started reloading and the other doe walked back the way she came while I watched. I figured the one I shot was lying there dead. I got down from my stand and there was nothing. No deer, no blood. I followed the trail they were on about 200 yards. I grid searched the entire area for a couple hours and still nothing. I have no idea what happened. One thing I do remember is the recoil felt extremely light. I cleaned the gun recently and maybe oil seeped into the powder? Maybe my dumb ass only put one 50 grain pellet in instead of two? No idea. I really hope I missed.

 

[EastHumboldt]

I don’t know if this count as a PBM since I didn’t actually pull the trigger.

About 15 years ago. I had spotted a very nice heavy muley buck on a ridge about 400 yards above the edge of the aspen grove where I was. Nothing but grass and scrub between me and him. 400 yards is longer than I wanted to shoot, so I put a long circuitous stalk on him, going around to my left and up a shallow draw. Every once in awhile I poked my head up and checked to see his antlers poking up out of the sage. I got about 40 yards below him and about 150 yards side hill from his bed, when I ran out of cover. There was a rock in front of me I wanted to use as a rest so I started belly crawling toward it. He must have heard me, cuz right about the time I got to the rock, he stood up and skylined himself with a perfect broadside view. It was less than 200 yards but the weird uphill angle was such that I could not quickly build a position where I could hold my rifle still enough for a responsible shot. After staring at me for a few minutes, he turned and stotted towards the top of the ridge. Another very nice buck I hadn’t seen went with him.

I was disappointed and a little disgusted at my luck. I cleared my chamber, stood up, and just started walking up to examine their bedding area and maybe see where they went. When I crested the small rise where they were bedded, it turns out they had only gone about 30 yards and bedded again. I walked right in on them. They stood up and jogged across in front of me at about 25 yards, then stopped and stared at me for a few seconds. I pulled up and squeezed the trigger on an empty chamber. I jacked a round in, which sent them packing before I could get a sight picture. My last view was giant asses alternating with nice racks as they bounded down hill straight away from me. I’m not one to take a running Texas heart shot, so I just laughed as I watched em go. I’m pretty sure I could’ve drilled the big boy if I had a round in the chamber.

So no equipment failure, just a tactical error.

 

[I Am Gunz]

I think I've told this story on here before already. My first year of deer hunting in Wisconsin. About midday, I make my way over to the ridge where my dad was sitting. He reclines back on an uprooted big old aspen tree. The 45 degree angle where it got hung up is perfect for his mid-day nap. I'm watching for deer but not very well because a little basket forkie walks in and feeds across the little saddle in front of me before I even notice. I pull up my .243 and fire one off just as my dad is waking from his nap. He watches as the deer runs off over the next ridge. He tells me it looked like it was running pretty healthy but we need to check for blood.

I go down to where the deer was standing broadside... 30 yards, maybe a little more. I start scouring the leaves for blood.

"What are you doing?" Dad asks.

"Looking for blood."

"THAT is where he was standing?!?!??"

"Yep. But I don't see any blood."

I go back and sit next to my dad and wait for the next deer to walk by.

"What do you think happened?" my dad asks.

"I think I forgot to aim." Nearly 34 years later, I still agree with my assessment.

Could you tell it was an aspen tree by the way it was? That’s neat!

Sorry I had to lol.

 

[displacedtexan]

PBM??

Learn what point blank range means.

 

[summs]

Oh god, on youth day, my first gun hunt which is a slug gun and a 3x9 scope. Set on 5 power, was told the deer were going to be seen from 200 yards away coming towards us. Well, out pops a buck at 17 yards over a ridge edge I was sitting on. Deer walked into a bush, I could never find it in my scope. My uncle had a clear line of sight and couldn't figure out why i wasn't shooting. I never saw that deer in my scope...

It walked off down the bench, and for some reason we sat and grunted instead of walking the 15 yards to the bench drop off.

No shots fired, but the biggest point blank miss of my life. Still get grief about it every thanksgiving.

 

[WV Mountaineer]

I missed a small buck with my longbow at about 4 yards. Just shot at the whole deer I reckon. I know I was looking at his eyes because I saw the look of dismay as he saw me.

He run out to about 26-27 yards and stopped perfectly broadside. I 10 ringed him on that one. Dead center through the heart. I laughed after I watched him fall and smile every time I think about it.

 

[Eluder]

Two years ago, my now 3-year-old was only one and proving to be difficult, so I didn't get out as much as I would have liked that season. So there I was on closing weekend and had my first Muley Buck in the crosshairs. I am still not sure exactly what happened, but he was just staring at me, no more than a 50-60-yards out. I totally missed my first shot; my guess was I went high, so I compensated, and my second shot blew his kneecap to pieces; at this point, I felt horrible for maiming him as he disappeared down the hill trying to get across the river. I calmed down, located him about 30 seconds later (it felt like 10 minutes), and finally put one on the vitals. After gutting him, it was obvious that shot would have killed him, but he sat there trying to get up, so I elected to put another one in him. 4 shots, all around or below 50 yards; I still feel horrible about it, honestly.