What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made hunting?

Rushing a chip shot on a really good bull last year in AZ and thinking a rifle with a foreend arca plate on a tripod was more stable than getting prone on my pack. Fun fact, it’s not.
 
Many years ago, did not properly put out a fire on a Oct elk hunt. Storm rolled in, and kicked up the coals. Woke up around 2am to the flames licking up the trees around our spike camp. Tried putting out the blaze, ended up bailing off the mountain to get to the nearest town to call it in. Somehow by the grace of God that storm moving in dumped a ton of snow on the blaze and put it out.

Could have been a life altering event, ended up just getting a ticket, and learned a very valuable lesson. It was a great hunting area, but we waited almost ten years before ever hunting that area again.
 
I didn't stop a buck in my only shooting lane once. I tried to thread the arrow and I hit a tiny little branch about half way to the deer and all I got was a fist full of belly hair.

Over 20 years later and I have never seen a deer in the woods bigger and I have seen some whoppers......

I should have stopped that deer when I had the chance. My inexperience cost me dearly. I think about that deer daily....lol
 
Not applying for hunts in more states.

Saving points for that OIL hunt instead of using them every few years and hunting way more.
 
Biggest mistake........not being aggressive enough when I should have been, AND........not being patient enough when I should have been.

Being aggressive is more fun and more to my nature, so now I just go full on aggressive every time and it ends how it ends. I can live with that.
This is also mine. I'm not very patient in my day-to-day life but something about being in the woods cahsing elk or the high desert chasing mulies really puts me in a zen state and I'm able to exhibit a level pf patience pretty much unheard of in my regular life.

Last year, on my elk hunt, I had a really giant bull patterned fairly decently, in that I knew the drainage he like to bed in, I knew the tank he liked to use for water, where he liked to feed and I knew route he was taking to get back to bed. Problem was that this was a late/post-rut muzzleloader hunt so he was already solo and the only times I ever was able to see him moving was right at first light and right at last light, as is the case with all the really big bulls that late in the rut.

Instead of trying to set up on him, I relied too much on trying to glass him up in his bed, which I was never able to do. Looking back, I should have set up on that bull and at least given my self a chance to get a shot right at first light or at the very least, have the chance to maybe follow him to exactly where he was bedding. I should have just been more aggresive.

Luckily, I drew that same tag and I know he survived the rest of that hunt and the November muzzleloader hunt so I'm hoping I'll get the chance at him again.
 
Ski-gloves and holding trekking poles cost me a 190” buck this year, while sneaking through a timbered pocket.

I like warm hands, and I like using poles… but that was a painful lesson in being ready to shoot while covering ground.
 
Last season, I had a very memorable Friday and Saturday morning hunting whitetail on a little public spot I scouted. Bucks were cruising and it was very eventful. I hunted the same spot Sunday morning.

I decided to get down at 11:30 am as temps warmed into the high 50s to check out a fresh gut pile 20 yards from my treestand. I left my gear and bow up in the tree. Standing there observing the scene, I catch a deer's body approaching me in the trees, thinking it was a doe and cool, she was so close. It was on the move quickly, but not running. At 10 yards, he stops right in front of me with nothing between us, and my mouth hits the ground. I'm fumbling for my phone camera and a giant, non-typical buck stands staring at me. The moment seemed to last forever and was only about 10-15 seconds. He skirted me about 15 yards and gave him a sound to stop. He turns his giant non-typical crown toward me as if to say, "Sorry about your luck, bud," and bounds off.

Lesson: When you're ready to quit and call it a day, sit another 30-45 minutes.
 
Definitely lack of patience on stalks, followed by not maximizing opportunities I’ve had to go hunting in the past. Trying to get better at both of these things nowadays.
 
I have too many to list here, but one really haunts me. I was archery elk hunting when we lived in Montana; my first season archery hunting elk. I had a hunter answer my calls from the road below me. I kept walking away and he kept following me. Eventually I outpaced him. A little later I realized I wasn’t on the ridge I thought I was on. There was no road below me. I walked away from a hot bull that wanted to come in so bad that he followed me around half the morning.

I did it an again a couple weeks later. It was the worst, flute sounding bugle I’d ever heard. Eventually I realized he was covering ground way too fast to be two-legged. Live and learn I guess.
 
Got too aggressive on a bull that likely was coming in on a Gila bull hunt 3 years ago. Was hunting with a guy I ran into during the day. He missed a small bull about 15 minutes prior. During the calling set up another bull got fired up and we went after him after the miss. Sounded farther than he was and I crested a small roll in the sun. Bull jumps out and stops behind a tree at 70 yards. Tried to make a move but it was game over. 7x7 every bit of 390+ inches. Ever since then, I try to sound check a bull from a distance and pinpoint as close as possible before I go charging in.
 
First season doing the high hunt in WA state, 2nd season ever hunting. I'm 23 years old and don't know my ass from my elbow...but have somehow managed to find a zone deep in the cascades that is absolutely loaded to the gills with deer.

I saw multiple shooter bucks during the summer, and it's now September 23rd...3 days left to pull off the unimaginable.

I hiked back into the same zone a storm had pushed me out of earlier in the week, skiff of snow on the ridges and no sign of the one other camp that had been in there...the stoke was high.

I wanted to hunt a basin I hadn't seen before, but figured would have deer pushed into it, so I camped below a ridge in the timber and was to my glassing perch first thing the next AM.

Within the first hour I've got an honest dozen shooter bucks on a hillside less than 1500 yards away, including the 2nd largest WA buck I ever saw while living there...just a specimen of a 4x4 typical with some trash, 30" wide, dream high 180" buck, perfection.

I had seen them all feed up through a burn and they were as relaxed as deer can be until mid day when they were all bedded and out of sight.

I ran back down to camp, packed my stuff, and started the trek over the ridge, down a super sketchy scree field, and to the spot I was going to spend the night, with plans to be patient and set up the next AM overlooking the chute the bucks fed up.

Took me the rest of the day to pick my way down through the bowl and get settled in.

Next AM rolls around and it's prime time. Cold, clear, wind in my face...if I knew then what I know now I'd have guaranteed a buck was dying that day.

So it's barely light, and I start picking my way towards the intended ambush spot... I'm telling myself SLOW SLOW SLOW...not wanting to bump any deer. They had come into view about 8AM the previous day, so i wanted to be in place by then, no earlier, no later...

About 30 minutes into creepin' over to my spot, I keep pushing closer past where I planned, because I'm antsy and want to see deer...in doing so, I bump the only bull elk I've ever seen in a WA state wilderness area, in a zone that isn't supposed to have any elk.

Big ol sixer and his harem are running full bore towards the chute I'm expecting the deer to come up, so my gaze shifts to where they're headed....I see deer heads everywhere. 2x as many as yesterday, does AND bucks.

They're on high alert, hearing the commotion just 150 yards away but haven't busted. I'm frantically scanning with my binos trying to find Mr. Big....there he is, bringing up the rear, not more than 150 yards downhill, at the foot of the exact chute I was trying to get to.

I panic....never expected to be in a situation like this on high hunt number 1. I quickly realize I'm creeping through the timber without a round chambered. Friiiiikkkk. Slowly try to cycle the action on my Tikka and I bet you could have heard it in Seattle. CLIIINK, CLINNK...all hell breaks loose. There are deer bounding everywhere. I shoulder my rifle and try to get Mr. Big in the scope...tree, doe, doe, tree, other buck, small buck, doe, tree...OK GOT HIM, just need a shooting lane. It never came, he was gone with the wind never to be seen again.

I have replayed that moment so many times, and would have done several things differently with my current knowledge:

1) if you decide to go SEAL Team 6 into the timber after a buck, load your gun.

2) if you've patterned deer, setup your ambush/observation point far enough away that bumped critters aren't going to mess things up. Be patient and trust your data. If I'd have stayed put...those deer would have walked right into my lap

3) at that point in time, a 300 yard shot would have been a poke for me, so I had to get in tight. If I had the shooting skills I now have, I'd have been up high on a perch at 5-600 yards free of buck fever and ready to drop the hammer on demand.

I was actually depressed for the next month or so, but man that hunt laid the foundation for what has become an absolute obsession!
 
My #1 is bouncing around from unit to unit every year rather than just focusing on one area and learning it.

Other than that, not making the most of my hunts when out in the field. Ex: Stay that extra hour and walk back in the dark, go that extra mile instead of turning around, should've taken a left instead of a right kinda stuff.
 
Taking my wife deer hunting for the first time.
Yours truly, Lee Lakosky.

Still waiting for this comment in this post!!! :ROFLMAO:🥲
 
I feel like some sort of healing process is taking place here, like a support group! In all seriousness, I believe the almost/should haves are what keep us coming back. Each and every mistake is a lesson learned and, hopefully, motivation to improve.
 
Biggest mistake was not doing anything even though I've had interest for many years. No points, no gear, no rifles, no getting in shape, nothing. I frequent the outdoors in many other ways (hiking, biking, offroading), so it's silly that I haven't pursued hunting.

Finally got off my ass late last year, and now I'm starting the research and planning phase for my first season at 37.
 
Sleeping in by about five minutes.
Don't get me wrong, I was on the trail 55 minutes before sunrise instead of an hour. But I got to a meadow intersection about a minute after another guy. Saw him taking the trail I planned.
"Oh well, I'll go this other way"
Hear shots ringing out in the direction I wanted to go.
Walk over there.
"Yeah, this bull was just standing in the field [waiting for anybody to walk up] and I got him!"
 
Leaving my scope on max power while still hunting through sparse cedars cost me a bull some years back.

Last year I shot a buck right at dark, followed a blood trail for a couple hundred yards before it dried up. By the time I found it the next morning it was nothing but bones from coyotes. I have heard of that happening but never believed it until then.
 
Like most others have said, not starting hunting until I was in my 30s. I now hunt where I grew up and lived for 20 years and never took advantage of what was right there. The other big one was setting up behind a deadfall tree at the edge of a meadow. 2nd year of Archery elk hunting, had a bull out in a meadow at first light, I set up behind a deadfall tree at a pinch point coming out of a meadow "thinking" the bull would come through that point. My buddy bugled and the bull came to investigate as anticipated...but he went right on the otherside of the deadlfall instead of through the pinch point. I sat at full draw with no shooting lanes because of the tree I used for cover.
 
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