Clean miss

[Limbshot]

Well Tuesday I went to the small property I can hunt in Callaway Co. Been super slow over there, but the area was torn up with buck sign. It was cold, windy and misting when I got to my stand before daylight. I got dressed and climbed up for an all day sit. At 9:45 I caught movement across the field and saw a deer walking to the field edge. Once it cleared a big rose bush I could see it was a really nice 8 pointer. 6-7 inc brow tines, all toehr tines at or over 10 inches, probably about 17 inches inside spread and pretty good mass. He mad a scrape and started walking the field edge away from me so I grunted. He turned and looked and started walking my way. At 30 yards he turned and was walking west, with nothing between us but air. I drew back, anchored, settled the pin and released with an extremely loud THWACK! My string hit the sleeve of my rain suit and sounded like a gun going off. The arrow was still flying perfectly, but the sound spooked the buck and he dropped instantly, and my arrow cleared his back by an inch at the most. I am glad it was a clean miss, rather than a bad hit, but am kicking myself for such a rookie mistake. It was hard to sit after that blunder, but I managed to stick it out all day. I saw a spike at 1:07 and got to watch him mill around for about 45 minutes, which helped pass the midday time. Then around 4:30 I had a deer walk out by my other stand up the hill from me. He worked a scrape, and I grunted at him. He walked down the field edge to another scrape 50 yards away and proceeded to absolutely tear it up for about 2 full minutes. I thought he was going to move down the field edge right to me, but instead, he whipped around and went up to the scrape where he originally came out (20 yards from my other stand), worked it over really well, and then disappeared. Pretty cool hunt considering I hadnt even seen a deer on the place in my 7 previous sits. I'd love to have a do over on the deer I missed, as I am fairly certain he would have been my first P and Y, but it was pretty cool to have the chance and to get my heart pumping like it was.

[RB]

Good story Russ but things like that happen. Still a good story. You'll get another chance.

[Limbshot]

Thanks Dave. Tough one to swallow, because it was such a goofy mistake, but it was awesome to have the chance. Hunted that place differently, smarter, this year, and it seemed to pay dividends. Hoping it will make a difference in late season. I'll likely leave it alone until after firearm season, although I may sit it a day next week.