One bad year!!!!

[lawnboy]

This will get some of you guys worked up but it was a bad year....last year my total deer kill was 5 and 5. I shoot five deer and recovered 5. This year so far is 5 and 1. Thats right I shot 5 and was only able to recover 1. And the one that I recovered was unreal...I missed him the first time at 20 but got him at 100 when he stopped with the gun.
I'm looking at some more hunt trips here soon so I might be able to close the gap in numbers. I'm thinking that this is all comming down to a lot less target shooting this year then last year.

[stelmon]

yah i think so...sounds like u better get out target practiceing...good luck

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Stelmon, the only one.
Keep those bullets flying and reels screamen

[Stinger]

I just had the feeling all along this guy was trouble.

[338bar]

Lawnboy,

Sounds like the only thing you have been mowing down are trees. Try taking the ethical route and stay home the rest of the season.

[Hunter333]

5 shots and one deer??!! What the heck are you shooting at? I am not trying to say that I am the best shooter in the world but come on! If you do not have 100% positivity that you are hitting the target, DO NOT SHOOT!! Do not blame it on the number of deer, blame it on yourself. Do the rest of us a favor and stay home! See my signature!!

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ONE shot, ONE kill..No excuses, no exceptions EVER!!

[boehr]

Originally posted by lawnboy:
This will get some of you guys worked up but it was a bad year....last year my total deer kill was 5 and 5. I shoot five deer and recovered 5. This year so far is 5 and 1. Thats right I shot 5 and was only able to recover 1. And the one that I recovered was unreal...I missed him the first time at 20 but got him at 100 when he stopped with the gun.
I'm looking at some more hunt trips here soon so I might be able to close the gap in numbers. I'm thinking that this is all comming down to a lot less target shooting this year then last year.

lawnboy...I will not jump all over you yet until you explain more. Are you saying you hit 4 of those deer for sure and could not find them? Are you saying you don't know if you hit those deer? Are you saying you shot at those deer and missed them, for sure? Please explain!

[StrutnSpur]

I'm getting a sick feeling here, but I do think that lawnboy needs to explain himself. I really hope that some of these topics that he posts are not just someway of getting attention :(
I sure hope the anti-hunters don't get a hold of this post,lets just keep our fingers crossed that he missed for sure on the 4 that ran away...SnS

[This message has been edited by StrutnSpur (edited 11-23-2000).]

[jrvelie]

I hope you did not hit 4 deer and did not find them. If i were you I would still be out in the woods looking for them. Lawnboy hang the gun up unless you plan on going to the range and shoot deer targets, and learn where to place your shots so that they do not get away.

[Huntnut]

This can't be true, it can't be....who would admit something like that on the internet. That would be a dark little secret I would keep buried way down deep inside. Dude....was this all with a gun? A gun??? Maybe you would be better off harvesting your meat with a.....shopping cart.

[HUNT'NUF2]

Lawnboy,
You're joking right? You're just trying to start a little fire right? Certainly you can't be as callous as it sounds. Even if you are kidding, I think this unethical type "hunting?" should not be aired here.

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Joel

[Tom222]

Lawnboy, if this is a joke, I'm afraid we share a very different sense of humor.
I hit a 4 point this year with a bow, and made a gut shot. I didn't recover the deer. I looked for a long time before giving up. I felt sick because I had "wasted" a fine animal.
I think that it should be a top priority to respect the animals that we hunt, and to do everything possible to avoid any unnecessary suffering.
Please don't take this statement as taking a light view of poaching, but I personally would rather see someone take a deer illegally and humanely, than to see them trying to take them the way you do.
I make this statement to let you just how strongly I feel about taking ethical shots at deer, or any other game.
Please don't give hunters a bad name. PLEASE take some time and practice shooting. Find your limitations, and for God's sake, pick your shots carefully.
If this was a joke, please don't do it again.

[lawnboy]

Joke it's no joke....I ended up with 3 hits with a bow and two with a gun. And like I said up on top the fifth one was a miss the first time and a hit the second time, it was my only kill that I could find.
Just one bad year. And yes I did spend a lot of time looking they just were bad hits.

[Tom222]

Ok Lawnboy, I have some questions. How far are you shooting with your bow?
Are you shooting with a shotgun or rifle, and how far are you shooting?
Do you shoot at running deer?
How much time do you spend practicing shooting your bow? How much time with the gun?
I have made my bad shots in the past, but I do everything in my power to keep from repeating them. Nothing is 100% sure. Just this year, I had my bow sight come loose. I tightened it back up and made an assumption that I had it right where it was before. I cleanly missed a nice buck, and learned a good lesson, MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR SHOT WILL END UP!
If your'e not up to snuff on your shooting, then do the deer and your fellow hunters a favor, sit in the tree and take pictures.
PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE !

[lawnboy]

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1268594&a=9557395&p=33882597
Here is that deer
Ok Tom these are some fair questions...
With the bow I hunt down in the swamps and I can never get over 20 yards, the last deer that I shot was about 5 yards.
I use a rife 30/30 and I use it like bow..I try and stay under 30 yards with it. I only get to use it a few times a year. You can't shot rifes were I live.
I never shoot at running deer...as for that I never shoot at walking deer.
Practicing bow this year...was low. I would say about 10 times. And a couple times at the 3-d course. I did great on the course.
I spend almost 0 time on the gun...we have no shooting facilities here where I live. We did a few years ago but the state closed it.
On the last deer that I hit I just couldn't understand why it was a bad hit...after looking over the bow it looks like the string has stretched...but I still don't feel that this is it 100%. One other problem is that any kind of practice is not aloud in the city...so I have to go out of my way to do it...and this is no excuse, but I had every little time this year to do this kind of stuff.
When it comes down to it I just tell it how I feel...I have nothing to hide.

[WEEZER]

I like the honesty! That is a virtue that is hard to find!
I know people that have missed 5 times this year(Cleanly)and I know people that have lost deer too. Unfortunatly things like this happens.
Ladykiller correct me if I'm wrong but haven't you made a couple of perfect shots on deer and have had them return to the area a couple of weeks later with scars but still perfectly normal??
Lawnboy, I would have stopped hunting after I lost the second deer of the year. that's just my opinion , I remember crying my eyes out after loosing my first deer! The second one that I lost nearly made me puke.Hopefully I won't have a 3rd, but Stuff happens!

[Erik]

Bottom line, to shoot and miss is very close to shooting and wounding. In either case a hunter has obviously tried to do make a shot that was beyond their capability. That is the bottom line, no matter what! With that said, there are none of us that can say we haven't done it. Maybe some hunters have been lucky enough to never have wounded one, but anyone that has shot and missed, is just as guilty as the guy that shot and wounded.
Yes I have shot and missed, and yes I have shot and wounded. When it happens, I stand back and take assesment of why. I don't take it light heartedly either. I try to make sure it will never happen again. In the past twenty years of my life, I have wounded four deer, and missed about six. The honest truth is, in each case I simply made shots that should not have been made. It was either too dark, (low visability), too far, deer standing at a bad angle, and in one case the deer wasn't standing still, he was walking. I should have waited for better shots, even if it meant not getting a shot at all!
Lawnboy, maybe you don't need more practice. Maybe you just need to ease up a bit on your trigger finger. Hopefully your bad year will teach you a few things! It will take a long time to live down a season like yours. The one deer I spoke about above, the one that was still walking when I shot him. He was a ten point. I hit him in the shoulder blade, and he lived to be killed during the firearm season two weeks later. My neighbor killed him and he still had my arrow in his shoulder. To this day, my neighbor has that stupid front shoulder blade hanging in his barn with my arrow stuck in it. It's been five years since it happend, and I haven't wounded one since, but I don't think I'll ever be able to live it down!


PS I didn't hunt any more that season. I almost gave up bow hunting alltogether, but my neighbor talked me out of it. Just wish he'd get rid of that shoulder blade :(
Phish

[This message has been edited by Erik (edited 11-28-2000).]

[Ladykiller]

Yeah Weezer, you got a good memory. Perfect shot from 15 yards on a 3-point. Found the arrow right away, real bloody, good lung shot. But no blood on the ground whatsoever for 200 yards until I went into checking the trails into the clear-cut. The I found a little blodd for about 100 yards and then nothing. Saw the deer the next week, walking and eating fine. 1" entry hole, and a 4" exit hole from my mechanical vortex broadheads, perfect lung shot from the location of the scars. Saw him a month after that also and he was still doing fine. Just a freak incident. That just happened to a guy who hunts the same property as I do this year, but with a gun. He shot a buck and it dropped on the spot. He lit a cigarette, and then it got up and ran off...leaving no blood trail, and we had snow!!! Now I have had my fair share of misses, mostly mechanical failures, or just little quirks. Once in awhile a bad shot on my part. I almost gave up hunting this year cause I lost two deer due to perfect shots last year with my bow. But I found out that it was not my fault last year, but the combination of equipment. I lost ALOT of penetration switching to ACC's and ACC hyperspeeds last year. I had bought 2 new hoyts, the one cranking out 339 fps with the hyperspeeds shooting 77#, and we are talking plenty of kinetic energy, about 80ft-lbs if i remember right. But with those arrows and the broadheads I shoot, it just lost all penetration power. I only got an entry hole each time, never an exit hole and the arrow stayed in the deer. And believe me I looked!!! Basically the arrows are what did me in though. I have shot a slower bow for years with the same broadheads and always had almost complete pass-through using aluminum arrows. I think you may need to re-evaluate your equipment and re-evaluate shooting some more, you owe it to the deer and to yourself. Don't worry too much hough, these deer are tough, they can survive marginal shots easily. And mother nature does not waste, the deer will provide food for other animals. Shoot in your basement if you have one, I do.

[Oct.1]

I don't even think something like this should have been allowed to be posted.
Just another copy, and paste onto PETA's list.
And that dosen't stand for People Eating Tasty Animals.

[Joe Archer]

Although unfortunate, I believe these threads should be posted. I have seen alot of discussion on other forums about the effective range for deer. Most of the time I can't believe some of the replies. If after reading this thread, just one person evaluates themself and institutes a plan for upgrade, than we can say that "One bad year" at least had some benefit? <----<<<

[Pat Eddinger]

Lawnboy,
No flames bud,but you NEED to get to the range or don't hunt with the rifle.
I'll tell anybody the same thing.It's a skill that must be maintained or it gets lost.One option is to set up a pellet trap in the basement and practice with a pellet rifle as much as possible.While it's not exactly the same as the 30-30,the principles are,and the transition to the 30-30 will come much quicker than with no practice at all.
Also consider a low power wide field of view scope for the 30-30,or possibly one of the dot sights.They do make things easier for quick shots at close ranges,and require less practice than higher power scopes and irons to keep reasonably proficient.
On the bright side your honesty is refreshing.Once ya know there is a problem it's easier to fix!Good luck to ya next season,and keep your head high.Lots of hunters have done the same this year,but were too cowardly to admit it,or blamed things on bad ammo or whatever.Cheers!Pat

[deerless]

No wonder I haven't seen any bucks this year.

Deerless

[Cougar]

Maybe its your tracking skills that need attention! Just a suggestion, but in the future Lawnboy, if your habving this type of difficulty, post your thread in more of a question about potential corrections, not a statement of (in a nutshell)"bad year, crippled 4 deer, think I'll try for more"

I don't think thats the sound of someone asking for help! If you want help ask, there seems to be alot of willing people on this site!

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*Jace*