Darn It! Missed!

Well, two Saturdays ago I had the chance to bag that first buck with my new deer rifle and I missed. I took a shot at about 100 - 120 yards and I knew the instant that the gun went off that I had missed. It just wasn't a clean shot. Let me give you the play by play in case you're interested in the details.

I was sitting in a great spot. I was perched on the trunk of a huge fallen tree that gave me a commanding view of a ridge line about 150 yards to my left and the hillside down below for about 140 yards where it met the ridge line sweeping over from the left. I had spotted the fallen tree while walking down the trail that bisects the ridge line and I knew right away it was a good place to set up.

I sat down on the log and got comfortable. It was very cold out that day with highs only reaching the upper 20s. When I initially sat down, I was warm, but after an hour to an hour and a half of sitting there, I began to get chilled. I was just thinking of pouring myself some coffee from my thermos to warm my chilled core when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked to my left to see a deer trotting down the ridge line. It was probably 130 to 140 yards away. I pulled up my rifle to check out the deer in my scope. I immediately saw antlers and knew that it was a buck, but with him moving steadily through the trees and brush, I couldn't count the points on his antlers. For those of you unfamiliar with Pennsylvania hunting laws, the law now requires that a buck have at least three points on one antler for it to be legally taken.

The buck continued making his way down the ridge line. He never moved at more than a trot, but he never slowed down or stopped either. I lost sight of him several times behind trees and saplings. I kept trying to scope his rack, but it was just too tough to tell. Once he reached the bottom of the hill where the ridge line to my left met the ridge line in front of me, he turned right and began moving from my left to my right. At this point, he was probably about 120 yards away from me.

Between the cold and the excitement of seeing the buck, I was breathing heavily and I was shivering. Looking down the hill, I knew that if the buck was legal, I only had one open shooting lane in front of me. There was a section of woods at the bottom of the hill where there weren't many saplings or much underbrush. The shooting window I had might have been twenty yards wide. I knew that as he entered that lane I would need to determine if he was legal and take the shot if he was.

As he trotted out into my shooting lane, I scoped him and saw that his right antler had an uneven "Y" at the top with the back point longer than the right and that there was another point about two inches below the "Y". That was all I needed to see. By that time, he was halfway through my shooting lane and proceeding steadily toward a dense thicket of underbrush below and to my right. I knew that it was now or never. I put the crosshairs right at his neck to lead him a little as he was moving and pulled the trigger. Because I was shivering from the cold and excitement and because I was a little too hasty with the shot, I knew that I didn't keep the rifle steady enough. At a distance of 100 - 120 yards, the slightest deviation in the position of the gun results in a big deviation at the point of impact. I knew as soon as the rifle cracked that I had missed. A split second later the deer hopped in the air, turned 180 degrees and began running from right to left along the top of the ridge line. I cranked another bullet into my bolt-action rifle and tried to follow his progress through the trees. I tried to predict where he would enter a clear spot so that I could take a second shot. This was difficult to do as he was moving fast through a dense copse of trees and brush. I did fire a second shot as he bounded through the underbrush, but it was more of a desperation shot than anything else. After my second shot, he disappeared down over the top of the ridge line to my left.

After about 30 seconds, I radioed my Dad and told him that I had just missed a buck. Just in case I had hit the deer, we spent about 45 minutes searching the forest for any signs that I may have hit him (e.g. blood or hair), but we didn't find anything. I wasn't surprised by this as I figured that I had missed and I also knew that a deer would not so easily shake off the wallop packed by a 30'06. He would have gone down if I had hit him.

So in the end, it was an unsuccessful day of hunting. I returned to that same spot the following Saturday in the hopes of seeing the buck again or maybe getting a shot at another buck, but I had no luck with either. It was disappointing, but if no one else bagged that buck after I missed him, he'll hopefully still be out there next year. I'll be out there waiting for him. I foresee the purchase of some warmer clothes and some serious range time within the next year.