Sunday, March 16, 2008
Learning From A Missed Shot
It happens to everyone at one time or another. We miss an easy shot at a
nice whitetail buck or doe, and it runs off â?? alarmed and spooked â?? but
unhurt. Many hunters dredge up an excuse of some kind.
Instead of trying to come up with a believable excuse, it makes much more
sense to go through the entire sequence in your mind. Donâ??t let the fudge
factor kick in, but analyze it from the viewpoint of learning from your
mistakes.
If the scene is replayed and you study the missed shot from all angles,
youâ??ll probably find that something happened that could have been a
contributing factor to missing the animal,
Some hunters cut wide shooting lanes in all directions, and the coop or
stand looks like the hub of a bicycle tire with spokes leading off in all
directions.
Deer often are frightened by such cleared areas. Hunting in thick cover is
much more difficult, and many of the stands on my ranch are established in
thick cover or very close to it. Some stands are out in the open, but over
many years Iâ??ve learned that thick-cover locations can be very productive.
They also can lead to some missed shots. Often, in many tree stands, there
will be only one good shooting location. Often, that is all we need. But,
know this, deer moving through such areas can travel on any trail or make
one of their own. Knowing where a shot can be taken is very important.
Always check for the one good natural shooting lane, and then start looking
for other possibilities. Bigger bucks often hand in heavy cover, and
learning how to pick a hole through the cover for a bow shot can be a
lesson in frustration. Do it right, and donâ??t forget about leafy branches,
twigs sticking out or that often unseen branch half the size of your little
finger that can deflect a shot.
Study that area where a shot was missed, and do so from the ground and a
tree, and thereâ??s a good chance youâ??ll learn why you missed. Taking a shot
in heavy cover means picking a hole where the arrow must pass.
This means careful attention to detail. Donâ??t forget that it takes only a
twig â?? a tiny twig â?? to deflect an arrow and cause it to fly harmlessly off
course. Miss one of these shots, and it becomes increasingly important to
study where the shot was taken and why it missed.
The most common reason for a miss was the arrow clipped an unseen twig or a
branch jumped out in front of the arrow. We all use Game Tracker devices for
trailing deer, and one blade of grass can snag the line and stop the arrow
in mid-flight. These things do happen, and when they do, figure out where a
mistake was made. Learn to pick a hole where the arrow will pass through
without nicking anything.
Those little holes become increasingly difficult to spot once the sun does
down. The heavy cover is darker, and tiny twigs are virtually impossible to
see. You must know where they are located.
Blaming the wind, a piece of blowing dirt in the eye, shooting into the
rising or setting sun, and a whole raft of other excuses are a waste of
time. Learn to study the situation, replay the shot, and determine where the
wheels fell off this shot.
Studying your missed shots can be a brutal piece of beating yourself about
the head and body, but knowing what you did wrong makes it far easier to
avoid a similar problem in the future. Making a mistake is human nature, but
brushing it away with some lame excuse simply enable the hunter to commit
the same mistake again.
And the cycle of missed shots will continue. â?? The Whitetail Wizard