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I missed today and thats a good thing!


ridgerunner88
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This is my first year turkey hunting and this morning I missed a big Tom. It was a really hard pill to swallow since I felt like I let my brother who spent 4 mornings acting as my guide down. He is basically the reincarnation of Fred Bear, he is an amazing outdoorsman and it hurt bad not to seal the deal on all his hard work.

 

The few hours after the hunt I was pretty low and couldn’t get the sting of the missed opportunity out of my head.

 

However to my surprise while mowing my lawn, I was able to finally take some time and get my mind right. After that 45 minutes of yard work I felt a relief because I realized that missing today was the second best thing that could happen to me with regards to my hunting development.

 

I focused on determining the root cause of why I missed this morning. I started by asking why…

 

Why did I miss? Well technically I didn’t miss, I actually either grazed him or shot him the breast and he just ran off.

 

Why did I hit him in the breast? Because that is where I was aiming.

 

Why did I aim there? Because he was broadside and walking, I wasn’t confident to shoot the smaller area of the vitals/neck. I just wanted to guarantee I hit him.

 

Why wasn’t I confident? Because I was using a crossbow I didn’t own and had only shot a few times to site in. I had never shot a moving target and didn’t understand the difference that movement would make on how I needed to aim.

 

That is the point where I realized this was a blessing in disguise. If I were to have made a perfect shot and killed that bird this morning. I would have gotten away with not understanding my target animal’s anatomy and not taking the time to become skilled enough with my weapon of choice to have the confidence to attempt the required shot.

 

I just purchased my first compound bow two weeks ago and look forward to taking it deer hunting this fall. Today was a wakeup call that reminds me the amount of preparation I am going to need to take this summer in order to be prepared for the fall.

 

If I would have been successful this morning, my ego and false sense of belief in myself would have led me down a bad path and potentially to me wounding a deer because of my lack of skill.

 

Now with this new found reality check I am in the right frame of mind that will lead to me taking the steps to improve my abilities, not rest of my laurels.

 

Today still stings but the pain is good!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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