Ever notice?

[New York Hillbilly]

For some reason my FB feed has been a steady daily page after page stream of deer recovered (and many of them not) by trackers with their dogs.  It seems there are more and more every season. And, it’s not limited to bow hunting. Many of these stories are crossbow and firearms.  

Has anyone else ever noticed they always preface the story with excuse making like the deer jumped, hit a twig, limb hit the stand, etc etc etc? Never  I f’d up, I took a shot I shouldn’t have, my nerves got the better of me, I shot to far, maybe I should have practiced more, and so on. 

 

Edited November 21 by New York Hillbilly

[Enigma]

Yep. My favorite excuse I hear is "It was the only shot I had". No dipshit, you could've waited, not shot, not set yourself up for all the drama and extra work, and shot that same deer from the same stand 48hrs later. If you were patient and had some self control. 

Takes a lot of experience to get to that point though. Antlers make people stupid. 

[suburbanfarmer]

I think the TV shows force ppl to take any shots to post up and in the end they end losing the deer
Most ppl are now in it for the show and money not because they enjoy being outdoors

[airedale]

16 hours ago, New York Hillbilly said:

For some reason my FB feed has been a steady daily page after page stream of deer recovered (and many of them not) by trackers with their dogs.  It seems there are more and more every season. And, it’s not limited to bow hunting. Many of these stories are crossbow and firearms.

I have noticed this too, missing shots and poor hits are most times the result of poor marksmanship. I know there are many hunters that do not even check the zero of their firearms before season. To be good at anything requires practice and "PLENTY" of it. I know ammo these days is very expensive, but one can get all the practice they need with rimfire firearms and even good quality airguns and become good shots.

Also a well hit Deer can travel unbelievable distance, too many throw in the towel early.  Each animal is a story of it's own and you can expect the unexpected some days. I shot a spikehorn buck a few years ago with a 45-70 firing a 350 grain bullet at 25 yards, I had to track him through thick woods for a good 200 yards before finding him. The bullet placement was perfect and the bullet went through his heart., I had a hunting partner with me tracking and he could not believe the Deer went that far. A couple of years ago I shot a duplicate spikehorn buck at close to 100 yards distance with a 357 mag with almost the exact bullet placement, he only went 25 yards and went down. So here you have one Deer shot with a cartridge that can probably kill elephants tearing off to parts unknown and one shot with a cartridge that many would consider marginal that piles up almost immediately, go figure!

For me one thing is for sure, if the crosshairs are where they are supposed to be when my gun fires I know I have a dead Deer and it is up to me to find it.

Al

[landtracdeerhunter]

I noticed a growing trend in society, people refuse to take blame for their own actions. They will blame it on every other excuse, except the real one. 

Everybody screws up, accept it and take responsibility for what is done. Learn by ones mistakes.

[Doc]

Yes, there are way too many people who fail to understand that marksmanship is a large part of hunting. And that is a real shame. There are so many shots that are taken that never should be taken. Shot selection is another big part of hunting. There are also a lot of hunters that think they can do much more than it turns out they can do when it comes to proper shot selection and placement. I know, it takes super-human will power to pass a marginal shot at some huge buck. 

I don't want to sound "preachy" here, but sometimes it is good to at least think about some of these things before we pull that trigger or loose that arrow.