Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

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Chuck B
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby Chuck B » Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:01 pm

1- rushed my shot on early season target buck and wounded him only
2- passed a pretty clear shot on a mature buck rifle season thinking he would walk into a very open area, but he never did. And, I could have set up closer to his suspected bed area but I chickened out and stayed back (making it a tougher shot).
3- got lazy on a couple of setups/walk-ins


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Octang
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby Octang » Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:22 pm

Hmmm... mistake or not. It is a hunt I will replay in my mind forever.

Bear hunting in Minnesota Boundary waters. I sit down and within 30 minutes I hear a bear snarling at something less than 50 yards away, but I can't see it due to the thick brush. That continues for a long time. Stops. Starts up again. And repeats for the next hour or so. I keep expecting it to spill out in front of me, but it never does.

The weather hasn't been good this whole hunt and my brother in law is sitting out in a canoe waiting on me in the bay. Finally the weather takes a turn for the worse, and I decide to call the hunt bc I feel guilty making my brother in law wait in a storm and I haven't heard the bear in a while now. I pack up and flag down the canoe. I hop in it and wail on my rabbit in distress call and a nice black bear stands up 20 yards away from where I climbed in the canoe. It ran away before I ever had a shot.

Admittedly, the whole time I was hunting, I fully expected the distress call would call him in if I wailed on it while I was hunting, but I was sitting on the ground with thick brush directly on my back and sides and I didn't want to have a bear come crashing in without warning. It turned out I didn't have cahoneys for that. However, I will always wonder, what if...

As for deer hunting.... I completely underestimated how hard it would be to access the stands I scouted while the ground was frozen over. Completely.
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby mike perry » Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:52 pm

November 3rd I was sitting a funnel on the edge of a swamp I had not seen a deer all day and I wanted to do a bit of inseason scouting, at noon I decided to cross a creek and check a couple cameras I’ve had up since before the season that I hadn’t checked yet, one was on a run that had years of rubs coming out of a bedding area there was a scrape about 100 yards from the beds, the camera was there, I had a LW climber on my back and had picked a tree out in the spring just never got to hunt that bedding area in early season, I checked the camera and a mid 140’s 10 point had come down that trail two nights before at 5:30. I climbed the tree over the scrape, at around 5:15 my girlfriend sent me a text, I hung up my bow on a limb I cut (witch I rarely ever do) to text her back, I had only taken my attention away for a minute. I herd a twig snap and look over and that 10 is already 25 yards and heading for the scrape, I have one tree for him to go behind to draw. He sees me move to get my bow, he stared me down for a minute and decided I was no danger and kept coming.

I didn’t have my hand through my sling yet so I had to make a decision quick do I put my hand through the sling when he goes behind the tree and risk him seeing me draw or shoot without my hand through the sling, I decided to put my hand in the sling when he passed behind the tree and then draw when he got to the scrape, well he picked me off again when I drew, he leaped a couple times and stopped broad side about 22 yards, at this point I’d spooked him twice, I should have aimed under him I guess because he ducked so low and turned when I shot that I hit him straight above the boiler room in the backstraps above the spine, actually thought I straight spines him because he went down a second , it’s a game of inches. I let him go all night came back in the morning and ended up jumping him out of that bedding area he ran up to my buddy who was at last blood 200 yards the other direction, my buddy videoed the buck for about 30 seconds at close range, he was not carrying a bow, after reviewing the footage we were sure the buck would survive. We actually got trail camera pictures of him all the was up till January so he made it.

So don’t play with your phone, don’t let go of your bow if you do and definitely don’t shoot at an alarmed deer that busted you twice and is still kind enough to offer you a 22 yard broadside shot.
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tgreeno
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby tgreeno » Tue Feb 20, 2018 5:05 pm

I don't make mistakes...I have learning experiences 8-) . Typically many of them throughout each season.

You name it, I've probably "experienced" it, at one time or another.
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby Dewey » Tue Feb 20, 2018 6:32 pm

I had two failures this past season.

1)Wounded and didn’t recover a big 8 pt on November 3rd

2)Completely missed a 140’s 10 pt on January 1st.

Failure at the moment of truth is something I never had a problem with especially on nicer bucks. I have always done well under pressure. Both were high percentage shots that I have practiced for 100’s of times on targets and completed many times over the years with no issues on bucks. Problem is with both I still am not sure exactly what happened and that still really bothers me. I have repeated both shots since them while practicing with the same clothing and similar conditions and my arrows hit right where I was aiming every single time. One of those things that will haunt me every day until I get another opportunity and kill my next buck.

I have another failure where I had a Booner at 5 yards on November 10th and never was able to put an arrow in him. That hurt like you wouldn’t believe but I got over it fairly quickly. Proud of myself for not forcing a low percentage shot that could have been a potential disaster. I wasn’t ready for that exactly one week after wounding the big 8 pt. and mind games came into play here. I hesitated and didn’t take a split second shot that I probably could have made. In the end I consider it a success just being in that position to have an opportunity on a buck like that. Some guys never get that chance during their entire life so consider myself very lucky.

Sometimes we have a season like this and just cannot explain it. My biggest lesson learned this past season is never take anything for granted. You can do everything right and still fail in the end. Just how it goes sometimes.

Pretty humbling season and looking forward to getting started on the 2018 season. It can’t come fast enough.
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby Ack » Tue Feb 20, 2018 6:48 pm

My biggest failure of 2017 mirrors Dewey's # 1.......hit and did not recover a big 8 on November 3rd.

After spotting a couple deer in the thick I gave a grunt and out pops a 6 point, followed by this guy on a string to my tree. The six goes right under me, and the big boy holds up, then follows in his footsteps. Making a hasty decision I thought I could thread the needle on a close quartered to shot. If I had let him walk he would have walked right under the tree to my weak side, and I would have had to spin a 180 on the stand, at full draw, while he's only 12 feet directly below me. I decided to shoot, and it didn't end up well.

I didn't realize my limitations and paid the price with an unrecovered deer that most likely would have been my biggest to date. It's a tough call to make when things are happening so fast, but in the future I need to stick to the basics and not try risky shots, no matter how big the rack.
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby Dewey » Tue Feb 20, 2018 6:54 pm

Wow.....3 of the last 4 posts were November 3rd failures! :shock:

That sure was a bad day! :o
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby Ack » Tue Feb 20, 2018 6:58 pm

Dewey wrote:Wow.....3 of the last 4 posts were November 3rd failures! :shock:

That sure was a bad day! :o


Good day for seeing bucks though!
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Dewey
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby Dewey » Tue Feb 20, 2018 7:15 pm

Ack wrote:
Dewey wrote:Wow.....3 of the last 4 posts were November 3rd failures! :shock:

That sure was a bad day! :o


Good day for seeing bucks though!

November 2-3 are my favorite days by far. Killed my Iowa buck on the 3rd the year before.
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby Boogieman1 » Tue Feb 20, 2018 7:39 pm

Dewey wrote:I had two failures this past season.

1)Wounded and didn’t recover a big 8 pt on November 3rd

2)Completely missed a 140’s 10 pt on January 1st.

Failure at the moment of truth is something I never had a problem with especially on nicer bucks. I have always done well under pressure. Both were high percentage shots that I have practiced for 100’s of times on targets and completed many times over the years with no issues on bucks. Problem is with both I still am not sure exactly what happened and that still really bothers me. I have repeated both shots since them while practicing with the same clothing and similar conditions and my arrows hit right where I was aiming every single time. One of those things that will haunt me every day until I get another opportunity and kill my next buck.

I have another failure where I had a Booner at 5 yards on November 10th and never was able to put an arrow in him. That hurt like you wouldn’t believe but I got over it fairly quickly. Proud of myself for not forcing a low percentage shot that could have been a potential disaster. I wasn’t ready for that exactly one week after wounding the big 8 pt. and mind games came into play here. I hesitated and didn’t take a split second shot that I probably could have made. In the end I consider it a success just being in that position to have an opportunity on a buck like that. Some guys never get that chance during their entire life so consider myself very lucky.

Sometimes we have a season like this and just cannot explain it. My biggest lesson learned this past season is never take anything for granted. You can do everything right and still fail in the end. Just how it goes sometimes.

Pretty humbling season and looking forward to getting started on the 2018 season. It can’t come fast enough.


I have had shots as well as seasons just like yours went. Mine always started with a wounding, but not necessarily a bad shot sometimes arrow struck exactly where I wanted yet nothing! That sick feeling stays with ya all season, and when I would get a second chance think I would try harder not to miss than just do my thing. Mind games would have me over thinking situations. I would have failure to launch syndrome passing on shots I would have taken if I had not have wounded an animal earlier in the year. Complete snowball of a disaster those years. But they do make me appreciate the good years. I can handle a miss fairly easy but a wound 9 times out of 10 ruins my season.
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby Tim H » Tue Feb 20, 2018 10:20 pm

Dewey wrote:Wow.....3 of the last 4 posts were November 3rd failures! :shock:

That sure was a bad day! :o


My wife’s birthday is November 3rd. :cry:

It’s the one day I give up for her and it hurts every time!
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby fireforeffect » Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:55 pm

My biggest mistake of 2017 was taking up the track too early on a buck that I hit "a little far back". The buck was quartering toward me so I knew that the arrow would exit through the paunch, but figured that I got enough lungs and liver to seal the deal quickly. I gave the buck about 6 hours and then got on the track. He got up and ran off. I shot the deer on Saturday morning and did not recover him until Monday afternoon. It took three days of bushwacking, cussing myself, and finally paddling upriver to find him. The arrow entered his front shoulder and exited right behing the diaphram. Deer are some tough critters. The moral of the story? Quartering to shots are not ideal and give a gutshot deer 12 hours. I thought that he would expire quicker and I didn't want to lose the meat to the heat, coyotes, or bears.
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby RidgeGhost » Wed Feb 21, 2018 12:54 am

Dewey wrote:
Ack wrote:
Dewey wrote:Wow.....3 of the last 4 posts were November 3rd failures! :shock:

That sure was a bad day! :o


Good day for seeing bucks though!

November 2-3 are my favorite days by far. Killed my Iowa buck on the 3rd the year before.


Killed my Ohio buck on the third :D
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby RidgeGhost » Wed Feb 21, 2018 1:00 am

My most obvious mistake of 2017 was getting caught moving to check my phone by a big buck within 15 yards on opening day. It was a tough pill to swallow but learned a lot from it. Biggest thing I learned is to have confidence in my setups. I have to go in knowing a buck is going to step out at any time.

Secondly, I flopped in WV. I ran into way more people than I expected and I did not respond to it well. I need to have more backup plans built in on out of state hunts.
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Re: Lets hear about the your biggest mistake in 2017

Unread postby elk yinzer » Wed Feb 21, 2018 1:02 am

#1 Took a dumb shot at a doe. She was near my max range and on edge from catching my wind. She of course jumped the string and at least I missed. Should have known better. Been doing this enough there is no excuse for borderline shots.

#2. Disclaimer: I had a great season, learned a lot, but I am somewhat of a perfectionist so..... Weak mental game. Poor planning. Early season burnout.

Hunted too much early season with hardly anything to show for it. Was guessing on buck beds that I knew darn well are nomadic bucks with many beds. Hunted a couple summer beds because I had summer scouted for the first time. Got to the point where I had to work a couple prime cold front days the last week of October to catch up. Also used up a lot of the capital with the wife. Hard to hunt for weeks on end with a toddler at home. I wasn't burnt out from hunting but juggling everything was getting to be a grind.

So early season is usually warm-up time in the mountains then the rut rolls around. Scouted all year and going into my rutcation I didn't have a bulletproof gameplan. Call it a lull, call it what you will, but I wasn't seeing results and was wavering mentally losing confidence. Hunted with my dad my week off and my priority was getting him on deer as he hasn't scouted my areas at all. Don't get me wrong it was awesome to hunt with him but my double team execution was a bit off.

Didn't hunt my #1 target buck during the rut because I was waiting for the "perfect" wind to make his ridge leeward when I should have just made an aggressive move because I had him about as pinned down as a mountain buck gets. Shot a buck in hindsight I would have passed halfway through my rutcation. It was one of those quick encounters and didn't have time to mull it over. Season over. All great learning experiences. Counting down the days til next November.
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