Your most memorable 'miss'

[cnelk]

We've all done it... MISS!


I sure had my share of misses over the years. One that is most memorable, and the spot is still named after is called '3 Times'


I believe it was back in 2002, me and a buddy were a couple miles in the backcountry one morning.


There was a thread of a meadow behind us and we set up on one side and started calling.


Before too long, here comes this raghorn! He was walking toward my buddy and gave me a nice 30ydsbroadside shot.


MISS!


I knocked another arrow as he just stood there. I drew and aimed...


MISS!


This time he jumped a few steps and stopped again. My buddy was still calling.
I knock another arrow, drew and aimed....


MISS!




*&#%%$)*&%)*!%)%^


This time he had enough and trotted nearer to where my buddy was.
And guess what!?


My buddy draws and shoots....


MISS!


&^$%%)*#%&)$


The elk runs off.


But I had a new name for the area '3 TIMES'

 

[Elk Noob]

I wrote this up for my family after my 2015 miss... It's the only Elk i've shot at with a Bow so it is my only miss to date. A lot went wrong, but I still had a chance. I'm an engineer by trade so please disregard any spelling and grammatical errors. I can barely spell my own name...


(Opening weekend - Archery 2015 season)

As I am sure you all know this was opening weekend for Archery. I was legal for both Mule Deer and Elk, but since I hadn't seen many Elk yet this year I was going to try to go for a Mule deer since they seemed plentiful in the area I was planning on hunting this weekend.

On Friday I got to the trailhead around 5 and hiked 5miles 2200' elevation to get to where I was going to camp, as I get to my camping spot I decided to take out the binoculars to get a good look at the surroundings, sure enough I see 5 elk, my plans now changed to go for Elk ]First thing Saturday morning.

After a nearly sleepless night I get up at 5 and head out onto the field, my goal is to make it to treeline before legal shooting light at about 6:-6:15.

About midway across the field to the tree line I think I see movement, the moon is so incredibly bright at this point so I pull out the binoculars and I can see 3 Elk in front of me, about 100-125yards away. I drop down in the grasses and just watch them for a bit. After about 10minutes of watching them I decided to give off some cow calls to see if I could get the bull to come to me, otherwise I was going to sit around waiting all day to see if they would come out again before dark.

Well after a nice little cow calling sequence the Bull lets out a little bugle and I keep calling eventually he lowers his head and starts coming in right for me, on a rope. I keep calling and he keeps coming slowly. He gets to within 35yrds of me but is only giving me a head on shot which I didn't want to take, he comes in a bit closer and I draw the bow. Something that has never happened before happens, the arrow fell off the string, it's ok the bull didn't notice. As he lowers his head I release the sting back down slowly and put the arrow back on the string, and keep calling. He comes in a bit closer and I draw again, again the arrow falls off the string, at this point the bull heard that and took off taking the Cows he had with him. I watched this nice 6x bull run off and didn't get a shot off.

I keep my head up and eventually I see another Bull, this one is a bit smaller but still a nice 5x maybe 6x with little nubs, I start calling to this bull now. After calling a bunch he isn't really coming in but he isn't running either. I let out a long high pitched cow call and I must have hit the right note because the Elk does a full on mating dance and starts coming right for me like the last bull. I keep calling and he keeps coming in. This bull however didn't like coming in closer than 50yards really, he'd come to about 50 bark at me and get a little worried and turn around back to 80-90yrds. My guess is he heard the cow call and didn't see an elk so he was getting uneasy, I'll be buying a decoy to fix this in the future. I keep trying to get this elk closer and keep giving him different calls, eventually he comes in closer now to about 35yrds, but he is still head on so it isn't a good shot. I draw back and again have a bow issue, this time my peep site is twisted. The elk evetnuay looses interest and turns to start going back to the woods. He was moving slowly so I decided to make my move. I fixed the peep site and start trying to move through the field quickly to get in position for a good shot. As the elk is moving to the tree line I'm running in the field making cow calls and hitting the ground as soon As the elk lifts his head to look around. I get within about 35 yards again and let off a few cow calls he turns to look at me and I range him 34 yards at the head, but he is head on again. Something happens and he spins back about 2-3 yards and turns giving me a perfect broadside shot. I assume he's at about 40yards and put my 40yard pin on the vitals. Draw was perfect, peep was aligned, I release the arrow. I hear the hit and watch the elk walk slowly to the trees. I think it was a good hit and keep watching the elk ]until he's gone into the trees.

I start looking for blood and found it, looks decent, but starts to trickle down closer to the trees and eventually I lose the blood trail. I backed off for a few hours and waited for a second set of eyes. We went back out and looked for the arrow, unfortunately I couldn't ever find it, so I'm not positive if it was a good hit or not. We search the woods doing semi circles all day from 10am coming out of the woods at 8pm and down to the car by about 10pm. We stayed the night in Vail and I had 2 more friends come out to look Sunday. We get up to the shot area about 7am and start searching; again we do grid searches all day until about 6:30pm. After about 20miles of walking and 5000' elevation change, No luck, we can't find any further blood and can't find the animal.

Needless to say I'm pretty disappointed at the outcome and I'm frustrated at myself for not getting a better shot. I'm heading back out next weekend and will search for birds and a smell to try and help me find this animal. It is entirely possible my shot was slightly off and I hit his shoulder causing some initial blood, but not fatally wounding him. I'm not sure if I will continue to hunt elk this year with the bow, or if that was my chance and because I wounded the animal I shouldn't go for another. I still have a deer and bear tag so I may just dedicate the rest o the season to those.

Well that was my weekend, I'm moving slowly today.

 

[DTP]

My most memorable miss was in the 2017 season.

I've been helping a good friend of mine and his family get into elk hunting.
They have already been on a few rifle hunts now, but had never seen how elk act on an archery hunt. My hunt started labor day weekend, so I told him that he and his family should come up and I could take them out on a few hunts with me.

We had TONS of great encounters & experiences, but there is one that I will never forget.

It was the final day that the group was going to be there. My buddy and his wife started to clean up their camp so I asked if I could take the boys out on "one last hike". He said yes so I went off behind camp with 5 boys..... yes, 5. (Ages 10-17)

We came out to a spot that overlooked a beautiful, steep valley.
I looked at one of the boys who told me he had been practicing with his mouth calls and said "we are not leaving here until you make some calls with me."

We started mewing up a storm and would you know it, some cows started responding about 80 yards below us.

I told the other boy who was calling to move down a little. He went about 40 yards to my left on a little point and we started calling back and forth to each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=worL8oobPDQ

After a few minutes of this the boy on the point started waving at me and pointing. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he put his hands up to his head to make "horns" and I knew a bull was coming.

The ledge in front of me was STEEP and covered with blowdowns. I couldn't see anything so we kept talking back and forth.
I looked over again and he was just pointing and motioning "RIGHT THERE".

So I looked at two of the boys behind me and told them to back up about 50 yards and just start walking around. Nothing could see up top without actually being on the top, so I wasn't worried about them being seen. He would have to come through me first.

After a few more seconds of calling and the boys walking... the boy on the point was about to jump out of his skin with pointing.

So I took a step to my left and saw tines.... I drew and took another step left.... he's a beautiful bull about 15 yards away from me. Because of how steep the slope was, he was just about "standing up" straight.

There was so much going through my brain when this happened. I couldn't even believe what was going on. So I aimed.... shot.... and watched the arrow fly straight over his back..... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivkM0yeKzU

The experience was like nothing I could ever explain. We were high fiving and cheering just because of the whole thing. I just wish I wouldn't have missed because that just would have added to the whole thing

 

[Ol Arky]

Opening day of archery season, we called it bow season back then, in the 1970's.. Don't remember the exact years since I don't remember when I started bow hunting but it was a few years into my career...

I had already killed several doe with my bow and arrows but never a buck... I just shot deer and doe were all I seemed to get shots at back then...

Anyhow, 1st day.. Setting in my tree stands (2 2x4's nailed between 2 small oak trees with a small piece of old plywood, yep we had it back then, for my platform and a single 2x4 nailed between those trees high enough for me to lean back on and set if I wanted... Got there about 30 minutes before 1st light... We did that back then and I still do today even some folks don't.. I could hear a lot better back then and could here something munching on the acorn's around me about 10 or 15 minutes later... I thought to myself, self this is gonna an easy start of the season...

The more light that came showed me the form of a deer first... Legal shooting hours... Deer was feeding almost directly under me... Heck I can make that shot...

One Mississippi...

Deer bounced off a bit.. Maybe 10 yards broadside... Heck I can make that shot...

Two Mississippi...

Deer bounces out into a thicket... I could still hear it and would catch a glimpse of it from time to time...

Finally, daylight...

Deer still teasing me or maybe it was laughing... It circled me and came out of the thicket behind me... Heck, IT'S A BUCK!!!

He continued to walk toward where I was... No shot yet... Couldn't turn around he had me nail I thought...

He continues to walk under me and sniffs the 1st arrow.... I'm frozen... Stone cold frozen... He then walks out and sniffs the 2nd arrow and was broadside AGAIN!!!

All I had back the was 3 hunting arrows...

I brought the old recurve to full draw... No sights to look at or blame since it was all instinctive shooting back then.. Released my last arrow...

3 Mississippi???

NOPE Nailed him and claim the 1st buck of my lengthy career...

But I did miss him twice before I saw what he was and got REALl serious about my shooting... 


 
 

 

[cohunter14]

My most memorable miss was my second year hunting when I was 13. It was snowing sideways during the 2nd rifle season in Colorado and I had a doe tag along with my elk tag. As my dad and I were walking along all of a sudden he spotted a doe around 150 yards out. It took me a minute to make the doe out because of how hard it was snowing. I got on my gun, rested it on a log, and took FOREVER to pull the trigger. The doe just sat there staring at us broadside. Truth be told, I was scared to pull the trigger. The recoil of that bad boy (only a .270) was brutal! I waited and waited and finally got the courage up to pull the trigger. Needless to say, I didn?t even notice the recoil between the adrenaline and all the clothing I was wearing  :lol:

The shot went just above the doe?s back. I just sat there and so did the doe. I finally realized I needed to reload and by that time the doe had enough and trotted off. Won?t forget that first miss!

 

[huntography]

Hey, Brad!

My 3X story is pretty similar. The only thing more painful than missing 3X, is being able to relive it on video, over and over again [emoji87][emoji86][emoji85]

Rudy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[rwgas]

2014 season, literally got my bow back the night before leaving for Colorado, after cutting my string practicing. First night in camp. Took a  5 mile hike to an area heard an elk chuckling, went after him partner then called in a 5x5 but he never gave us a shot. Walked a little further got into 4cows and looked to our left and had a bull raking about 40 yards away, partner laid on the ground called quietly and the bull came straight to us. Broadside at 20, shot right in front of him and he ran off. Partner said ? sounded like a good hit? my reply was ? I shot right in front of him?, he said to bad that was a 300+ bull. Went on to have the best week ever hunting, never shot again but it has been my favorite hunt ever.

 

[n2mywake]

Last season.... I always setup as caller... I called a herd with some cow calls, the cows went by at about 40 yards from me, after they went through the bull hammered. I cut his buggle off with a bugle which drove him nuts. I though we'll I'll range a few spots just in case (like I always do). The herd bull got past my dad and buddy and appreared to be going the same path as the cows, so I drew and began looking around my sight at potential obstacles, I knew the tree the cows went behind was 35 yards so I had 40 yard pin in mind.... Well he stepped out in front of the tree and I forgot to adjust..... I settled my 40 yard pin and touched off! I watched the arrow go over his back in disbelief.
After calling them back again but not getting a shot we went back yo figure out what happened and realized he was at 27 yards. I see him in my mind daily like it just happened.  I saw that was my chance of a lifetime.... Nice  bull.

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