Dealing with The Inevitable Miss on a Shooter Buck 

Failure can be our best teacher in the deer woods 

As I settled into my stand on opening day of Arkansas’ early bow season, I was confident. According to trail cameras, several shooter bucks had been gracing this spot almost daily. A well-established mineral site and a few dozen ripe apples were drawing the velvet-covered bucks to the area and the conditions were perfect. If this day panned out like the several previous, I would get my chance at my first velvet buck, which is not something I ever thought would happen in my home state of Arkansas. 

Like clockwork, at about 6:15 pm, a spike and a large antlered buck entered the clearing just north of me. They were headed to the mineral site and apples. The quartering-to angle was not a desirable shot so I waited for them to get closer and maybe reposition. The bucks settled behind a small patch of cover and started to eat apples. They were less than 20 yards away, the perfect archery shot, but they refused to step back out into the clearing and present a shot.

I was starting to get nervous at this point. To have a deer this close and never present a shot is pure torture. The buck finally started to turn but ended up walking directly away. I scrambled to find an opening but there just wasn’t one there. He finally started to walk to the left and cleared the cover. I was fuzzy on the distance that I ranged previously and assumed he was 30 yards. I settled my pin on him quickly and released the arrow. 

I’d like to say he ducked out of the way but his movement was minimal. The arrow sailed a couple inches over his back and he quickly made his way out of the clearing. I sat back, sick to my stomach. I’ve missed deer before, plenty of them, but this one stung just a little extra. Everyone deals with a miss a different way. While we all go through a brief anger or depression stage, there is an order of operations that you should go through to ensure that you are ready for your next opportunity. 

Misses don’t just happen by chance. They aren’t punishments from God. They happen because of some known reason, whether mechanical or psychological. In the case of my most recent miss, the use of my rangefinder in the aftermath of my miss revealed that I overjudged my yardage by five yards. This would definitely contribute to a miss. By stepping back and analyzing the situation, you should have a better understanding of what needs to happen next time. 

Now that you know the reasons why you missed, it’s time to hone your skills and get ready for the next hunt. Even if your next hunt is that very afternoon, a solid practice session in the middle of the day is enough to improve your form and confidence. Ideally you have more time to prepare but it is imperative that you get some practice time in after a miss. Maybe you need to resight your bow, maybe you need to get better at judging yardage, or maybe you need some time to calm yourself down and mitigate the target panic. The key to success is consistent practice. 

After you’ve got some shots in and some confidence rebuilt, it’s time to get back out there. Don’t let fear hold you back from trying again. Now by all means, if you are having some major mechanical or efficiency issues then maybe you need to take some more time to ensure the problem is solved and that you don’t run the risk of wounding an animal. But other than that, you just have to hunt. We are all prone to an occasional miss, but that doesn’t define us, the hunt does. 

Published September 12th, by Will Bowen, Okayest Hunter Contributor