Pulled my camera cards and checked them out this evening. This is the buck I missed today. Appears he has had his butt kicked a few times this season.Well, I did something I haven’t done in a long, long time. I flat missed a resting shot.
I let my daughter take the best stand and since I wasn’t sitting there, I decided to go sit on a power line. About 4:15, I saw a really wide 10 pt buck on the neighbors property, 500 yds out. He was coming my way so I ranged way points. I knew if he jumped the fence he would be at 350, so that’s what I dialed the scope in for. Sure enough, he jumped the fence. As soon as he did, he dropped down in a ditch so I hustled over to a utility pole to get a rest. Where I thought he would come up out of the ditch was 325 yds, so I left the scope on 350. He popped up, munched on some acorns but was facing me head on. I watched him for 10 mins before he gave me a quartering shot. Nerves were settled, he turned and froze, so I squeezed the trigger. I gathered up my stuff and headed that way but could find no blood. I looked and looked, but nothing. So I went back to my shooting position to figure out what had gone wrong. Got the range finder out and there was the problem. When he dropped down in the ditch, instead of coming up at 325, he had actually travelled the ditch and came up closer to 250 or 260 yds. I checked my ballistics on my load and that discrepancy in yardage put me shooting about 9 inches high. Since I was aiming square in the middle of his shoulder, I put the shot right over his back.
Only thing worse than missing a wall hanger is wounding one and not finding it. I’m thankful that didn’t happen and he is still out there.
