As a hunter, I know that I won't always hit my mark, and sometimes I will end up regretting pulling the trigger. This weekend, I had a rough encounter with one of those situations. I muzzleloader hunted on a farm one afternoon in hopes of bringing home a doe or two to make jerky with. I spotted a lone deer feeding on the edge of a field, and was able to stalk to about 80 yards from it because of a hill between myself and the deer. I assumed it was a button buck since it was a small deer by itself, but I had no problem with taking it since there is going to be an attempt at planting corn next year and all hunters have been asked to thin the herd to the best of their abilities. I was shooting a Knight MK-85, with iron sights, the scope mounts for it are a little too much for me to want to spend on a 3 week season. Back to where I was. The deer was still calm, and feeding, so I shouldered the gun, steadied myself, and squeezed the trigger. The deer was hit hard and only made it 50 yards before crashing in the edge of the woods. I walked back to my bag that I set down before I closed the distance, all of my shooting supplies had been rattling around pretty loudly. I reloaded my gun, and walked back to the top of the hill to get my deer. When I got there, 4 more deer were standing where the one I shot had been feeding, so I lined up on one of the does and squeezed off another shot. This deer sped off immediately, but its tail was down so I knew I hit it. I walked over to gut my first deer and upon my arrival, I was puzzled to see that the deer wasn't there. I walked back into the woods 20 yards or so, and looked for blood. Nothing.... By now it was getting dark so my dad came out with two big spotlights to help me get both of the deer. We only found a small spot of thin blood where my first deer hit the ground, and no evidence of the other deer being hit. After covering the woods to the property line, we headed out, with no blood trail whatsoever from either deer to follow. And unfortunately, there was no way for me to go look for them the next day, with the biggest complication being that they could be on any of a half dozen small lots that I didn't have permission to search on.
Well, one of my deer was found today, a mere 30 yards from where I thought it went down. The deer went in the complete opposite direction from what I predicted. The shot was textbook, right behind the shoulder, exactly where I was aiming. The other deer however, I have no idea about. Ultimately, I am to blame in this situation. I did not study the bullets that were given to me with the gun (I am borrowing it) and if I would have simply googled them, I could have discovered that everyone who had shot them said they expanded and fragmented too quickly to even leave an exit wound, and left little blood trail if any at all. The second mistake I made was to take my eyes off the deer once I saw it go down. If I would have waited another ten seconds after it fell, I could have seen it run off and die in the creek that was within sight of where I was standing. I also don't think I should have taken that second shot. I was overly confident from dropping the first deer, and was pushing my range, the deer was probably 90-100 yards away on the second shot.
I can add up all of the reasons on why things went wrong, but what it comes down to is that I really screwed up. I feel terrible about what happened. It's bad enough to lose one deer, but I lost two, in one evening. Hopefully I have learned enough from this experience to no duplicate it again, but also, not be too afraid of messing up to take shots that I am comfortable with. I know something will happen again, it is part of hunting, it is just our responsibility as hunters to do our best to learn from mistakes and to do everything in our power to keep the hunt as perfect as possible. I hope someone can learn from my mistake(s), or at least relate to my situation and know that it happens, if anyone claims to have never wounded or lost an animal, he or she is either lying, or has not spent much time in the field. As always, thanks for reading!
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