How about your worst shot.

[MarineSgtjimh]

We can all brag up our best shots, some we even have witnesses for but who amongs us will admit to a "worst shot". I'll start it off. Hunting Jackrabbits in southern AZ one afternoon I completely missed one from about 10 feet. I was using an old Enfield. And the rabbit was sitting still. OK now fess up. What is your worst shot.

 

[madmikeb]

Wow, I don't think I could pick one, there have been many, and I do try to forget them!

 

[fat tom]

A six-point buck at about 8 yards. Shotgun with #1 buckshot. I had jumped him up in a cutover. He didn't see me so I stepped up on a large pine stump,figuring that he might return to investigate,as they will sometimes do. Sure enough,in about 10 minutes,here he comes,walking straight towards me with his nose to the ground. When he got close,I flipped the gun,which had been resting on my shoulder,over into my left palm and fired point blank at his head. Only thing I can assume is that the full-choked load went right between his antlers. I found the wad lieing in his track where he swirled to leave. I was too dumbfounded to follow up with a second shot.
f.t.

 

[venomballistics]

thats honestly hard to answer ... not so much for injury to ones pride, but raw frequency of qualifying incidents

 

[Wyo]

I once missed a smallish mule deer buck at about 80 yards. He was standing broadside, I was lying prone, had a dead bead on him with a 6x Redfield scope in a .30-06 Remington 700, pulled the trigger and - nothing! Once more - nothing! One last time - no soap. He got tired of the noise and left. I figured the scope had gotten out of whack somehow so I shot it on paper the next day. It was right on the money. I don't know what happened to this day!

A friend of mine missed a coup de grace shot on an antelope with a .357 Mag. Ruger Blackhawk, twice, from a distance of about 6 inches. He had a bit of a flinch. I finally took it away from him and did it myself. He's never heard the end of it since.

 

[arjay]

I once missed a doe at 30 yards in the dusk with my first 3 shots.The 4th arrow did the trick.

 

[pineappleshooter]

My worst shot didn't involve a shot. I was deer hunting one night after work and had picked a nice spot against a brush pile overlooking a stream where I could watch the gamepath below me. I heard the snap of a twig and waited and waited but never saw anything. Having worked all day I was tired and fell asleep. I woke up fast when a big doe ambled up and sneezed in my face from a distance of 3 inches or so. I jumped about 12 inches straight in the air, the gun went one way and the doe went the other!

 

[bigolddave]

My worst shot was not a miss. About sixteen, stuck a .22LR in a moderately fresh cow pie. Took dead aim, and must have hit it pretty square. What didn't land on my jeans made it all the way to my face.

 

[snowman]

My worst one never got fired. I was a greenhorn deer hunter in the woods of western Pennsylvania. The first buck I ever saw afield got within 30 yards or so. I was trying to be still to avoid detection. I kept my eyes on him and reached for the safety on my Mauser 98, but I was so nervous my thumb couldn't locate it! I pawed around and pawed around until the deer finally realized that I wasn't safe(or so he thought) and took off.

Oh well, I didn't want to clean the gun anyway.

Andy

 

[CajunBass]

Hunting deer with hounds and buckshot. The dogs jumped and headed my way. Fellow on the next stand from me signaled me "coming your way." I got ready. When she broke the clearing, my Remington 1100, loaded with 3" magnum loads of 000 buckshot came up. The bead found the junction where the neck joins the body. About ten FEET. The gun cracks. Deer keeps running. WTH? I never thought to shoot again.

I walk over and find the entire charge of buckshot, all 12 pellets, inside a popular tree, about 4" in diameter. As pretty a pattern as you ever saw.

It just won't her day to die. Cost me a shirttail anyway.

I also missed a squirrel once at about the same range with a 22 rifle. Heard a rusting behind me, and turned and the squirrel was on his back legs, with his front paws in the "surrender position." We don't take prisoners so I lined the scope up on his chest and shot a foot over his head. He got bored and moseyed on. I laughed until I cried.

 

[RenoGuy]

Mid 1960's, my brother and I (we're around 14 and 15) had just left our tree stands to meet up with Dad & brother #3 to walk out to the truck for lunch.

While we're standing at his stand talking about the morning's doings, I suddenly see a large doe grazing in the dry stream bed less than 10 yards behind my brother (still have no idea how it got there without us hearing it, or it hearing us ).

I whisper to my brother to be quiet and stand still. Needless to say, he proceeds to wheel around to look behind him, as we then both raise our rifles on the doe.

Never touched her , neither one of us. Don't even remember which direction she went, but she was gone in a flash.

Dad was NOT amused

 

[forresth]

When I was a kid riding in the back of the pickup down the 2 track, Dad stopped the truck because there was a partridge in the middle of the road. That stupid thing just sat there as I let fly about a dozen 22s. A couple of times I brushed its feathers and it looked at me, then went right back to eating. I finally nicked its leg (breaking it) and it flew less than 10' and stopped in a tree. Dad took the gun, and 3 shots later, it was dead. The scope got knocked (or it wouldn't have taken Dad 3 shots either), but it was still a piss poor example of marksmanship.

 

[silentflyer]

Missed the biggest buck I ever saw in the woods, shot from a tree stand, he was about 40 yards away, should have been an easy shot for the .357 Thompson Contender, but I choked and missed him. Buck fever I guess.

 

[pharmer]

About 45 years ago I was shooting at a playing card from about 30 ft. Someone had hammered a half dozen 16 penny nails in sort of a semicircle and I was using this to hold the card. I must have been a little high because that 40 grain HV came straight back and hit me in the tricep. Didn't penetrate but the black and blue "stupid stamp" lasted a month or so. Joe

 

[Gray Rider]

Bragged about my best shots, now fessing up to my worst.

Huge eight-point, looking at me through some thorn apple trees at twenty yards, Rem 30-06 with 3X9 Redfield. And to quote Forrest Gump "That's all I'm going to say about that."

When I was a rookie Trooper I worked with a senior guy who became a close friend, however, when ever I pulled some bonehead move it seemed to be directly proportional to his proximity to me. One day shift he was working the desk and gave me a report of an injured deer a couple of hundred yards south of our station. She was lying in a snowbank about 5 yards off the side of the road. Not wanting to wade through snow and it was only 5 yards, I went for the easy head shot. I saw the snow spray behind her, I had missed by a couple inches high. I the repeated this exact same shot four more times. I thought that I was going top have to reload but got her on the sixth.
I stopped at the barracks and he asked me if I had found her. I said that I did then he asked me how many shots it took. I knew I was busted and asked him how many did he hear. By the end of the day I'm pretty sure everyone in the station knew about it.

 

[Hillbilly77]

Couple seasons ago, second morning of early bow season.
I did everything right, and I had a gorgeous 8 point come in under my stand and stopped at about 14 yards perfectly broadside.
I misjudged the distance and and hit him extremely high. Arrow passed through and only had a bit of meat on the shaft and not a single drop of blood on it.
I looked for a blood trail for 1 1/2 days - not a drop. I totally whiffed on the shot.

 

[S&WOkie]

About 30 years ago I was hunting a 2000 acre lease with my Dad and Uncle. I had a Glenfield 30-30 with iron sights, and found a good spot where I could have up to a 250 yard shot.

I asked my uncle if I could use his extra rifle with a scope, because I might need it for the longer range.

It was a 300 WM that he used for elk and sometimes for deer.

I sat down on side of the mountain and waited for the deer to come out into a clearing from the fields they were feeding on at night.

Sure enough a eight pointer comes up out of a draw and stops broadside just waiting for me.

I sent off a round, and the deer just jumped and looked around like "what was that?".

So I took a second shot, and the buck ran off.

About 15 minutes later, in the same spot, I went through the same thing with another nice buck. Two shots and two misses.

Again within 20 minutes I had another buck a standing broadside just waiting for me to take him down. Two shots, two misses.

Believe it or not I had a fourth chance a little later in the same spot. Two shots, two misses.

Even as a young feller, I was always known as a great shot, so I just couldn't figure out what the deal was.

When I got back to camp everyone thought I must have killed a whole herd, because they could here that 300 magnum going off over the entire 2000 acres, and they knew I didn't often miss.

I told them what happened, and we all went to bed that night scratching our heads wondering what went wrong.

A couple of months later my Uncle told me he figured out the problem.

He took the rifle out to sight it in for elk, and realized he had never sighted it in for the lighter deer loads he had given me when I borrowed the gun.

The worst part is, the shots were all around 80 yards, and my 30-30 was dead nuts at that range!

 

[2son]

worst shots

My brother, best friend and I, small game hunting close to the cabin, gray squirrel runs past us. chirping and laughing. two 22 rifles and a pistol, loaded to the max. this guy is going down! shots ring out.. all misses. what?? squirrel runs to his tree 15 yards away, he pauses at the base. More shots fired, more misses. he stands there just giggling away! he scurries half way up the tree to his hidey hole. we run to the tree "determined". more shots fired blowing a hole through the back side of the tree, we can now see through this tree. "giggle, giggle" as we stand there in total disbelife. my best friend grabs a ladder, reloads and begins the climb. once he gets to the hole, he shoves the pistol in it and empties the mag. NO WAY he lived through that. finally peace and quiet.. then SURPRISE! the squirrel jumps out the freshly made hole, down the tree and runs past us laughing. don't know how many rounds of 22 were fired. but the squirrel lives to laugh another day. "tee hee"

 

[msinc]

In the fall of 2002 I built a custom pre-64 Model 70 hunting rifle for myself. I spared no expense and made a really nice hunting rifle out of it...AAA fancy Claro walnut, Octagon polygonal rifled barrel, Zeiss lit reticle German made scope, yada, yada, yada. Opening morning I went up the hill and immediately saw a fine 22" spread perfect racked 8 pointer. His 200 pound plus dressed weight body stood just on the edge of my feedplot, head and neck out of the woods. Range was around 75 yards, truth is probably closer to 60, but sayin' 75 makes me feel a little better. I put the cross hairs on the white of his neck and touched off the perfectly adjusted 1 1/2 pound trigger. He stood there looking at me!!! I quickly cycled the flawlessly polish smooth action and the crosshairs jumped right to the spot again. Bang, he stood there a second or two more and took off. I was able to head him off thru a little strip of woods and got off not one, but two more shots as he bounded across the field and dissappeared into the deep woods of another property owner. Surely something happened to the scope, a mount must be loose or something...this rifle shot its first group out the pipe at 1/2 inch. I went to the range to see what was going on and paced off 75 yards, touched off a shot and absolutely dead zero cut the center right out of the X!!! 4 more rounds touched that one to make a nice ragged hole. The following year I missed another nice buck with the rifle and put it away. I didn't even bother to check, I haven't hunted with it since. Some guns are what I call good luck guns, you just cant make a mistake with it. Others, and I have had a few are just bad luck. Either you see animals and miss or you hunt the best location all day and dont see squat.

 

[OK Hog Shooter]

I was hunting deer on a 4,000 acre ranch in NW Oklahoma during black powder season, probably 10 years or so ago. My rifle of choice that year was a .50 cal percussion Hawken style mountain rifle. I had been sitting on a ridge backed up against a cedar tree for the better part of the afternoon when l decided to stretch my legs and walk along a dry creek bed back toward higher ground. There was about a 3 ft. cut bank along the stream edge where l was slowly walking. The native grass along the stream was probably 3 to 4 ft. tall. I wasn't paying particular attention as l was looking for sign in the creek bed. I happened to glance up and looked right into the eyes of a 6 point buck, maybe 10 yards away!

As my heart started to go into overdrive, l slowly shouldered my rifle and cautiously cocked it. The buck was staring at me... I applied trigger pressure... the hammer fell.... Clatch! Nothing... the buck just stared at me! I re-cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger... Clatch! Nothing! What the? The buck is like frozen in space and time. I slowly bring my rifle to the crook of my arm. The percussion cap is in place, obviously it shows hammer marks. I pause, waiting for the possibility of a hang fire. Nothing. I ply the cap off and retrieve my capping tool. I drop said capping tool. I slowly bend over, retrieve it from the ground. The buck is staring at me like I'm no threat at all. I finally get a new cap on the nipple, slowly mount my rifle, cock it, take aim for what should have been a sure broadside heart/lung shot and pull the trigger...

KABOOM.... a cloud of black powder smoke lingers in the air. No buck is visible. I freeze in my tracks, listening for the sounds of a downed buck... nothing.... I wait maybe 5 minutes before l step up out off the creek bed and step through the native grass, maybe shoulder high, to claim my prize. Thoughts of venison on a spit over the camp fire come to mind. But wait! There is no buck on the ground... no signs...no blood... NOTHING. I spent the rest of the day looking for that dang buck. Never did find any sign, no blood, no blood trail, not even a hint that he was even there.

I just figured l had educated a young buck to the dangers of daylight travel during deer season. My lesson was to make sure my caps are fresh!

Blessings,
Hog the Deer Hunter