misses

[dirt road ninja]

Sometimes I  go years without a miss. My last streak was 3 or 4 years long and ended in late April of 2017. Early in the morning I set up on birds that were roosted the night before along a creek near a cut field in OH. The field had steep banks that sloped toward the wood line and I set up where the birds exited the field the afternoon before. As the sun came up they started gobbling an I waited till they were on the ground to call. There were 2 toms and they hammered at everything. Instead of coming straight to me, the entered the field out of my sight and sounded like they were walking away. I kept calling and they sounded like they would walk toward me then walk away back out to the center of the field, which I could not see as I was well below it. In my impatience I came up with the idea of crawling to the crest of the field edge and killing one. When I did the birds stood up about 10 yards apart and looked at me, not sure of what they were looking at they just stood there. I shot at the one that was to the right and it ran towards the other one and stopped.  Now they were too close together to try another shot, but the one I missed walked down the hill to the woods and the other one stood there, so I shot at him. He quickly followed his friend to the woods. When I got up to go look, I realized I grossly misjudge the distance, the uphill shot and low light had me way off the mark. Ended up killing one of them later, but was upset with myself for my horrific yardage estimation.

[davisd9]

Trying to recollect when my last miss was.  I think it was in 2016.  I had a good many misses before 2011 when I scoped my gun.  When looking at the bird with rifle sights I would get excited and lift my head up to a clean miss. Saw a few trees get pulverized with shot about a foot over the bird. When I shot bead I cannot think of a miss, but I also did not shoot much over 30 yards.  Since adding the scope my misses have come from bone headed decisions, rushing the shot, taking a bad shot, shooting at a poor angle, etc.  There also have been times that I had more confidence in the gun than I should have.  As I have gotten older I have learned from those mistakes.  That does not mean they will not repeat themselves from more bone headed decisions, but it is better.

The only one I want to take back was in 2012 as it earned me the name "Sir Miss A lot."  Yes that one hurt!

[trkehunr93]

Don't get me started....    In all seriousness it's part of the game, I can say that scoping my shotgun has helped me keep my cheek on the stock so I'm not as apt to look over the barrel rather than down the barrel as I could do when I was using a bead sight.  My misses have been my fault and my fault alone.  My most memorable one, if you want to call it that, was in the national forest in 2007.  Just typing about it is making me irritable, I hiked down the mountain about 300-400 yards after not hearing anything at daylight.  I stop on the path I'm on and I can't remember if I hooted or used my box call but I heard a bird gobble to my right so I grinned and eased another 100 yards down the mountain to a little makeshift blind a buddy of mine had made that we hunted out of and got set up.  Got out a glass call and yelped and yelped on my box call, within a minute they gobbled again and were close.  Gun up, safety off and I put my cheek on the stock.  Out pop two gobblers below me but I have to move to my right so I wait until the lead bird moves to my left and the 2nd gobbler moves behind a tree.  The second gobbler steps out and goes between some trees and I shoot, one is running off and the one I shot at is flying off to my left.  I reload, shoot again and miss.  I'm trying to figure out what the H happened after it all goes down so I walk down to where the one was standing when I shot and on the way down the ridge I pass a sapling and it is eat up with shot.  Never saw it when I squeezed the trigger so my pattern was blown apart before it ever got to him.  I was upset to say the least, it's normally a 30-40 minute walk up the mountain and I did it in less than 20 minutes.  I was steaming mad at myself and didn't stop once to take a break.  Fast forward almost 11 years later and if I miss one now I shrug my shoulders and go find another turkey, it's funny how time and age will give you a better perspective on things.  Good thread Russell, you helped me find some closure 

[troutfisher13111]

2015 was my last miss. It was up until that point the worst season I'd ever had. Between NY and PA I'd only heard a few gobbles and none of them were close enough to talk back to. This was after 20 something days of hunting, so to say I was discouraged is an understatement. Literally hours upon hours logged, miles upon miles and not even one bird close enough to dance. Like they all disappeared from all my well known turkey spots all at once, it was unreal. With only 4 or 5 days left to hunt I finally struck up a bird and after about 45 minutes of going back and forth he was hung up about 40 yards in front of me, so I took the shot. My gun had easily made that shot many times before, but somehow I missed. My heart sank and I just continued to sit against the tree for another 10 minutes just sulking. I felt like crying. Still to this day I have zero idea what happenend. I finally got up the energy to head to another spot.  After another hour I was walking out of those woods with a mature tom over my shoulder. The excitement and satisfaction was overwhelming.

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[davisd9]

My worst miss just came to me. Hard to believe I did not think of it earlier. Guess I was trying to block it out. I will come back when I have time and tell the story of how I missed a public land Osceola on the first hunt I ever did in Florida.


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[dirt road ninja]

I thought about that one myself.

[Bowguy]

I'm kinda the opposite. Old school, beaded barrel,  forgivable loads, normally Winchester xx turkey loads at range not even close to stretching it and I flat out didn't miss. Prob the first 30 years I hunted I think I missed 2 birds. I'm big on practice though. Actually was anal about it. Don't know how guys are saying they're cheeking gun w a scope. My face is always welded tight but any scope sits too high to do that for me. It'd be more of a chin weld of sorts.
This year I added a red dot to one of my guns. Soon as you add a sight in my case you need a comb raiser which I did add but have yet to sight in.
The new loads have caused some misses in recent years. I never take risky or far shots, brings the odds of harvest per shot up. Maybe let's some birds walk though. And that's fine

[Rzrbac]

I missed one last spring. First time I had missed one in a very long time. Last year was also my first year hunting with the new longboard shells and a scope. It was later in our season and nothing was gobbling. I had walked all morning and never struck a bird. I called before I crested a tall ridge and nothing. As soon as I crossed over, a gobbler and hen flush different directions about 40 yards away. I've had decent luck calling flushed gobblers in the spring when I separated them from their hens so I sat down to give it a shot. I didn't pull out a shooting stick or even put a headnet on. I figured I had 10 or 15 minutes before I had to get serious. I sent a few texts, got some Copenhagen and water and called a few times just waiting on things to calm down. Within 5 minutes or so I could hear a bird walking behind me. I turned and could make out the gobbler about 40 yards directly behind me. He just stood there neck stretched high looking. I decided to try to make my move very slow, kind of like clock hands. I eventually got my gun around on him and his head would peep around a tree slowly and then back behind the tree again. It was kind of like playing peek a boo, I eventually got to shaking from holding my gun up in an awkward position for a long time. I finally shot when his head came out. I believe I pulled to the right severely and even missed the tree he was peeking around. I was glad it was a clean miss, I hate silent birds.

[davisd9]

Well I have had all weekend to try and get my thoughts together to recall this tragic event.  YoungbuckTX got drawn for a public land hunt in Florida for the opening weekend.  You can take a guest on a guest pass and each of you can kill one bird a piece.  Well we found a track of land in our unit that we really liked.  We scouted the evening before our hunt began and we found a good amount of sign, it was also very close to our campground.  Our hunt was Thursday through Sunday and you can only hunt until 1:00 pm.  The first couple of days we had good hunting and saw a good many birds, hens and he saw a jake, but nothing more.  There was plenty of sign but no toms seen or gobbles heard.  We decided to go farther back and hunt some.  Well on Saturday we drove farther back and he went deeper in and I went back towards were we were hunting, actually where he saw the jake. 

As I was going down the road I heard the sweet sound we all long to hear, a bird gobbling all on his own.  I get set up and start calling, he gobbles.  I wait and call again and I hear wing beats and cackling.  He is coming.  I am waiting and all of a sudden behind me to the right I hear a spit n drum.  I look back and can see his fan.  I slowly turn my body and gun toward him.  I got the gun up and was waiting.  First opening he stepped it in I let it rip and he jumped up in the air and took off flying the direction he went.  Waited an hour or so and got him gobbling again but he wanted nothing to do with where I was and could never get circled on him.  Chased him through a swamp until it was just about over the tops of my boots.  He roosted there again the next morning, but he went the other way again, gobbling at my calls.   

I made three mistakes.  The biggest, and one Russell likes to remind me about, was carrying a gun on my first public land Osceloa hunt that I was not overly familiar with or confident it, but it was a 20 gauge and lighter than my 835 so that was my reasoning.  Secondly, I was not patient enough which led to the third, I was in an awkward, awkward position.  He was coming and I had time, but like a fool I rushed it.  That one REALLY hurt!

Me right after the miss, best smile I could muster in the hurt:

[WNY Bowhunter]

I missed one in KY last spring followed by two here in NY. I was so dejected at that point I thought about hanging it up for the season but redeemed myself a few days later. This season I'm added a Leopold vx1 Turkey reticle scope to my 835.

[dirt road ninja]

It seems the ones further from home  hurt more.

[Bowguy]

It seems the ones further from home  hurt more.

That'd prob be true. I flat out hate to miss. You get up real early, trek through some muddy/wet terrain. Sit real still while a mosquito bores a hole in your nose. Than whiff. Not my idea of fun.
Missing is for work. I missed work today cause I was hunting sounds better than I took off work today, went hunting and missed. Ugh!!!!