A slightly different narrative/ alternate view.

Some great shooting in this thread. Hunters displaying careful and measured marksmanship. How it should be.
But what about the stuff ups? They are the ones I remember. Fortunately few.

The stuff up perspective. Too rushed here.
Standing shot on moving deer at 150 yards. High risk and low percentage shooting. 62 grn Maker .223 bullet. Hit back edge of lungs and passed right through. Deer bolted.
Dog picked up trail quite quickly. You can tell that blood isn't from a clean shot.

Attachment 277525

Tracked for 150 yards Good find by dog. Dispatched. Hang your head in shame Bruce.

Here's Bella waiting for me to finish the job.

Attachment 277526

Yeah mate, stuff ups aren't good but we have all had them and learn from them. @Tahr you are a good honest hunter, one of the best and not afraid to own your mistakes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tahr

Some great shooting in this thread. Hunters displaying careful and measured marksmanship. How it should be.
But what about the stuff ups? They are the ones I remember. Fortunately few.

The stuff up perspective. Too rushed here.
Standing shot on moving deer at 150 yards. High risk and low percentage shooting. 62 grn Maker .223 bullet. Hit back edge of lungs and passed right through. Deer bolted.
Dog picked up trail quite quickly. You can tell that blood isn't from a clean shot.

Attachment 277525

Tracked for 150 yards Good find by dog. Dispatched. Hang your head in shame Bruce.

Here's Bella waiting for me to finish the job.

Attachment 277526

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Thank you for the post! Yep none of us are perfect and sometimes we overestimate our own abilities.

7mm Rem Mag is right, owning and learning from your mistakes is important. But then sometimes you can take all the care in the world and still it doesn't go right too.

@Tahr My first shot deer was a ballsup of a magnitude that took most of the shine off bagging my first deer.
Long story short, after flushing several deer and missing one, we found a young spiker hanging out, reclining on a wee ledge on the opposite face about 180'ish metres away. As I got into position....oh so quietly he stood up, not alarmed but he'd definitely decided something was up. All around him was pretty thick native bush and rather than waiting for my off sider to get ready to back me up I took the shot from a kneeling position, the dull thud told me it was a good hit but he took off at speed and was out of sight in less than 2 seconds. Navigating the gut to the where he'd been, I couldn't find any sign at all, dog was sent over but couldn't get a firm fix, after maybe 15 minutes my mate caught a glimpse of a back line parked in a gap about 160m away and confirmed it was the fallow I'd shot, recumbant, head up but not moving. I was advised to "put another one in him" which I duly did and then bashed my way down to where he was, to find him still very much alive but not going anywhere soon. In my haste to end his suffering I forgot to lower my POI so the next shot achieved nothing at all as it completely missed, finally with the 4th shot I dispatched him, pulled the guts and the head and then did the big carry. When I processed the carcass the next day I found that my first shot had hit him just below the head of the femur, shattering it....the pain would have been through the roof, along with then running on it for 200+ metres, my second shot took out the spine which explains why he didn't go any further.....I was mortified that my haste had caused so much pain...it was a strong lesson which I'll never forget.