• The SH Membership has gone live. Only SH Members have access to post in the classifieds. All members can view the classifieds. Starting in 2020 only SH Members will be admitted to the annual hunting contest. Current members will need to follow these steps to upgrade: 1. Click on your username 2. Click on Account upgrades 3. Choose SH Member and purchase.
  • We've been working hard the past few weeks to come up with some big changes to our vendor policies to meet the changing needs of our community. Please see the new vendor rules here: Vendor Access Area Rules

2019 Hunting Season Bonehead Moves

hauscaliber

hauscaliber

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2018
Messages
300
Thought I would start a thread for 2019 embarrassing hunting mistakes that tend to happen from time to time.

A ruh-roh moment happened to me today when I climbed the tree and went to retrieve my bow with my trusty paracord. Didn't realize that there was a vine near the base of the tree that grabbed my bow like a horror movie when I tried to lift it. After attempting the wrecking ball technique of getting it untangled, I also managed to get the vine stuck behind my arrows in the quiver. My stomach knotted up as I watched the vine detach all three arrows from the quiver and scatter them on the ground. Now determined that I didn't want to climb back down, I finally untangled my bow and lifted it up, detached the paracord, and turned the end of the paracord into a lasso. I then started playing some carnival game of trying to fetch my arrows with the paracord 20 feet off the ground. After about 10 minutes of meticulous frustration, I managed to retrieve one arrow and decided that I was going to stop there and hunt with the lone arrow. Moral of the story: watch out for vines if you're going to hoist things up.

At least I wasn't caught without an arrow watching my hit list buck walk by. This hunt ended without much action.
 
I have a bow holder on my pack so I don’t have to play that game anymore. But I wonder why more guys don’t sling their bow around them while they climb. I hate pull ropes.
 
Today’s bonehead move. Still trying to get SRT presets done found a great pine tree was actually able to climb it to leave paracord. It offers a great view of three clearings that come together and lots of buck sign in a four year old cutting. It’s so thick the buck I want heads for it when pressured. Found great access to the tree and should have stopped there. While heading back I even found some fresh scrapes. It was only noon so I decided to drop down off the back where it transitions to swamp. Kept thinking I want to hunt this with my son, need another tree for me( I’ll give him the one in the cutting). So I found the creek bed that was the last place I watched my buck sneak out of the swamp toward the cutting. I knew with the wind I was now coming back up the leeward side and sure enough 3/4 of the way up the creek to the top he was bedded and let me get past him before he went crashing off toward the tree I just prepped. Not a good time to be scouting a nice buck’s bedroom season opens Friday.
 
Saturday morning had a doe come in to seven yards. Scrubbed the bark with my knee and she had me pinned down. She moved to 15 yards and relaxed looking around. This would be my first deer with a recurve. I drew back released and actually had a good follow through but instead of watching the arrow disappear behind the does shoulder I just heard a thud. I wasn’t shaky at the shot it felt good but I should have seen the arrow. . I knocked another arrow and listened for a crashing deer. About 30 seconds later a deer blew and then about three more started blowing and ran off. So I’m sitting there trying to figure out what happened. Couldn’t see the arrow from the tree. Gave her an hour and climbed down. Couldn’t find the arrow or hair. Started tracking the direction and found the arrow buried over a foot in the dirt. Probably ten yards behind where the deer was standing. Only thing I can figure is I didn’t use my fixed crawl location and moved my tab right up to my nock point. Would have put the arrow about 2.5 feet above her back. Originally thought I may have hit a limb but I had to dig the arrow out so it was plenty stable when it hit. Oh well Ie I can’t have a clean kill I’ll take a clean miss. Like I said in one of the traditional threads if I missed it would be all me and not the fault of my gear.
 
EricS said:
Saturday morning had a doe come in to seven yards. Scrubbed the bark with my knee and she had me pinned down. She moved to 15 yards and relaxed looking around. This would be my first deer with a recurve. I drew back released and actually had a good follow through but instead of watching the arrow disappear behind the does shoulder I just heard a thud. I wasn’t shaky at the shot it felt good but I should have seen the arrow. . I knocked another arrow and listened for a crashing deer. About 30 seconds later a deer blew and then about three more started blowing and ran off. So I’m sitting there trying to figure out what happened. Couldn’t see the arrow from the tree. Gave her an hour and climbed down. Couldn’t find the arrow or hair. Started tracking the direction and found the arrow buried over a foot in the dirt. Probably ten yards behind where the deer was standing. Only thing I can figure is I didn’t use my fixed crawl location and moved my tab right up to my nock point. Would have put the arrow about 2.5 feet above her back. Originally thought I may have hit a limb but I had to dig the arrow out so it was plenty stable when it hit. Oh well Ie I can’t have a clean kill I’ll take a clean miss. Like I said in one of the traditional threads if I missed it would be all me and not the fault of my gear.
Click to expand...
Always hard to have a miss but I can agree it's much better to have a total miss than a wounded deer...
 
Working on opening day next week. Who does that?!?!?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
hauscaliber said:
Thought I would start a thread for 2019 embarrassing hunting mistakes that tend to happen from time to time.

A ruh-roh moment happened to me today when I climbed the tree and went to retrieve my bow with my trusty paracord. Didn't realize that there was a vine near the base of the tree that grabbed my bow like a horror movie when I tried to lift it. After attempting the wrecking ball technique of getting it untangled, I also managed to get the vine stuck behind my arrows in the quiver. My stomach knotted up as I watched the vine detach all three arrows from the quiver and scatter them on the ground. Now determined that I didn't want to climb back down, I finally untangled my bow and lifted it up, detached the paracord, and turned the end of the paracord into a lasso. I then started playing some carnival game of trying to fetch my arrows with the paracord 20 feet off the ground. After about 10 minutes of meticulous frustration, I managed to retrieve one arrow and decided that I was going to stop there and hunt with the lone arrow. Moral of the story: watch out for vines if you're going to hoist things up.

At least I wasn't caught without an arrow watching my hit list buck walk by. This hunt ended without much action.
Click to expand...
Was it a poison ivy vine?
 
I had a doh moment this weekend. Spent a good 1/2 hour with instamorph making perfectly sized prusik tenders for my oplux. They are absolutely beautiful. I didn't think that one through very well however. Put one on and it functioned perfectly. But after just a few test uses I took it off and realized the friction was enough to melt the instamorph. What an idiot.
 
Opening day in PA and I wanted to get in deep on public land. Walking through an overgrown field kicked up a bachelor group of bucks with a nice 8 point who stood just outside of bow range and watched me for a minute before trotting off. About 20 yards later kicked up a nice doe who blew in alert. I over-thought and tried to get away from opening day pressure - didn't see a deer other than those I kicked up walking to my 'spot'.
 
I've had several already, and it's only squirrel season.

Tipped a canoe for the first time in my life while trying to tie it off to my backyard steps.

Ran out of #5, 3" 20 gauge shells. That one burnt me up good.

Had two squirrels come running through the woods straight at me. Thanks to all the clay shooting I've been doing, I instinctively threw the gun up and blasted one. At 15 yards, with a full choke. Turned him into a hairy, bloody hamburger.

Went moorhen hunting and only shot one bird.

Not really my fault, but went hog hunting and ended up petting some hog dogs, who returned my friendship by baying up a hog maybe 200 yards from my spot. :/
 
EricS said:
Saturday morning had a doe come in to seven yards. Scrubbed the bark with my knee and she had me pinned down. She moved to 15 yards and relaxed looking around. This would be my first deer with a recurve. I drew back released and actually had a good follow through but instead of watching the arrow disappear behind the does shoulder I just heard a thud. I wasn’t shaky at the shot it felt good but I should have seen the arrow. . I knocked another arrow and listened for a crashing deer. About 30 seconds later a deer blew and then about three more started blowing and ran off. So I’m sitting there trying to figure out what happened. Couldn’t see the arrow from the tree. Gave her an hour and climbed down. Couldn’t find the arrow or hair. Started tracking the direction and found the arrow buried over a foot in the dirt. Probably ten yards behind where the deer was standing. Only thing I can figure is I didn’t use my fixed crawl location and moved my tab right up to my nock point. Would have put the arrow about 2.5 feet above her back. Originally thought I may have hit a limb but I had to dig the arrow out so it was plenty stable when it hit. Oh well Ie I can’t have a clean kill I’ll take a clean miss. Like I said in one of the traditional threads if I missed it would be all me and not the fault of my gear.
Click to expand...
I will need to remind myself of this in the moment as well...I have already thought about it as a possibility in the heat of the moment...I bet you will be aware of it now though and a clean miss is always better than a poor hit! Stay with it, you will get it done!
 
Walked 3/4 of a mile to my hunting spot yesterday evening only to realize I forgot my RCH. I found a spot amongst some young birch trees, strapped my platform to the tree as a seat and laid my fleece saddle on top for some padding. Sat there on a hard seat all evening and didn't see a deer.
 
Last years memory as motivation. A few of us have been hunting a very large 11 point on a big central OH farm, this will be the third year of trying. I don’t even want to know the calories I’ve burned for this deer. Last year mid November buddy lost his cell phone at camp and so we went into the woods an hour late. I was tightening my last stick to the tree and that buck slow walked by at 5 yards broadside, me clinging to the bark watching. I thought well at least I have a gopro on my forehead so I have this recorded, turns out batteries were dead. That’s the only time I’ve seen that buck in person.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top