Hey patrick, I remember that post. Some guy tried to tell you how un-ethical you were. jeez. What a nut, we all miss. But sometimes it's not just a shot that you miss, but an oppurtunity.
I had lived and hunted for 10 years before we moved to idaho, and was very disapointed to find that I now couldn't hunt for two more years, and only then after I'd passed hunt safety. Finally I turned 12 and could hunt big game that fall (I hate to break it too ya, but I *may* have been hunting all along, just not carrying a gun in the field
) So the hunter safety couses had pounded and pounded into my head "don't take a shot unless you're 100% certain you can make it. And only take shoulder shots" My dad told me that if I deliberatly shot at the shoulder, he would make me butcher the deer myself. He said behind the shoulder you ruin 1000% less meat and it'll be just as dead. So anyways, opening morning we're headed up the road to our hunting spot. I was sitting up front and had the rem600 in 6mm by me. It was really foggy and visabuility was about 30 yards. We spotted a herd of about 6 mule deer byside the road and I noticed a fork horn. Yeah yeah, just a forky, but my first deer, on opening morning, I was hyped. So we turned around and went back, and he was standing about 20 yards away, but kinda behind the burm of dirt along the road so I only had a head shot. I desided not to (only chest shots) and ducked down behind the little ridge and crept forward, when I popped over the top(about 3 seconds later) they were gone. With visabuility at only 30 yards, and not seeing were they went, we could only track them. We tracked them all morning, but the fog didn't lift till after noon, and we never saw them again.
Looking back, even seconds after it happened, I knew I should have shot. I only had a head shot, but I'd shot rabbits that size (the size of the deers head) at atleast twice that far, and without a scope. Well, chalk one down for uncertainty, by a kid who'd been over influenced to doubt his own skill. But at just 20 or so yards, I definatly Should have taken the shot.
My next opportunity to bag a buck was 2 years later. He's on our wall