Failures

[Jdd2035]

Yes, Eastmans is all about hunting success stories. But we all know that for every success, there is a lot of failure. Lets hear some of these stories. By the way this is for nothing more than a laugh.

I'll go first.

During hunting season of 2015, I was invited to go archery turkey hunting on this guys property, it was about ten acres and was mostly field. The land owner told me "If you set your blind up on the edge of my property the turkey will land right in front of you and you should get you a big one in no time."

I followed the land owners instructions with out much thought and about five minutes after sunrise the turkey started flying from their roost and landing fifteen to twenty five yards in front of me. I target practice with my bow at about 40 and can do a pretty decent group so it was a good shot.

I rose and drew my arrow back and my calf (pants soaked through with water) touched this little red string that the land owner neglected to tell me about. It turned out that this little red string was his still energized electric fence used to keep cows out. The electricity arced from my calf, to my butt cheek, to my shoulder blade and finally ending in my wrist gripping my bow. Needless to say I missed by about 30 feet in the air and a I didn't count how many yards passed the turkeys. The entire flock scattered, the land owner nearly fell off his tractor laughing so hard and I spent about three times as long looking for my stray arrow then I ever did hunting.

I'm still on pretty good terms with this land owner but now I avoid electric fences.

 

[HuskyMusky]

Won't go into any specifics but have been skunked on many hunts, however on many of those I could have been successful had I wanted any animal.

To each their own, and nothing wrong with a meat buck/doe, but when traveling across country etc... not looking to take a fork...

 

[JimP]

Won't go into any specifics but have been skunked on many hunts, however on many of those I could have been successful had I wanted any animal.

To each their own, and nothing wrong with a meat buck/doe, but when traveling across country etc... not looking to take a fork...

I have never considered my hunt a failure or a skunk hunt if I have had the oppertunity to take a animal that I have a tag for. It is my choice on what to shoot, and if I choose not to shoot one that I could of then I always consider that hunt a success. Even if I come home empty handed.

I have had lots of those kind of hunts and they were all successful ones.

One of them that I remember was a year when I found a arrowhead the day before the opening of deer season. Opening morning I had the opportunity to shoot not one but two smallish bucks with one shot, I actually thought about doing it but passed on it. I thought about that arrowhead and remembered a tale that I had heard about how the Native Americans hunted. As it was told to me the Native Americans believed that when a animal was presented to you it was your duty to harvest it and if you didn't then you were doing a disservice to the animal which would bring bad luck to you.

Funny thing was that the whole rest of that hunt I never did get close enough to a buck deer to shoot him.

 

[Ikeepitcold]

Yes. If you've hunted for very long there is many stories of tag soup. I have many myself, in the end it's a learning experience and we take that experience and use it to make ourselves successful next time.

 

[ScottR]

I have had three failures this year on multiple species. Hopefully I have time to salvage my elk hunt...

 

[tim]

Yes, Eastmans is all about hunting success stories. But we all know that for every success, there is a lot of failure. Lets hear some of these stories. By the way this is for nothing more than a laugh.

I'll go first.

During hunting season of 2015, I was invited to go archery turkey hunting on this guys property, it was about ten acres and was mostly field. The land owner told me "If you set your blind up on the edge of my property the turkey will land right in front of you and you should get you a big one in no time."

I followed the land owners instructions with out much thought and about five minutes after sunrise the turkey started flying from their roost and landing fifteen to twenty five yards in front of me. I target practice with my bow at about 40 and can do a pretty decent group so it was a good shot.

I rose and drew my arrow back and my calf (pants soaked through with water) touched this little red string that the land owner neglected to tell me about. It turned out that this little red string was his still energized electric fence used to keep cows out. The electricity arced from my calf, to my butt cheek, to my shoulder blade and finally ending in my wrist gripping my bow. Needless to say I missed by about 30 feet in the air and a I didn't count how many yards passed the turkeys. The entire flock scattered, the land owner nearly fell off his tractor laughing so hard and I spent about three times as long looking for my stray arrow then I ever did hunting.

I'm still on pretty good terms with this land owner but now I avoid electric fences.

I have had a similar expierence but I was the land owner. told father and son where to set up and the turkeys flew down out of there roost 20 yards from there blind. the kid had buck fever so bad he missed at 16 yards. Watched all this while sitting at my table. it was like watching tv, but for real.

 

[missjordan]

I got a good one from this year happened about 3 weeks ago on our archery trip.

Husband and I were bow hunting in a new spot we've never been before in SW Montana. We spotted elk late afternoon from the truck and decided to make a move on them since they were reachable. We were playing the wind hard core which took us up and down the mountain several times to get in the best spot. We were about to get set up in what we thought was a good spot to call from when all the sudden we heard cow barks. And see another pair of hunters walking down at the elk from the top of the ridge and the whole herd was catching their wind. These guys were completely oblivious to what they were doing. But thought we could work them to our advantage anyways.

We decided to pack up and scurry farther down the draw at the bottom of the small valley to try and ambush one of the bulls and his cows before they blow out with the rest of the herd. When we finally again worked ourselves into a good position my husband gets into a fantastic calling match with that bull. After some more running around to get set up, we finally do and he's coming right at me at about 100-125 yards away from his cows on a trot. After about 10 steps or so he whirls around and takes off along with his cows and head with the rest of the elk that had been funneling out of the valley for the last 45 minutes.

After that bust my husband comes back up to meet me and those two idiots are sitting at the end of the meadow 400 yards above us at the base of the ridge they just walked down. I was absolutely livid they were that dumb to not know how to read the wind and literally blew 100 elk out of the valley!

they made it pretty clear they didn't know what they were doing by walking right down on top of them in the middle of the afternoon. In the end I had to yell some profanities at them which I hope got their attention.

Despite the setback, it still made for an exciting hunt, learned a lot about different calling tactics, how to setup, and found a great new area. I just hope those hunters learned two things: how to distinguish a human bugle from an elk bugle, and also how to read thermals. I never get that mad over things but just wish that the other group of guys would of known better than to follow the ridge straight down and allowed the thermals to carry their scent.


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[Sawfish]

Any hunt from which everyone returns safely, and has an enjoyable experience is a good hunt. An opportunity for a shot, successful or not, is just icing on the cake.