I'm with you....had a frustrating deer season myself. First of all, I only caught the last week and a half based on getting back from Iraq. I've only hunted deer a few times with borrowed gear, however this year I got a new shotgun and hunted for a hard week and a half. The most frustrating was finding a great meadow (three game trails merge into one in a small open meadow just on the south side of a rub line with a nice ridge with cover over it providing both camoflague and some nice sighting and shooting lanes)anyway...after three long mornings and afternoons a nice 6 point buck surprises me by wandering out into the open. I was so surprised I just sat and watched him for a few moments. Once I woke out of my stupor I realized I had to get my gun up and over on him, which took several more seconds of beating heart, acelerated breathing and painfully slow arm movements. Well, by the time I got my gun over he had crossed the meadow and was on the edge of a tree line. A quick mouth bleat probably would have stopped him but, of course I didn't think of it. I lined up what I thought was a good sight picture and fired. Feeling exhausted and giddy at the same time I waited about 15 minutes before approaching what I knew was going to be an easy blood trail to follow to find that.....there's no blood. I searched in concentric circles, went back and resighted from my firing position and then tried to track the trail he took off on.....nothing. You want to talk about FRUSTRATED! I didn't even nick him. The worst part is after the shot, he did a quick scan to see where I was and never saw me - I could have shot again, but was sure he was hit. I went back every afternoon and evening for four days afterwards...nothing.
Well, I'm chalking all that up to being a rookie. I'll get him next time.
Anyway, I've taken my frustration out on ducks and have put eight in the freezer so far with more to come and the turkeys need to watch out too.
