doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Great Misses I Have Made

If that title sounds familiar I give full credit for it to the late great Archibald Rutledge, citizen of the South Carolina low country and first poet laureate of South Carolina. I am reading one of his books now and recently read a story he wrote with that title. I thought maybe it would be an interesting topic for a new thread here, with hunting season winding down. I'll begin. It's time I got some of these off my chest, so to speak. There're numerous ones I can recall that humble me even years after the fact. But, I will begin with one that I will never live down.

I shot competitive patched/roundball muzzleloading competition for a lot of years, in the 80s and 90s. Iron sights, traditional half stock and/or longrifles. I was fortunate enough to be pretty successful in that arena, winning numerous state championships and even shooting one perfect 50 at Friendship at the NMLRA Spring Nationals. I felt like I was a pretty fair shot with my roundball rifles, and regularly hunted squirrels with my .36 cal. Appalachian Po-Boy rifle, taking head shots only with it. I've never been a turkey hunter, preferring to let close friends and family hunt the turkeys on my land but, after making an acquaintance with a died-in-the-wool turkey hunter from Kentucky, and inviting him down to hunt on my land, I took him up on the invitation for him to call a gobbler up for me. I really wanted to kill one with a m/l rifle, which is perfectly legal here.

I had roosted several gobblers in a big 500 acre wet weather pond that I own one side of. I had stated that I knew I could put a roundball in a gobbler's kill zone at 80 yards, to my friend and several others. In hindsight, I was bragging, fully confident in my ability to shoot 50 cent sized groups with that rifle at that distance, offhand. Done so many times. Plus, I knew I'd be sitting on my butt resting the rifle on my knees. I was over confident, if you get my drift. He called up a big gobbler just after daylight on the edge of that big swamp. I waited with the rifle across my knees, head on the stock, hammer at half cock. As the bird drew within range I pulled the hammer to full cock over the primed nipple. He stopped in a clear area at about 40 yards, broadside, but kind of quartering. Piece of cake. Turkey on the table. Then ......... he blew up in a strut.

Being totally inexperienced in turkey hunting I drew aim on his pinbone on the right side, or so I thought. I gently pressed the already set set-trigger and the gun boomed and black powder smoke filled the air. To my amazement the bird took flight and flew off. I sat still and said to my friend "Listen, he'll drop dead any second." I was so (over)confident. It never happened. That big boy was long gone. I couldn't understand what had just happened and walked out to the scene of the "crime". I looked very closely at the ground where he was just standing and found two breast feathers, cut from his front by the passing ball, which had only grazed his breast.

I kept those feathers as a reminder to: 1. Never shoot at a gobbler when in strut, because he looks much bigger than he really is, and 2. Never be over confident to the point of being braggadocios. James 4:6 says ..... "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

Anyone else care to come clean? Warning, my pastor has a saying ........ "Confession is good for the soul, but is not so good for your reputation".

Early on in the switching to the right shoulder, I was pheasant hunting with the dog, alone, on a day when sane people stayed home, threw more wood in the stove, and filled another shot glass with something to take off the chill. I had a 400 acre WMA to myself, about a week prior to the season closing. Stiff wind out of the north, maybe 5 degrees for the high. It was sub zero when I started.
I was working the edge of a set of railroad tracks that had cover that tapered down to nothing, and ran into a creek, that drained a big swamp to my left. The dog was interested in something off to my left, the narrowing cover was on my right. The wind was cold out of the north, and I should have realized the scent cone would be out of that side, but, I miss things like that when I’m shivering.
The big cockbird flushed right where the cover ended, and, I had subconsciously moved the BSS sidelock 12 to my left hand! I got the gun up, and took a poke at a bird I couldn’t see. I connected anyway, he tumbled out of the sky, but his running gear remained in perfect plus working order. I got to where he came down, but, he bounced, shook himself, cackled, and bolted into the swamp. I was literally thinking about how I was going to cook him as he was falling.
The only bird I saw that day. I figure a fox or coyote likely owes me.

Best,
Ted

Just one? Went on a purpose only, goose hunt in the fall, for the first time in a good while. The ole connect percentage was okay, but.... Biggest disappointment, a hunting buddy volunteered to walk down a Sandhill, but it kept popping up and flying a hundred or two yards ahead of him. Probably, a six foot wing span at thirty yards, should'a been ribeye on the grill, or at least Sandhill on the grill. Full commit snows though can really get the the excitement level up.

Myself and two friends pull up to a dirt road intersection where we often hunt pheasants. It's snowing some large wispy flakes so I have my Benelli 20ga Montefeltro(5 shells). There is a nice corner with a dugout dirt stock tank. A few dead scrubby trees with good cattails for cover.

I climb up on top of the dirt mound from the back side.

Rooster flushes...BANG...Miss!
Rooster flushes...BANG...Miss!
Rooster flushes...BANG...Miss!
Rooster flushes...BANG...Miss!
Rooster flushes...BANG...Miss!

My friends are rolling back at the truck.

They never let me forget. I never will

Stan I'm glad your story of most memorable misses involved a muzzleloader, because shooting them adds a whole different dimension to shooting and hunting. Early on, I had great success with my scoped centerfire deer rifles. In fact, it seemed too easy. I'd wait all year for the first day. I'd prepare by brewing up the most accurate handloads with good components. I'd sight in my rifle to be sure of zero, and practice on groundhogs. I'd do my pre-season scouting to improve my odds of having a buck near my chosen stand. Then, all too often, I'd have that buck walk by within the first hour of first light on the first day. I'd line up the crosshairs on the heart, squeeze the trigger, and it was all over. It seemed more like assassination than hunting. Back then, we could only kill one deer in my state, so for me, the season I waited for, like you count down the minutes to dove season, was totally over... except for the gutting and dragging.

I decided to buy a flintlock rifle to take advantage of our new flintlock deer season, and knew I would be intentionally handicapping myself. I quickly learned that the learning curve was even steeper than I imagined. As you know, you have only one shot. Reloading is much slower than just chambering another loaded round. The lock time is a bit slower, and it is a lot slower if you don't get everything just right. The flint you choose and the way you set it matters. The amount of the correct pan powder matters. Forgetting to prime your pan matters. One drop of rain or wet snow between the frizzen and barrel, and you will find you are carrying a dead rifle. And we are limited to open sights only... couldn't even use an aperture sight to help with precise shooting. I took it a step further and decided to stop using my scoped centerfire rifles entirely, and used the flintlock even in the regular season. I still managed to kill plenty of deer, but what used to be so easy suddenly became much more challenging, and much more fun. Killing a buck with a flintlock on a rainy day is a real accomplishment that makes you forget about being cold and wet.

I missed out on some shots simply because some deer just didn't hang around long enough to give me the additional seconds I might need to identify a legal buck using binoculars instead of a scope. I had some misfires, or flashes in the pan, and watched deer walk or run away before I could reload. The biggest thing I learned is that there really is no such thing as a brush rifle. I have had several misses that I just knew were impossible. I'd shoot from a steady sitting position at a standing deer at modest range, knowing my sights were dead on the heart. A veritable chip shot. The gun fires perfectly, and the deer simply runs off. Like you with that turkey, I'd be confident it would drop any second, but nothing. I'd reload and go to where it was when I shot and look for hair or blood, and find nothing. If there was snow, I'd follow the tracks for long enough to realize there wasn't going to be a blood trail. And in the several times that same thing happened, when I went back and replayed the shot from where I had fired, and carefully walked the path of the round ball, I would find a relatively small branch, twig, or sapling with a fresh .50 caliber notch in it. It was something I didn't see at all when I sighted on the deer, but that was all it took to deflect my ball enough to cause a miss.

One I'll never forget was when I followed the advice of the noted flintlock gunsmith John Bivens, on picking the perfect flint. I spent time at the black powder shop digging through a large fish bowl of English flints, and bought a dozen of the best in the bowl. Of those, I picked the best of the best, and set it perfectly in the jaws of the cock. I decided to not even dry snap it once, because I wanted to keep that perfect razor sharp edge until I was lined up on a deer. That season, I didn't get a chance for a killing shot until almost 5:00 PM on the very last day of flintlock season. I was still hunting in snow, and came up on three nice does feeding. I silently knelt behind a deadfall, lined up on big mama, cocked, set the trigger, and squeezed. The flint fell with virtually no spark, and the deer all looked right at me. I froze, and waited motionless until they resumed feeding. I tried again with the same result, and this time I really had their full attention. Not 40 yards away, they stared, cocked their ears, and pawed the snow, ready to bolt at any second. There was only one thing to try. I slowly put my hand in my pocket and grabbed my keys which had a Craftsman keychain screwdriver. With those three deer intently staring at me, I slowly removed my flint and turned it to the opposite bevel, aligned it with the frizzen, and tightened it back down. Again I raised the rifle, cocked, and pulled the trigger on an easy heart shot. And CLICK... a third misfire with no spark from my perfect flint. That was all those deer needed to finally run off snorting. All that was left was a mile walk back to camp in the dark, thinking about how many miles I had carried a gun that wouldn't fire that year. Three more tries into the brush pile behind the camp, and that damn perfect flint finally made some sparks and fired the gun.

And I was always cool with those misses and missed opportunities, because unlike those centerfire rifle seasons that ended in the first half hour, I could keep right on hunting.

No, no, no. By all means regale us with as many as your ego will allow!



ROTFL. Of course, you knew that the family secret, during the Middle Ages when the Montefeltro family ruled Northern Italy, is that the name means "more ways to miss".

Laughing with you friend.

I've told this before on here. One of the greatest misses for me that I remember like it happened yesterday. This was in the late sixties, a friend and I were hunting in southern New Jersey on a large piece of unplanted property, where there were pheasants and quail. The dogs went on point in a field, I was shooting a .410 Remington 11-48 with 25" improved cylinder barrel that I had bought in Germany a few years earlier and sent it home. We walked in and the covey rose near me and I got two then a late riser, a cock quail to the left took off and came left to right, a very easy shot which I missed, but will never forget all those years ago. A few years later they put a hospital there. This was when there were wild quail and pheasants.

Years ago I was hunting wild quail on my farm. As they often can do, they flushed in stages. Most erupt at once and then a delay until a few stragglers get up. I went for a big cock bird on the flush only to have a second bird cross into my shot stream about ten yards closer than the bird I was shooting. He just about exploded as a feather ball. My intended bird flew off unscratched. About five seconds later a single straggler erupts and the exact same thing happened. A second bird crosses right in the way and takes the entire load. My intended bird simply flew away unscratched. So I had a dead pair and a double miss at the same time. I killed two birds that I was not aiming to shoot and cleanly missed both birds I wanted to shoot.

My friend congratulated me on the pair but I had to explain those were two of the unluckiest quail that I hit by mistake and two luckiest quail had escaped because I missed when a second bird got in the way. He made some remark about stepping in crap and coming out smelling like a rose.

I very much enjoyed your "confession" Stanton!! From the last statement I think I would probably like your pastor!!! Good story. Thanks.

a few decades ago we were hunting moose south of Mt. Mckinley in Alaska. My friend had taken a fine bull in the middle of a swamp and we finally got it packed out by evening. The next morning there was a grizzly boar on what remained of the carcass. I had a grizzly tag and began a stock. The wind and spruce tree cover were perfect for the stock. I got to the edge of the spruce cover and got a good gun rest on the side of a tree about 150 yards from the unaware bear. I put up my stock, ready for the easy shot, and saw the scope crosshairs were curved in appearance. Not understanding what the real problem was, I just centered the bear in the scope field. Easy shot at any other time, but the bear just looked up and then ran away to the right. What had happened is that an inside lens in the scope had become detached. I have no idea where my shot actually went. It was the first and last time I ever tried to shoot a grizzly I bumped into.