Went out for a hunt on Saturday, cold, wet and foggy - headed for a spot that i'd noted on my last trip as having high levels of activity based on sign in the area - aiming to get there with the sun hitting the spot.
We get there, the weather means there isn't any sun so not expecting any deer as we scope the clearing. Moving around in thick brush around the edge of the clearing - I spot the white backside of a deer ahead, no clear shot - signal my wife to stop moving as I move for a better angle... deer looks up and freezes looking at me - broad side - approx 30m, but body is obscured by bush - neck/head and 1/2 front should in the clear. I take aim...
Here's where a couple of errors occur - I'm not using my own scope, I have a scope I'm reviewing on my rifle (zero'd and set up day before) and it's very different to VX3
1) I have the parallax dial set for to far out (100m) - it's very stiff to adjust on this new scope so I didn't try to adjust for the shot
2) I have the magnification higher than I should have as I was checking the clearing before hand - this doesn't matter much as I still had the deer in sight
3) I was having problems with the glass fogging up, the coatings are obviously not as good as my scope
4) The last deer I shot the front shoulders were blood splattered from a double lunge shot, I decided to aim for the neck to save the meat.
5) shot was free standing unsupported
I take the shot, the deer jumps up and back as if it had been hit, we hear maybe a couple of seconds of crash then nothing. I am confident on the shot. My wife stays where I took the shot as I move in to find the animal... I look around for blood and cant find any, it is raining and the brush on the ground is thick. The only sign I can find is where it had scrapped a branch with its hooves - We spend a long time combing the area in the rain and cant find anything, no blood, no body.
Felt utterly miserable afterward - quite upset - I'm confident that I hit it. Really I hope I missed as I'd hate to have killed it for nothing, or wounded it and left it. Wished i'd had a dog to track it.
I will learn from this one - in future I would rather sacrifice the front shoulders if It means a sure kill, especially on a free standing shot. Some reading after i got home - a neck shot if it misses the spinal cord will allow them to run quite a way before bedding down to die, and there may be quite a delay in finding a blood trial - I think I aimed a little low in the neck, and may not have searched far enough out to find the body. I value the simplicity of my VX3 for hunting - good glass, fixed parallax, I am having a locking elevation dial fitted at the moment but will maintain a 200y zero for hunting for point and shoot inside 275m.
I'm sure this happens sometimes but it sure makes you feel pretty retched.
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