Last Hunt Frustration - Deer Hunting - Deer Hunting

Sunday night marked the last day of the season for me. With an unfilled archery tag I was itching to get out and fill I could hardly contain myself. My hunting partner and I reached Red Wing around 1:30 and were sitting in our blind on the north end of the bean field by around 2:00. We shared a blind because all of the deer were coming out the pines on the northwest corner of the field. Good cover is hard to find so we decided to sit together and I would take the first shot. I told him I would have one by 4:00 and he would have plenty of time to get his. He had missed two shots this year shooting under an 8 pointer at 30 yds and under a doe at 22 yds. I had not taken a shot but seen an average of 16 deer per night including several nice bucks but nothing within range. As my magic time approached Mike whispered that there were 4 does in the pines 50 yds to the north waiting to come into the field. I readied myself and waited for what seemed like an eternity. I caught the movement of the lead doe, who was so large I am positive she was half moose, creeping into the field. I slowly began to rise and waited for her head to go down before I drew. I centered my pin on her vitals and squeezed my release. I was immediately pleased as I felt the shot was perfect. I then watched in disgust as my arrow sailed an inch over her back into the lone cottonwood that marks the end of the bean field. She took three quick steps forward and stared at the cottonwood trying to figure out just what the heck happened. Mike then whispered the shot went high. Thanks for the hot tip buddy. She meandered out of range without giving me enough time to nock another arrow and disappeared into the pines again. I was ticked and pleased at the same time. Angry because I had misjudged the distance, but pleased that the miscalculation resulted in a clean miss instead of a poor hit. Been there, done that – never fun. We checked the watch and it read 4:09, I was right, and wrong. I told Mike to switch seats to the shooters chair but he insisted that I stay stating that he had already missed two this year and that I couldn’t possibly screw up twice like he did. We might see another one, sure. I waited all season to get one shot, two in one night would be borderline rediculous. Well as luck would have it 15 minutes later another doe, coming down the same trail charges into the field and begins gorging herself on the left over beans. Her head goes down. Matt stands up. Bow is drawn. Pin is centered. Released is squeezed. Arrow number two sails over deer number two’s back. I looked at Mike and asked what the range was – 33 yds. I used the thirty yard pin centered on the vitals. No misjudgement on this one. I am not sure if I was still so amped up from the first miss but I missed this one due to pulling the shot high. I sat back down and Mike said “Well, we better switch chairs cause your out of ammo”. It was true, I had brought two arrows and both were now somewhere around that cottonwood tree. We saw no more deer that night but did find both of my spent arrows. We figured that since he keeps missing low and I keep missing high that next year he will hold the bow and I will draw and shoot and our mishaps should balance out into one perfectly placed shot. You gotta love this life!