One last year hurt my feelings real bad

They ALL hurt your feelings!

I'll give ya a couple examples of divine intervention...

1. I was hunting at Stagshead Lodge in Greene Co. Spot I was hunting had a small cow pasture right up to the property fence. Dang gobbler roosted on us and flew down into the pasture and would not leave it. After several failures to call the bird back across the fence I called the landowner and asked if I could cross over onto him and kill that gobbler...he said yes. haha dead bird walking. Next morning in the dark I was sitting three feet on Stagshead, facing where the damn bird landed every morning. He gobbled behind me and flew over my head and landed in the pasture maybe 35 yards away. I decided to let him strut and gobble before I killed him. After 30 min of watching I calmly raised my 870 and calmly shot. He just calmly flew off. WTH???

2. Had a bird that flew down into a clearcut every day and wouldn't come to any calling. Finally one morning I lucked out and was standing in the right place. He ended up at 25 yards. I had a clear shot at his head and shot. Silence. No flapping of wings. No flopping. Just Silence. Never saw him move after the shot. Divine intervention. I went home and quit hunting that bird....

I called up 2 on opening morning about 15 years ago. Shot one of them at 17 steps in a greenfield.

The 20 gauge made a coughing sound when I pulled the trigger and we could see the pellets
in the air like a BB gun. The pellets hit the gobbler in the head and staggered him but he flew
to the other end of the field and lit in a tree. It was a bad shell.

I then went on a missing spree and missed either 3 or 4 more that season. Bad JuJu.

Sore subject at the moment for me... went 35 years and only missed a handful. One of those that haunts me to this day was probably the source of PCP's clover field gobbler. Walking in to a mid morning gobbling bird and we are apparently headed to each other. I looked up and there he was and I crippled him up bad and tried to run him down. Yea, right... I was sick that day and even sicker after I read Steve's post years ago. Definitely ain't proud of that one. Most of the early misses were misjudging distance and they were a little too far. Missed 2 of the last 3 turkeys I have shot at and both times my head was not down on the stock. My eyesight has faded some in the past couple of years. Hoping the new Burris red dot will dial me back in for this year. Just like bow hunting, pick a tree/spot when you sit down and say that is the limit of where I can shoot.