Yesterday afternoon on the way home from work I descided to do a little sneak and peak on a food plot. Temperature was dropping (43 at 4:15). I snuck into my lttle nest beside the tree and began glassing deer.I was watching some does at about 200 yards thinking about shooting them and about convinced myself not to when a big ol doe comes walking out 20 yards in front of me. Close enough where you don't even need any shooting sticks. She stands there broadside begging me to shoot her. Finally I can't stand it and say okay, she's going home in the truck. I cock the hammer on the 7x30.You know the sound a that tells the deer to just go jump in the truck because they know they are dead. I settle the cross hairs and sqeeze the trigger, snap. I thought what, why no bang, why no dead deer? The doe jumps and looks dead at the fat man in the trees. I'm thinking didn't I load it, as I open the gun, yes it is loaded. About this time she's doing the head jive and stomping her foot, but still there. I think my stupid reload is a dud. I reload, put the cross hairs on her again and snap. What the...... I'm besides myself. After the second snap she runs off and then stands there and blows at me. I was dumbfounded, degected, and cursing my own reloads. I walked back to the truck and drove home. I was telling my wife about it when it hit me like a ton of bricks. You dummy, you just swapped the .22lr barrel off the gun. Yep, you do have to make the change from rimfire to center fire when you swap the barrels like that. So hand me my sign. LOL I never had that problem when all I had to handgun hunt with was a .44 SBH.

That happened to me 25 years ago. My brother-in-law shot a deer with his 357 mag. and didn't kill it. I had my TC out at the inlaws and went out to track it with him. When we came up on it several yards away I took a steady rest and then went CLICK . I forgot to take off the safety. Well needless to say the deer heard the "click" and ran off. After a lengthy tracking job my brother-in-law finally finished her off with the 357 mag. I really got teased about that for a while.

John

Well you are not the only one with that SIGN I am afraid. While I guess I have never done it with a Centerfire Cartridge on a Deer Hunt, but I have thumbed back the hammer to set off a .22 LR Hollow Point at a huge ole Flickertail and had it go click only to find I forgot to turn the indicator to Rimfire.

At least it sounded like you had an enjoyable afternoon and saw some deer.

Larry

That's a bummer!!

dont feel to bad ,i once was dropped off at a deep hollow to watch for deer,my brother in law said he would be back in a couple hours.he kept going out the ridge into the thick stuff,about 30 minutes later i heard him coming back !i left gun,pack and all 20 yards over the hill and walked to the top to see what the problem was .
well there stood two big doe's giving me the dumbest look...needless to say i lost the race down the hill to the gun.later that day when he came back to get me he wanted to know why i didnt shoot one of the deer he had jumped up earlier?to this day my answer is...what deer?i aint seen no deer ...jim257

at least you learned that lesson on a doe and a big ol buck at that range. If it was a big buck I wonder how far you could have thrown that 'tender