Prior to the 2010 deer season, Lora had been a really good shot with her .257 Robert's. I had gotten used to the one shot-one dead critter concept. Early in the 2010 season however, she messed up on a shot, wounded a deer that from all evidence, is probably still alive.
The incident did however mess her up, and all during the 2011 and 2012 seasons, she simply could not hit a deer, regardless of the range. Shooting at a paper target at the range, she did just fine.
Take her out and get into a stand and she was consistently shooting under the animals, again regardless of the range.

I became worried that it had something to do with her eyesight and not the rifle/scope. I can fix a problem with the equipment, I cannot fix a physical problem with her eyesight, no matter how much I would like to be able to.

This brings us up to opening weekend of the 2013 season. I take her out to our range a couple of days before opening day and after a couple of shots, she is hitting the target good enough.

Opening morning we get into a ground blind that offers a 70 to 80 yard shot. A small spike comes in and I tell her to take him, and she shoots under him. He runs off, stays gone about 10 minutes, comes back to the feeder offering a second shot.

Lora tries again. This time the buck jumps straight up like he has been hit and takes off. We give him a few minutes to stiffen up and then go looking for him. I leave the blind headed in the direction he was running but once I get to where I last saw him, I could not find any blood.

I track back to where he had been standing when Lora took the shot, and find a pile of shaved belly hair. A little closer this time but still too low.

This results in another trip to the range, and again, she does fairly well, good enough to be killing stuff.

Sunday afternoon we go to a different blind. This one overlooks two feeders, one at about 130 yards, the second at about 85 yards. Quite a few more deer were coming into this set up than the one we hunted the day before.

A good sized doe comes in to the closest feeder and Lora takes the shot, again hitting under the animal. This results in another session at the range, this time however I notice a couple of changes she has made to her shooting style.

We have a short discussion about those changes and end up getting her to go back to her normal method of shooting. We make two more hunts where nothing comes in, which brings us up to Wednesday nights hunt.

After mentally reviewing the previous 4 hunts and her shooting from the bench, I requested that she make one change. I asked her, just as an experiment, that on our next hunt if a doe came in, instead of watching it thru the scope, waiting for and studying for the "Right" moment, that when the crosshairs came across the part of the body where she wanted to put the bullet, shoot the gun. She did just as I asked, and the result was her first dead deer in two seasons. The doe weighed 84 pounds live weight.

Awesome job

Good shooting Lora, bet that doe will be great eating.Good job Crazy, continued success.

Good job Lora. Keep shooting.

Very good !

Nice job.

Crazy and Lora - Congrats on getting back on track and enjoy the venison this Winter. As a longtime bowhunter I have seen a similar situation with some really experienced folks. It's called target panic in the bow World, and results in not being able to hold the pin/sight on the center of the target while making the shot. Glad you got it worked out. Is a "big buck" in order now, Lora?

Larry Sellers
SCI(International) Life Member

Many Thanks for the comments folks. It felt really great to see the look on Lora's face when we got to that doe.

Lora has no real desire to shoot a buck, I have had trouble in the past, getting her to shoot spikes. I really would like to see her shoot a decent buck, I would pay to have it mounted.

She seems quite happy with the does so I ain't gonna push things.

Outstanding Ran'l! And a big congrats to Mrs. Lora.

Funny how some silly little thing like that can stump folk, good job figuring it out!


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Thanks J, hope we did get it figured out, but I think it did boost her confidence, and I know how good a game shot she can be.

What you and Lora have is wonderful.

Tell her congrats!

PM Sent.

Best,

GWB

Nice example of teamwork there. Well done.

great job with the shooten and the coaching

Good job, Lora and Randall! Hoping all is well.

Jeff

Great job Lora & Randall. See you in a few weeks.

We are looking forward to it, have a safe trip down. Hopefully Mr. Barlow can tell the difference between javelinas and feral hogs this year.

Give that woman a high five from me!!

Thank You Sir, I will do that.