OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF LOCK

Image Gallery Any scope and rifle combination need to be fine- tuned if it's to perform well.

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Confidence in your equipment can be a key to more successful hunting trips.

By Bruce Woods

The hunter, curled fetuslike, presses down into the Space Blanket that serves to separate him from the damp depression overlooking the field. It's two hours into his third and final day. The expectation that once helped keep him still and silent, the absolute belief in deer, has long gone. Nothing supports him in the face of stiffness and cold, nothing fights off the nagging whispers that say "quit," or "for God's sake, at least stand and stretch" — nothing but the grim determination to go out doing this right, to give no aid to an unfriendly fate.

Three hours. His body heat has melted the snow; wet fingers stretch over the lip of the ground cover. He closes his eyes against the internal taunts. When he opens them, three bucks are walking stiff-legged into the field, a scant 100 yards distant.

No trouble with control now. The gun comes up to rest on bent knees. A deep breath as the scope fills with deer, a half breath out; the crosshairs drop and hold behind the shoulder of the biggest, rest steady as the trigger creeps toward the always surprising shot. There!

But the buck isn't down. The trio mill about in brief confusion and then stretch toward a windrow of trees. He sweeps the scope with them, less steady now, but still vacillating within the area of clean kill. A second shot. No tail drop, no sudden stumble or twitch, no sound of a bullet strike.

He's on his feet now, aiming only at the middle of the big buck's body. Shot. Shot. Shot. And the snicker of a firing pin on an empty chamber. Loading on the run, he finds the deep-driven tracks of panic, follows them to the woods. No blood, no hair. Five misses?

A shell in the chamber, past believing anything now, he takes a careful rest and aims at a stump-center knot 30 yards off. Steady, squeeze, and bark jumps a full six inches high, three to the right. He looks down at the expensive rifle, feeling betrayal and the slow spread of guilt.

It was spot-on last season.

Inciting a Sight-In

Missed shots or, worse yet, poor shots that result in the escape of a badly wounded animal can often be traced to either improperly sighted rifles or firearms that have had their sights jarred out of adjustment. Of course, the major cause of poor shooting is a shortage of hunter ability; no scope, regardless of how well it's sighted-in, will compensate for a lack of familiarity with the gun. The answer here is to practice, and then practice some more.

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