Hard Lessons: Embracing Failure as a Hunter

It’s super easy to romanticize the idea of hunting—the crisp morning air, the thrill of the chase, the satisfaction of a well-placed shot and the weeks of wonderful meals that follow it. But those who’ve spent any time in the wild know that one’s cup doth not always floweth over with success. More often than I think we care to admit it, the ugly face of failure rears its head to confront us. Forcing us to take a good hard look at the difficult lessons that come with the pursuit of game.

There’s unfortunately only one way to learn from your mistakes in hunting and it’s always the hard way. I’d spent an hour or so moving down a wet leaf slope into a gully. One sharp bank on my right, overrun with dense undergrowth and myself skirting along the small path on the left hill. A small stream running below, connecting the two banks. Muntjac are a problem where I was shooting. I really wish I didn’t have to describe them as such, because they’re just funky little dudes and quite possibly my favourite species in the UK. It had been a few months since I had been on the hunt, and I was determined to harvest a muntjac buck for the freezer. A rustle and movement were all that was needed to stop me in my tracks. A muntjac appeared, making his way through the dense brush on the opposite side of the gully. The rifle went up on the sticks and the scope locked onto the muntjac. The backstop looked good, straight into the hill. The retrieval would be a ball ache, but this guy was a great buck to take, and the opportunity was too good to pass up. He was now moving directly opposite me, at around 120yards. He was hard to see and as he moved, the kill zone kept becoming obscured by branches, leaves, trees and roots. Perhaps I was too confident in my shooting ability, or perhaps my thoughts had become clouded, and the blinders were on. I wanted that deer, and I saw a very small opening into the kill zone and in my eagerness, I took the shot…

and I hit low, wounding its leg. The instant the shot rang out, I knew something was wrong. The muntjac stumbled forward and hobbled into the undergrowth, leaving behind only splinters of bone and a hunter who was on the verge of a full-blown breakdown. This was my first ever wounding. I knew it was bad and the immense feelings of panic, sickness, guilt all rush through you like an adrenaline shot to the heart.

As hunters and animal lovers, we’re taught that a quick, clean kill is always the goal. But the reality is that things don’t always go as planned. That day, as I tracked the wounded muntjac from the opposite side of the gully, I was consumed by a whirlwind of emotions. I knew I had to finish what I started as quickly as possible, but the longer I followed that deer, the more rattled I became. The confidence I’d carried with me into the field was slipping away with every step.

When I finally caught up to the muntjac after what felt like an eternity but was in reality more like 5 minutes. I took a second shot to put it down. He went down and didn’t get back up. A hail Mary shot though a similarly small opening in the brush. The sense of relief was almost as overwhelming as the guilt. I had done what needed to be done, but the experience left a mark on me that went far deeper than I expected. For a long while after that, I doubted myself. I questioned my abilities as a hunter and wondered if I had what it takes to even call myself a hunter.

Failure in hunting isn’t just about a missed shot; it’s about the emotional toll it takes. The remorse of knowing you’ve caused unnecessary suffering, the worry that you’re not good enough, and the fear that it might happen again. These feelings can rattle even the most seasoned hunter. But they can also be our greatest teachers if we’re willing to listen.

That experience with the muntjac forced me to confront my own weaknesses. I realized that my eagerness, my rush to take the shot, had clouded my judgment. Jaded, I hadn’t waited for the right moment, and the result was a wounded animal and a shaken hunter. But as hard and as painful as it was to face up to my mistake, that failure taught me patience. It taught me to slow down, to think harder before I act, and to respect the gravity of what I’m doing when I’m out there in the wild.

In hunting, as in life, failure is inevitable. But it’s what we do with those failures that define us. I could have let that experience destroy my confidence completely. I could have walked away from hunting, never to look back, convinced that I just wasn’t cut out for it. But instead, I chose to learn from it. I took a step back, reassessed my approach, and committed to doing better next time. And I’ve found that the lessons learned from failure are often the most valuable.

When we fail, it’s tempting to let self-doubt take over. But every single person on the planet has a story like mine—a time when things didn’t go as planned, when they missed the mark, literally or figuratively. And while those moments can shake us, push us around and punch us in the face, they can also strengthen us if we’re willing to face them head-on.

The next time I went out, I took my time. I waited, I watched, and I made sure that when I took the shot, it was the right one. It’s been two years since that incident, the memory of that first wounded muntjac is still with me, but instead of haunting me, it now serves as a reminder. A reminder that every hunt is a learning experience, and that failure, as painful as it can be, is just part of the process.

So, when you find yourself in a similar situation, don’t let it destroy your confidence. Let it make you a better hunter. A better conservationist. A better person. Learn from your mistakes and know that every failure is an opportunity to grow. Because in the end, it’s not just the successes that define us, but how we handle our failures along the way.