eagle27, good to hear, and I agree with most of your comments.

I know I have lost a couple of large beasts and probably more than a few rabbits. Perhaps some feral goats when young and stupid and using a .222. Some ran away. We killed most of those, but when shooting hundreds of goats some may have got away.

I learned the hard way, not to take two brain shots on water buffalo with a double rifle. BANG, the first drops instantly, move to the second BANG, and it drops, gets and runs away. Shot through the skull but not the brain. We lost its tracks in the herd tracks of the many buffalo in the area. No blood trail to follow. Learned to never use the SECOND barrel for a brain shot. A reasonable bidy shot would kill the buffalo much quicker if it escaped.

The other was a hartebeest in Namibia. A bad shot, I found out later, the shooting sticks were being setu too high, and after several shots needed followup started to adjust the sticks myself for every shot, and instantly back to normal. As for hartebeeast, it ran off, the tracker was lazy and useless. I am the one who found the tiny dot of blood under the grass 80 metres further up the hill when the antelope stopped for a second. We searched for it that day, and kept any eye out for the next few days. The lady of the game ranch said "Jackals have to eat too ..."

My most painful wounding was successfully finished. Overall we followed a wounded wildebeest for at least 35 kms in 40 deg C heat back in 1988, and 25 kms the first day, followed by a 5 to 7 km walk to water. And another 5 or 7 kms the next morning to find the dead beast. A definite lesson in shooting well.

Any hunter who has hunted more than a small amount will have made a mistake. Mistakes are often what teach us more than successes.