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I have posted this on some other hunting forums as well , however i wanted to also share here as well.

I went out to check my hot spot on the weekend (and also my trail camera) and managed to bag this hind on the Saturday morning in some pretty steep country.

I played tug of war with the blow flies and took both backstraps and 1 hind leg 2KM back to camp.
So far so good, however I really, really want to bag the stag that has been wallowing and preaching in a nearby gully - so I made a big effort on the Sunday to get him. The weather turned stormy and wet which I felt was perfect as the Saturday was very warm.
I took two slow hours to saddle around to the head of the gully that I felt he was camped in. I sat down to glass the gully with my dog Lucy sitting about 5 meters away from me.
After a few minutes of glassing I noticed a brown patch among the green ferns that looked out of place. A few seconds later it moved and I realised it had to be a deer. I looked at my dog to see if it had noticed anything and she had now stood up and was staring intensely at the deer (about 90 meters away), I think she noticed it moving and had not confirmed it was a deer. I looked back down at the deer, praying for it to have antlers.... the sight took my breath away, as about 24" antlers appeared attached to the now on the move deer. It was feeding along not knowing I was there, I told myself to be calm, this is the perfect senario, just let it move to a better position. I snuck a peak at the dog and she looked ready to give the deer some closer inspection , which probably made me panick a little fearing the dog was about to spook the deer. I tried to get the dogs attention to make her stay but she was honed in on the stag. I then decided to quickly take the shot before thing went pear shaped. I waited another second for the stag to walk between two trees and then gently squeesed the trigger on my Finlight 300win mag. What happened next has shattered me. The deer ran straight up out of the gully, powering away unhit!!
I spent the next hour looking for blood following his running marks and generally feeling gutted! Nothing - I F#*ked up! I wanted to blame the dog , but she didn't take the shot, it was my fault and I have got to get past this and move on.
I clean missed, simple as that, I panicked and rushed the shot in the end and I am still absolutely miserable. To top it off, my trail camera had some teething problems and I never got any pics on it.

I am just praying on some cool and wet weather to see if I can get another chance at him before the end of November.