Muzzleloading Buck

[Big58cal]

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Our early muzzleloading season was Oct. 19/20.  I sat through rain up in my climber until about 2 PM and then moved over to the shooting shack for the evening (it had already quit raining by then).

The shack sits on one logging road that goes up and T's with another.  The "T" is 80 yds. from the shack.

Right at dusk, a buck came walking through on the top road from right to left, stopped long enough to look down the road and then continued on his way.  I didn't even have time to get the gun up!  I stuck my hand out the netting on the window, and flipped a can bleat call a couple of times and then stuck my gun through the hole in the netting and waited.  There directly the buck came back to see what it was he had missed.

Just as soon as I saw him I knew which buck it was.  It wasn't the main buck that I was after, but I had already decided a couple of weeks ago that if this one gave me a shot I was going to take it because he had somewhat of a weird rack.

He was angling pretty hard toward me and the .54 cal was sighted in for 50 yds and I shoot a 325 grain Barnes bullet.  I put the crosshairs a little high up on his shoulder and touched it off.  Of course with the FFg black powder, I couldn't see anything.  After a few seconds, I thought I heard him go down, but inside that shack, sounds get distorted and you can't tell where stuff comes from.

Cleaned the gun, got my stuff together, and then went up to the "T" to see if I even hit him.  I couldn't see anything with the crappy light I use to walk in with, so I took all of my crap back down to the truck and got my good tracking light and went back.  I immediately found hair, meat, and blood where he had been standing.  Looked in one direction on the road but couldn't find anything.  Started in the other direction and found a decent blood trail.  Where it had rained earlier in the day though, tracking was pretty tough.  I also noticed he was only bleeding on the side I hit him on instead of both sides like he should of if the bullet had passed through.

Kept on the blood trail and the SOB left the road and started uphill.  This is only the 3rd deer I've ever shot that's gone uphill like that.  He kept going until he hit the bench just below the ridge and then started traveling on the bench for a piece.  Finally I lost the trail and couldn't find it again.  Took the flashlight and went ahead looking and found him about 15 yds ahead piled up.

From where he was when I shot, he actually only covered about 100 yds, but over half of it was uphill.  The bullet never exited.  I found it just under the skin on the left side.  It had gone through the right shoulder and shoulder blade, rib cage, took out both lungs, the liver, the edge of the stomach, and the last 2 ribs on the left side.  That SOB didn't want to go down!







I've gotten a ton of pictures of this guy since we had this camera running in early August.  These first 2 pictures, he's the one on the mineral lick on the right side.  In the first picture, the buck up at the top of the picture is in about the spot where I shot him at.





These other pictures are just the most recent that I had here at work of him, but I had quit getting pictures of him at the camera above, and he started showing up over at this camera.  This one is about 3/4 mile away.













As I said, he wasn't really the one that I was after, but I'm still happy with him.  He dressed out at 185 lbs, so I got a bunch of good meat off him.  Got 2 doe tags left to fill now.  Our gun season is in right now.  Went Saturday and didn't see anything.  Sunday morning I saw a momma & 2 little ones, but I couldn't get a shot at momma.  Still got another weekend of gun season down there at the farm and then I'll get the crossbow back out. 

[D45/70]

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Very cool.
 Exhalent  job

[bohicajuan]

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Well Jesus H. Christ in a Sidecar!! I guess NOW you want me to buy you a tactical flashlight like us big boys use!!

Probably wouldn't do you any good in any case! Be honest. Tell the Truth! You went home and got Mongo to trail the deer, didn't you!!??

I swear! Blaming your bad eye sight on your flashlight!

Still. At 185lbs you have some good eating and one more rack for the wall.

[Big58cal]

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He wasn't the brute I was after.  That one will dress out well over 200 lbs.     Hopefully my brother or the boy will get a shot at him.

Just got tired of driving down there every weekend and not having anything to show for it because I was passing everything up.  Hell I was even letting the does walk.  Started to think about what I was spending on gas and fillet mignon would be cheaper. 

The Youth Gun Season was the weekend before.  Took the boy on that Saturday.  I've got to give him props, he stuck with it and didn't complain a bit. 

The place we hunted, I had hunted it once in Sept. and had seen 7 bucks and 5 does.  There was a nice 2.5 year old 6 point up there that didn't have any brow tines.  Nice and tall and pretty thick.  Not particularly wide but still a nice deer.  I was hoping that he would get a shot at that one.

I have a stand there, but it's not a double stand, so I cleared out a place 20 yds further up the hill on the ridge under a cedar tree and cleared him a nice wide shooting lane down to the mineral lick and the main area of the saddle where the deer cross.

We sat from daylight to about 10:30 and didn't see a deer!     Went into town and got something to eat and was back up there by 1:00.  We sat from then until dark.  Right at dark that 6 pt came in.  We had had a good wind coming up the hill in our face all day.  Mason was having trouble finding the deer in the scope in the low light and just as he found him, I felt the wind hit me on the back of the neck.     It was over after that.  You talk about being a pissed off daddy!     I wasn't mad at the boy.  It wasn't his fault.  I was just pissed in general.  Pissed at not seeing any deer.  Pissed at staying out there all day.  Pissed at the wind changing.  Pissed the boy wasn't able to get one.  Pissed I felt like I had let him down.  You name it, I was pissed off about it, with the exception of the boy.  Him I kept apologizing to for not being able to get him a deer.

[John Andrews]

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Lots of bum luck, BC!  You did everything that could be done.

[bohicajuan]

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Don't sweat it! You and Mason will get another chance. He is just learning early that hunting is about patience, discipline, patience and discipline! He'll get a shot at the big boy before the end of the season, I promise.

Btw...Ever thought about using skunk or fox scent to cover you up in the event the wind changes direction?

[John Andrews]

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Don't sweat it! You and Mason will get another chance. He is just learning early that hunting is about patience, discipline, patience and discipline! He'll get a shot at the big boy before the end of the season, I promise.

Btw...Ever thought about using skunk or fox scent to cover you up in the event the wind changes direction?

Skunk scent always worked great for me.

[Big58cal]

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Btw...Ever thought about using skunk or fox scent to cover you up in the event the wind changes direction?

Man, I had so much stuff out, and it still didn't do any good.  I spray everything, including myself, down with odor-eliminating spray, and then reapply to key areas (head, face, cap, pits, crotch, tops of boots, etc) every few hours.  I always hang Earth Scent scent wafers around my location.  When a skunk sprays, it's an alarm reaction to some kind of danger.  Deer know this, so I don't use skunk scent.  Coons are more plentiful around home so I use coon urine instead of the fox.  I'll spray the coon urine up on branches/leaves where all the way around my stand where the wind will catch it, and freshen it back up with a few squirts every few hours.  I also figured I'd try the new stuff by Tink's this year that comes in the aerosol cans.  I've got the attractant stuff that smells like honeysuckle and a can of just the straight doe pee (not the estrous stuff).  I'll spray a few shots of this stuff into the wind every half hour or so to help cover my scent down wind.

All of this stuff works 99.9% of the time.  Just that evening, that deer could see the 2 orange "blobs" sitting up there and didn't know what they were.  Just as soon as he got the slightest whiff of us though, he was out of there.

[dougdad]

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Thats a dandy buck there 58, Grats..

 I got a doe opening weekend of archery season and have not hunted since. My archery spot is great for that but come rifle season it is non productive.  The spot I used to hunt has been sold due to unemployment and inability to pay the taxes so I lost that one.  State land is out of the question around here because it is overrun and hunted so hard that one cant find a spot anyway, so, the rifle has stayed in the safe for this season.. If I am lucky I get some late season archery in and a chance to fill another tag...Best of luck to everyone else!!