I started hunting with a muzzleloader when I lived in Colorado in 1990. At that time, Colorado’s hunting regulations allowed a hunter to participate in one of the three rifle seasons; a muzzleloader would let me gun hunt in another season though, so I bought a .50 caliber TC Renegade Hawken and learned to shoot it.

I had mis-fires and no-fires out hunting and moved from Colorado without taking a deer with the smokepole. In North Dakota, I had to draw a tag to muzzleload for deer. I only drew one tag the four years we were there; took a shot at one buck and missed him. Also moved from North Dakota and still had not taken a deer with the muzzleloader.

Since moving to Arkansas, I have taken vacation for all deer hunting seasons until last year. I changed jobs and was now in a job that revolved around key times of the year (Thanksgiving/Christmas) that coincided with the hunting seasons, so I could only take off for the first muzzleloading season.

I’d hunted the previous muzzleloading seasons, but had mostly used this as an excuse to scout for what I’d shoot with a rifle or shotgun. I did fire on a nice 7-point a couple of years ago, but when the smoke cleared, there were no signs of a hit.

Our 2007 muzzleloading season opened around the second week in October. I took vacation for the first season, knowing that my opportunities for hunting in the other seasons would be very limited. Arkansas has a 3-point on one antler restriction in the zone I hunt, and I had made a personal commitment to not shoot anything less than an 8-point (total). I had hunted early morning and late evening and had been seeing large numbers of deer each time, including legal bucks, but nothing that met my minimum requirements to shoot.

The weather was changing daily, from dry and hot to wet and cold. There were good signs of pre-rut, but no big buck activity at my stand. On Tuesday morning, my husband had a mis-fire on what he described as being a monster buck. Granted, he typically does have quite a bit of ground shrinkage, but when he says monster buck, it’s a good one. After he’d had a cap that didn’t fire on his Knight, I popped off the old cap on my .50 caliber and put on a new shiny one.

I headed to my stand after lunch and my daily nap (ahh - the joys of vacation!). Like clockwork, the does and little nuisance bucks came in starting at 3:00. I watched them, sweating in the 70+ degree weather (my thermostat is broken; I would have probably sweated in 30 degree weather!).

A nice 8-point came in and fed on the corn I had out. He intermingled with the other feeding deer and left. I thought maybe I should have shot him since I wouldn’t get many more opportunities to hunt, but quickly let any regrets fade as I watched the other deer.

I was watching one of the little bucks who kept looking up and looking behind him; the does were starting to get nervous. I knew another deer would be coming in. The 8-point came back in and I watched him. I decided I’d take him if he presented a good, sure, clear shot. He sparred with some of the younger bucks in the area, sniffed at some of the does and headed out slowly on one of the trails to the left of my stand.

I had my smoke pole resting on the gun rest of my Gorilla two-seater treestand. As quietly and cautiously as I could, I raised the butt to my shoulder and cocked the hammer. He was walking away from me broadside, but there were several trees between us, blocking the vital areas where I initially planned to place my shot. I don’t know if he heard me or smelled me, but he paused with only his neck clearly visible. I knew it was then or not at all. I decided that would be a good shot; I would either kill him or completely miss him (I never want to injure another deer that I can’t recover) so I put my sight at the base of his ear and fired. He went down like you’d knocked over a decoy - I’ve never seen anything like that. I’ve shot deer that collapsed where they stood, but they went down more on their belly; this boy went over on his side and never moved.

I went to gut him and found that the knife I had was so dull it wouldn’t even make the first incision. I walked back to the house, got a decent knife, actually a new knife, and tried to call my husband (he was hunting on the other side of the lake) so he could help me load my buck in the truck. Of course, any time you need them, you can’t get them - when you don’t need them, you can’t get rid of them! After gutting the buck and dragging him to the road, I tried to load him myself and couldn’t. Dead deer are not very cooperative when it comes to getting them in the back of a truck. You can get their head loaded, but when you let go to load the back end, the loaded part falls off. With the temperature as warm as it was, I knew I needed to get him home and skinned soon, so I called a neighbor and asked him to come help me. He did. By the time my husband got home from his afternoon hunt, I had the deer home. He helped me get him skinned and quartered up so we could get him in the refrigerator to chill down.

That was the only hunting I really got to do this past year. As we were putting the last of his meat in the cooler, my husband told me he was so very glad that I hunted. Looking back now, that was almost eerie as there would be a series of events that would make me feel like I never wanted to hunt again. Okay, that’s another story, maybe one that just hurts too much to ever tell. No, I’m not turning into an animal rights activist, or joining PETA, but I’m not sure that my first muzzleloader deer wasn’t the last deer I’ll shoot. At any rate, it was a great, albeit short, season, a fantastic shot - very clean kill, and the steaks off of this one are excellent!

 

© June 2008