Awesome stories-keep them coming
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Awesome stories-keep them coming
Opening day of the muzzleloader hunt a couple of years ago. First light comes and a doe walks by at 60-70 yards. It's early, it's the first day, she didn't stop, the shot will scare the rest of the deer away, etc. I tell myself a lot of excuses to let her go.
Half an hour later a nice buck is coming up the field edge. I see him 200 yards away working a scrape. Up on 2 legs for the licking branch, takes a leak, and comes right in. He's a little far when he passes through my one shooting lane, so I decide to let him get to the other lane. He stops between the two lanes, then turns and walks briskly through the first shooting lane again. Thinking he's onto me, I decide not to stop him and just shoot him on the move. As the smoke clears, I see him run into the edge of the bush, but I don't see him. Did he disappear? Did he stop? Is he dead? There wasn't a crash.
I grab a quick load and pour the powder down the barrel. Carefully pack the bullet down on top, trying not to clang the ramrod and make as little noise as possible packing the bullet down. I replace my ramrod and cap the nipple. Sure enough, here he comes through the bush in behind me. He had stopped just inside the bush to reassess his situation. He was hunched and sore. The sight line wasn't good but he is already hit so I fire on him again and anchor him. This time when I fire, my ramrod comes out of the gun and clangs down to the forest floor. He is down but kicking.
Unable to reload, I sit tight to wait for him to expire. To my surprise, a small 8-point appears. He's watching the older buck expire. I've never gotten a double with the muzzleloader and being opening morning my party has plenty of tags. I can't reload without my ramrod! I grab a quickload and pour the powder down the barrel. I have no idea why I did that. I'm up a tree and my ramrod is on the ground. I can't reload.
The small buck wanders off. The big buck is still. I carefully climb down my ladder stand, holding my gun upright so the powder doesn't come out of the barrel (stupid move not to lower it on a rope but I'm pumped up and not thinking clearly). I find my ramrod and again carefully pack down the bullet making as little noise as possible.
The young buck returns. He is dead downwind, in the same spot, again checking on the big buck who is now expired. BOOM. As the smoke clears, I see him scrambling down a path. I mark the spot and carefully reload.
I sneak over to the big buck. The first shot was a liver shot but the second shot was on the mark. Always shoot forward if you're firing on a moving deer. I slowly check out the blood trail back to where I fired on him, then decide to go after the small buck. I go to where I had marked him and there's a good blood trail. Slowly stalking down the blood trail, a deer gets up and runs. Was it him?? No, a doe. He is piled up 50 yards away with a clean shot.
Astounded with my luck, and the fact that a buck stuck around after 2 muzzleloader shots (have you heard one of these go off in the still bush?? Or smelled it with Goex FFG??), and a doe stuck around after 3 shots, I return to the field edge to get ponder my luck. A young 6-point is feeding in the field, 70 yards down. I put him in the crosshairs.
Recalling that I had heard a friend shoot at some point in the morning, I realize that I shouldn't get too greedy on tags. I let the 6 walk. Getting on the phone, I find that another member had indeed dropped a deer. We had 3 deer down in the first couple of hours, and 2 tags left. If I'd have gotten greedy on the doe and the 6, maybe we would have tagged out in 2 hours. I'm glad I let those deer go so that we could keep hunting for the week!
My most unusual deer shot was the shot gun hunt in 87d back in 2002. I hunted hard the Monday and Tuesday. Saw a couple does, no bucks. Weather was crap. It was you usual cold wet and windy November weather. On the Tuesday night I tied one on and got completely tered. I was late getting to the stand on the Wednesday morning. I think it was around 9:45am when I got there. Scent control was out the window. I made a ton of noise walking to the stand. Sat for about 15 minutes and had a big body 6pt walk in at 15 yards. Made a good shot. Sat for 30 minutes and then headed the direction the deer went and realized the wind was in a horrible direction for that stand. I was completely up wind from the buck. Can’t believe he never smelt me. Or if he did the Alberta Premium was drinking the night before was a great cover scent.