Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Around the Campfire => Topic started by: PEARL DRUMS on December 16, 2013, 08:02:58 am
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So I get my new used muzzle loader last week in a two gun swap. I'm loving it. I added new sights and tuned her in. My friend calls me Friday night and asks me to go to this new land he bought. I said of course and met him at his house at 6 am Sunday morning. We have had lots of cold sub 20 degree air lately and also had a snow front roll through Saturday that dumped 3-4" on top of 2-3". I parked my truck and we jump out to get dressed....WOW!!! its cold, blowing and snowing still. Bad idea, we are each thinking but not saying, of course. As we trudge through the snow taking turns leading I see an end to the tree line, we stop and he tells me to walk to end and look left, cant miss it. So I do as instructed. Its a 4 foot square plywood box on stilts(1)..... :o. Not my flavor at all, but there where no ground spots to be found. So I climbed up the half an aluminum extension ladder, which was stupid loud(2). Once I laid a foot unto the blinds floor I knew I was in for a mess. It was full of snow, and being so cold it squeaked horribly(3). I said piss on it and just busted in and sat down. I was grumpy, I'm not a box blind fan for a myriad of reasons. I found a corner to lean my gun, got a general idea of the mini box's layout and settled in. 10 minutes later a deer strolls into view at 70-75 yards. It didn't take long to see it had antlers, and it didn't take long for me to realize I needed my gun! I still had my gloves on because it was early and I just plowed my way into a frozen OSB box, why should I be ready I thought? I grabbed the tip of my glove with my teeth and yanked it off, he heard it and stopped. Looking right at me for 10 seconds, then started coming towards me again, that's when I got my gun through the right window(4). I yanked the hammer back and got my sights settled on his chest waiting for him to turn either way as he walked towards me. Ill take a quartering to shot every day with a 310 grain bullet at 50 yards. He did just that, quarted to my right, I found the off leg and centered my sights. The gun blazed and huffed like a cannon when I pulled the trigger! I heard the hit and seen the deer get shoved back a bit. I knew he was hit. He ran out of view quickly.......this is where it gets interesting.
I wait until 9 am before I got up. I walked over to the area he was standing in and found nothing at all. Not even snow tossed around from a speedy exit. I started making bigger circles looking for anything, soon my buddy that invited me shows up and starts looking. Nothing. So we follow his general escape route and hit a 75 yard diameter pot hole in the woods. He walked one side and I walked the other, we met up on the back side, which is his line and about 150-175 yards after the shot.......blood in the snow right at my feet. Now we are unto something. We followed his tracks in the snow and he never stopped bleeding. We went over a half mile and finally found a bed spot, which was full of blood. I started to feel a bit better. So we continued on as it was snowing madly and we had no choice but to go on. Its about 11 am by now. We continued with the same trail we'd been. Only his tracks and blood all along. It was odd. We tracked him all the way up to the highway about 3/4 mile away. Across the road, two houses and a garden between them. He went right through the garden and a back yard. By now we are both just whipped, baffled and MOTIVATED! My buddy wants to walk the hwy back to my truck and grab a drink, then drive over to where we popped out by the houses and garden. I agree. Before we can get far a local stops along the ride and asks if we are tracking. He says that's 15,000 acres of nasty public land over there, and good luck! We both grinned because we knew he was ours now. We had 15,000 acres of no mans land to catch up with him on. The walk back to the truck was miserable, but motivating. We made it back and found a spot to park. I go cut the deers track in the guys back yard, no cap on my gun, and follow it back unto public land. I'm following the track and look up to see man eating autumn olives. Uh oh. I was looking at blood in the snow as I walked, it starting get very heavy and I look up just in time to see him rise 30 feet away and amble deeper into the brush, no shot. The bed was covered in blood and the area around the bed is covered. We backed out, I called in sick and am leaving the house in 15 minutes to go try to recover him. I hope he be will laying about 75 yards ahead in a frozen ball. Ill report back to finish the story, good....or.....bad..... :-\
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Betting on ya Pearly !
You can do this !
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Good luck,keep us posted. :)
Pappy
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Let us know how this story ends Chris, sounds like he should be down and not far from where you last saw him. Good luck and take some pics for us.
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Good luck Pearly. I can't wait to see some pictures of that tough old northern buck.
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+1 on what Osage Outlaw said! dp
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good luck bud!
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After reading all that, I'm betting on the deer ;D. Hope you get 'em though......Art
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Good luck.. Hoping you find'em
Thanks Leroy
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Someone just sent me a pretty nice pic ::) congrats pal...glad ya found him...now let everybody else see ;)
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Its a nice one.
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Glad ya found him Chris. Looking forward to some pictures.
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PICS PICS PICS!!! ;D ;D Congratz Buddy!! dpg
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Well, we found him. Right where I suspected he'd lay down and die. The coyotes found him first and destroyed him. We stared at it for 10 minutes trying to find salvageable meat. I could have chipped 5# of grind off his neck, but passed. This one is really eating at me. I cant get excited about cutting a deer head off and walking away.
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Hard deal PD, but brother coyote needs to eat too. Ed.
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Ouch! Nice hat though. ;D Still get you some leg sinew and knife handles. Maybe just take the top of the head off. You still have to tag him if there ain't no meat? Nice buck all the same, dp
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I would be taking it back from then dogs if I were you
All out war !
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Congrats on the buck to bad about the meat.
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Man, that's a real shame Pearly. Nice buck too! I feel for you brother! Art
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Ouch! Nice hat though. ;D Still get you some leg sinew and knife handles. Maybe just take the top of the head off. You still have to tag him if there ain't no meat? Nice buck all the same, dp
Those dogs yanked the innards right out, the smell was atrocious man. I have a very tough stomach and could barely hang out long enough to get through his neck. Nasty, nasty, nasty.
I do enjoy my Cromer's!
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Congrats on a nice buck and sorry to hear about them yotes. I say you plot revenge, but then again I'm known to hold a grudge. >:D
I shot a doe in Wednesdays snow and couldn't see blood till I walked through where it pumped out. The snow was just to fluffy to hold it up top.
-Dan
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The nerve of those Coyotes trying to survive. Shame about the deer but not in the grander scheme of things.
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I don't have any desire to kill the coyotes or exact my revenge on them for eating a dead deer. However, they can all die of starvation if that means I recover a whole deer. I am more important to me than they they are.
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sorry about your deer buddy.i would hunt over that carcass tonight and shoot those dogs.they will return.
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Not that it will make you feel much better, but I think you should be commended for sticking with it even though you had a difficult tracking job. There are a lot of guys out there that would just give up, but you did your best and recovered your deer.
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Could you tell where he was hit or did the yotes tear it up too much. Always good information. Nice deer though. Good job following through.
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Thanks Adam. Ive been on a lot of goose chases for others critters and learned a lot. But this was my first goose chase with my own deer. It was a lot of work trudging through deep snow, wind blowing 15-20 mph and snowing mad. The blood speckles kept us trucking, hard to turn away from blood. A lot of things had to happen right for us to find him. Snow was essential, the local yocal stopping and telling us it was public across the highway and of course a lack of any other deer sign to muddle it up. Everything was right except the ending. Still on me, good shot=dead deer. I missed my mark by 3" on a quartered deer and paid for it. Id take the same shot tomorrow.
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I am more important to me than they are.
Well said!
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Nice Deer to Blood your Smoke Pole on.
I don't begrudge the Cyotes, hell it coulda been one of my Ancestors...
But if it was me or them, you can bet its gonna be me...
:)
-gus
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And they are more important to them... >:D Coyotes 1 Human 0. For this round at least.
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I can see from the pic that the deer really headed into the thick stuff to die, good follow up to find him in there. Nothing you can do about the coyotes, just the way it is when you got a bunch of them around. Real nice deer
Chris, congrats. I'm sure you'll make good use of what ya salvaged.
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Nice Buck, Chris................Glad you didn't give up on him, way to tough it out. Darn them yotes............
DBar
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Been there. Always feel bad about not finding one till the next day. Happens. Glad you found him.
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Too bad, Pearlie. Could you tell why the bullet didn't stop him sooner.
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That is a beautiful buck, gorgeous symetrical rack and a nice grey face. Thanks for having the ethics to stick with the tracking, shows us what kinda quality you have.
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Man that's a great buck and a beautiful trophy. It's hard when it happens and makes you sick to your stomach and you will lose sleep over it, but it happens. Good of you to stay on the trail and find him. Reminds you of old Jack London tales and the brutal side of nature. Congratulations despite the bitter sweet aspect amigo ;)
Cipriano
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great story,its a shame the coyotes got there first though. >:(
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Way to hang in there with the follow-up! Too bad the Yotes got to it - Bob.
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Nice deer Chris,to bad about the yots. It's a hard decision to leave one over night in our part of the country and looks like it is in yours also. As for the yots having to eat,yes they do but I will still shoot them on site if I get the chance. :)
Pappy
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Reminds me of a funny story. We were just bedding down for the night in the tipi when another villager came over and called out to us, to see if we were awake. I invited him in and he looked distressed. He explained that he took a shot at a deer, just as it was starting to get dark. In the thick it was much darker than out of it, and he saw a clear, clean shot, pulled his bow and released, sure that he got a kill shot. Let the dear go for the night and came up to ask for help tracing it in the morning. We got up and three of us, one of us being an excellent tracker, searched up and down the mountain for that deer, picking up plenty of tracks but no blood. We followed deer trail after deer trail, walking at least 10 miles up and down and around and around. Nothing. Not a drop of blood to be seen. He was positive he hit the deer, as he is a great shot and was, by his estimation, only about 6 yards from the deer. After two days of searching we gave up, and out of sadness and disappointment, he broke his hunting arrows as a penance. The next day, he was walking by the spot and stepped out to urinate by the trees and there it was, his arrow, clean and in the base of the tree. He somehow missed that 6 yard shot!
Good job finding the buck Pearl Drums. Coyote doesn't taste too awful...
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I find them a little stringy Wylden . ;) :) :)
Pappy
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Too bad, Pearlie. Could you tell why the bullet didn't stop him sooner.
I missed my mark 2-3" left Pat. He was quartered to my right, the bullet hit his 3rd or 4th rib back rather than square in the front of the shoulder area. My guess is I got some liver and mostly guts. It was my fault, I missed my mark. Had I hit him right, he probably would have tumbled backwards and not moved again.
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Accuracy under extreme conditions is tough no matter what sometimes Pearly. My son was having problems hitting his mark due to an eye problem and I had him go to peeps on his MLs. I know it's impossible to convey the difference it made in his ability to take game with his MLs, but he'll be the first to tell you it made All the difference in his shooting. Peeps gives you a longer line of sight, and that in itself makes a gun more accurate. Remove the aperture for hunting and use the housing like a ghost ring. Think about it...........Art
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I do need glasses Artsy, but I wont make excuses. I simply missed my mark. I was almost touching bullets at 50 yards on Friday afternoon while shooting and screwed up at 50 yards on Sunday.
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Congrats again bud...sucks, but stuff happens. Ya stuck it out and found him, that's the biggest thing!
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Too bad Chris, but as said, respect for seeing it through.
Why do you think the yotes have spread so quickly throughout the country over the last 2 decades, anyhow? Just the overpopulation of deer and such? I've often wondered...
Shoot, they've made it down all the way to my neck of the woods. Can't imagine what they're eating, though. Probably pets...
I suppose they could take down some young hogs.
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You gotta love these Thompsons Pearly. They will shoot, and shoot well with about anything you put in 'em. My personal belief is that a peep sight is a great advantage in hunting situations, well, at least for some of us. Some folks may need that advantage and some don't. But IMO, it is an advantage never the less.........Art
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Total respest for you going and finishing the job.. I for one have made a few bad shots over the years... But always put my heart and soul into finding it.. Next hunt will be better... Take care
Thanks Leroy
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I do need glasses Artsy, but I wont make excuses. I simply missed my mark. I was almost touching bullets at 50 yards on Friday afternoon while shooting and screwed up at 50 yards on Sunday.
Know what ya mean Pearl, a little buck fever gets the best of us at times. :) ;)
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That's a shame about the 'yotes, buddy but congratulations on a very, fine deer. You weren't shooting some of Art's 2 year old Triple 7 were you? ;)
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American Pioneer all the way for me Eddie!
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Glad you found the deer PD, sorry he was eat up. That is a bittersweet feeling but it happens to nearly everbody at some point. Do you feel like you rushed the shot and didnt settle in on him or you think you just pulled off a little?
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Whew I'm tired just following along and keeping up with the tracking ;D. Respect your determination to stick with it and it really sucks that it got scavenged. They gotta eat to I suppose and it didn't go to total waste. Looks like a real dandy for Michigan!
Tracy
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We now know it was the powder Eddie >:(. Boy needs friggin glasses ;D!
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Jamey I don't know what I did. It felt great. When my buddy arrived I told him everything was right except the lack of sign cause by a hit. The shot felt good. The set trigger on this gun makes it easy to shoot. I guess the fact I haint pulled a trigger in years could have played a part as well, but sights are sights. I was just off a few inches.
Artys, them glasses are coming! Wifey is making us both an appt!
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Glasses don't work for me using a scope or open sights Pearly. Without glasses I can see my target clearly, but not the sights. With glasses I can see the sights clearly, but not the target. But that peep dilates my pupil to where I can see both front and target very well. Oops, another advantage for the peep ;).
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OH ............mother time is coming for ya Pearl :) ;)
DBar
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I can back artcher1 to the wall on this one...peeps is the way to go on a hunting gun. My first .50 cal was a caplock and eventually I inistalled peeps. I could ring the 140 yd gong all day long shooting offhand with that cheapo-CVA short barrel!
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Thanks JW! Maybe the ol boy will believe you.
Once you practice using a peep you'll discover just how quick you can get on a target. Using the military or six o'clock target acquisition method, and with both eyes on the target, when you pull the gun up, the eye automatically centers the peep (off eye still on the target), front sight comes under the target. And you will hit where you're looking. Once you practice this for a bit, all you need to see is the target, everything else becomes automatic.
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You guys talking about Peeps got me to thinking about Pin-Hole Diopter Viewing and shooting...
You can make a small hole with your thumb and forefinger (Tight OK sign) and look through it to see it for yourself while sitting at your desk without glasses.
Then I remembered that Pro Shooters use it in competition and ran across this article.
Below is just a small piece of it talking about the Pin-Hole.
Pin-Hole Diopter Shooting
by Don Depew (Drinking Buffalo)
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Old shooters never die - their vision just fades away.
It's a fact of life that beyond the age of 40 a person's eyes just can't focus on things as close as his rifle and pistol sights anymore. The condition gets worse and worse as you get older - and it happens to everybody. But you still want to shoot, even competitively, and against those young guys with their young eyes too.
So what can you do? Telescopes work fine, of course, if you're into modern, or slug gun shooting. Peep sights aren't bad, if you're into bench or buffalo. But how do you continue to see those open sights on your offhand gun, or your flintlock, or your pistols? Well, here are some things you can and should do. Try them all and you will be amazed by how well they work. They shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg, either.
The simplest and probably the most significant thing you can do is to use a pin-hole device on your shooting glasses. This will sharpen the focus of objects at every distance. You can buy these, of course, but don't do that. Just use a small piece of black plastic electrician's tape with a 1/16 inch hole punched in it (the smallest size punch of a common leather punch). Pieces of tape no bigger than about 1/4-inch square work fine. Don't make the hole too small, or diffraction effects will make things fuzzy.
Cut a few snips of the tape, punch a hole in each one, and keep them stuck to something inside your shooting pouch, like the top of a cap box. Then if you need a new one, it's all ready to peel off and stick onto your glasses. And that's all you do, just stick it onto your glasses, up in the inner corner for rifle shooting, and more centered but still high up for pistol shooting. If you use small pieces of tape, you can have both stuck onto your shooting glasses at the same time. They don't even get in the way for normal vision.
Sorry for the Hijack... O:)
-gus
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Glad you found him, and good for you to keep at it. Sorry about the yotes. As the Queen of France said when the people were starving......"Let them eat cake!" As for the starving yotes..... I am with Pappy...... "Let them eat lead!"
Like Parnell said they are all over Florida now. Eating rabbits, and pets, mobile speed bumps (armadillos) Also known as possum on the half shell. And deer, turkey, and any and every thing they can kill. Unlike wolves they don't just kill something for the fun of it. However, since the over population of the wolves in Montana, I haven't heard as many yotes howling, and yipping. Seems the wolves like yote meat. So the yotes keep pretty quiet for the most part. Again good for you on keeping at it. Sometimes it just turns out this way. Ir is not a modern problem. It has been this way since mankind. But you did the right, and ethical thing, with you and your Friend going the extra mile to find it. Ol stormy designed a pretty good hat didn't he?! I have one in blaze orange, but want to get one in black and red checkers, or plaid if you will. ;) Again congrats, and honors to you and your Buddy, sad to see the loss. An opportunity was not passed by the Coyotes, as they usually don't. Pretty smart as they will look , and listen for Ravens, and other scavengers. Don't let it get at ya. The peeps are great, and the tape works great also. Could have been the wind and snow, distorting your aim also.
Wayne
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I have three different Raven vocalizations on My FoxPro E-Caller >:D. Bob