So, here's the story. 7 Years waiting for a muzzleloading buck tag and we get one of the coldest Decembers in history. Instead of responding to rattling at the end of the rut, they are all holed up outa the wind and trying to stay warm. Finally, we get a break in the weather and I am out in the woods at sunrise. I worked several areas known to harbor good populations of deer, but you gotta walk a good bit to get there. I'm game, so out I go.
I find lots of heavily used trails, several good scrape lines, and a couple great funnels. Only problem is that everything is at least 24 hours old. I quit the area at about 2:30, GPS told me I had tracked almost 9 miles. And all of it without seeing a deer. Good 2 inches of powdery snow on the ground and moist pine needles under the snow, so silent walking was easy. I even gave up trying to be quiet and just plain tried bumping deer. No luck, white-tail flag-free!
I was driving home when I decided to glass across a canyon to a small piece of National Forest Service land that is almost totally surrounded by private land. Sure enough. On a steep hillside inside a wooded ravine I spot a buck grazing. He's got headbones, I got a tag for deer with headbones. Nuff said.
I diddy-wop over the finger ridge next to me and slide downhill out of sight. I start climbing up the steep side of the canyon just one ravine over, so the buck won't see me coming. After gaining about 200 ft of elevation in only 20 yards of horizontal real estate, I am chugging like a demented steam engine, sucking wind and badly outa shape! I wait to get heart rate and breathing under some control as I slowly top over the ridgeline to look down into the ravine where I saw the buck.
BUSTED! The buck is much bigger than I thought and he is heading out over the finger ridge across from me already. I freeze in place hoping he hasn't seen me. As he disappears, I see movement in the ravine where I had originally spotted the buck. It's a buck, probably the same one I had first spotted, I had missed the larger one in my haste. I can wait for him to follow the big buck and try to catch them once they go over the next finger ridge or I can settle. I settle for meat today.
He's busy grazing on dry alfalfa, slowly working his way up the opposite side of the ravine from me. I have plenty of time to get my butt under me, raise my knees, rest elbows on the knees, and find my sights. I'm holding dead on since he's at about 90 yds, my iron sights covering much of his chest. He is quartering away from me at a steep angle and I wait for a better shot. Another two steps and all I have is Texas Heart Shot, nothing but a full moon. Wait a little longer and I see some ribs again. Finally I get a little more ribs showing and I decide to put the shot at the back of his left side ribs in order to put the roundball close to the heart as it passes thru.
When the hammer dropped, flint struck steel, sparks ignited the fine powder in the pan, the subsequent flash drove thru the recessed touchhole and set off the 65 grains of powder in the charge. I tend to exhale slowly when pulling the trigger, and that's a bad habit because it leads to inhaling any smoke blown back. I had a light breeze in my face and got a lungful of delicious blackpowder smoke.
The buck humped up and kicked. He ran 20 yds with his tail sucked up between his hind quarters. He stood on the sidehill with his back hunched and I feared a gutshot. His legs were wobbly and his head hung. I never took my eyes off him as my left hand felt in the shooting bag for the turkey wingbone powder measure and found it. I had the gun loaded in seconds by touch, something I was told long ago to practice. Everything in it's place once again and the bag tucked back tight against my ribs, now the buck stands up from where he lay and he wobbles off over the ridgeline.
I'm on my feet and doing a glissade down the rocks and blowdown pines in this 25 yr old forest fire wracked hillside. At the bottom, I pull it together and start up the hill with all I have. Good sense returns before I top the finger ridge and I slow down. I check the prime in the pan and close the frizzen again. I check the half-cock and it's good. Finger out of the trigger guard, thumb on the flint, I ease over the ridge and spot him. He's stumbling slow with his head down. I take a couple long strides and drop to a kneeling shooting position. Just when I have full-cock and a finger on the trigger he stumbles and falls into the next ravine. And there I found him, sleeping the long sleep.
