I headed out late this afternoon with my .62 cal smoothbore Renegade. I had a spot in mind that I wanted to hunt but when I got there a vehicle was parked at that spot. Its archery season here so there are more people than usual in the woods. As much as I wanted to hunt there, I don't want to crowd anyone so I moved on.
I was passing an area that I've never hunted before but looked ideal for grouse and snowshoe hares. I decided to give it a try. Through trial and error (lots of error) over the years I've refined how I hunt snowshoe hares and cottontails. I've gone from taking them occasionally by dumb luck to having a decent rate of success.
Once I started hunting it didn't take long to jump a snowshoe hare. It blew out and didn't give me a chance for a shot. About 10 minutes later I was able to take one. When using muzzleloaders (usually a .54 or .58) for showshoe hares, cottontails and grouse I've always used a patched round ball. This is the first snowshoe I've taken using shot and the first for my .62 Renegade. It was a fairly young hare.
Being new to hunting with shot, cards and cushion wads I've tried a couple different ways of carrying the components. I was carrying the cards separate from the cushion wads which added another step to the process of loading the gun. I came up with the idea of inserting a small Altoids tin in the center of a regular Altoids tin. This gives me three compartments, keeping the components separated. This was the first hunt I used this on. It worked very well. I keep my shot, which I wrap in paper shot cups, in another small Altoids tin.
It was pretty warm out and I wasn't too far from my vehicle. I decided to go back to it and clean the hare so I could put it in the cooler. With that done I got back to hunting.
It was getting late but after taking one last week I wanted to try taking another blue grouse with the Renegade. I headed up higher on the mountain looking for the habitat blue grouse like. I wasn't seeing any birds and was about to head back down when I jumped a blue. It was a great way to end the day.
I was passing an area that I've never hunted before but looked ideal for grouse and snowshoe hares. I decided to give it a try. Through trial and error (lots of error) over the years I've refined how I hunt snowshoe hares and cottontails. I've gone from taking them occasionally by dumb luck to having a decent rate of success.
Once I started hunting it didn't take long to jump a snowshoe hare. It blew out and didn't give me a chance for a shot. About 10 minutes later I was able to take one. When using muzzleloaders (usually a .54 or .58) for showshoe hares, cottontails and grouse I've always used a patched round ball. This is the first snowshoe I've taken using shot and the first for my .62 Renegade. It was a fairly young hare.
Being new to hunting with shot, cards and cushion wads I've tried a couple different ways of carrying the components. I was carrying the cards separate from the cushion wads which added another step to the process of loading the gun. I came up with the idea of inserting a small Altoids tin in the center of a regular Altoids tin. This gives me three compartments, keeping the components separated. This was the first hunt I used this on. It worked very well. I keep my shot, which I wrap in paper shot cups, in another small Altoids tin.
It was pretty warm out and I wasn't too far from my vehicle. I decided to go back to it and clean the hare so I could put it in the cooler. With that done I got back to hunting.
It was getting late but after taking one last week I wanted to try taking another blue grouse with the Renegade. I headed up higher on the mountain looking for the habitat blue grouse like. I wasn't seeing any birds and was about to head back down when I jumped a blue. It was a great way to end the day.
