Christened the new .62cal Early Virginia Smoothbore this afternoon. I took delivery of it this summer and 'job one' all along has been to get it dialed in to hunt deer and squirrel this fall, then go after Turkey with it in the spring.
Saturday and Monday mornings, I was seeing deer in the dark along side the road while driving to my hunting spots before sunrise, but then never saw any on stand after first light till noon.
When I got home, I checked the Solar/Lunar tables and sure enough, the high activity period for animals this week is from 3:00am till 6:00am...then they were down inactive for several hours...going back into high activity again from 3:00 to 6:00pm.
So I changed my strategy, slept in this morning and was on the oak ridge stand at 2:00pm.
Right on queue around 3:15pm, I heard a couple distant scattered shots...then about 4:00pm I hear something slowly coming my way through the dry leaves and pretty soon see this big ole Doe poking along in my general direction.
She would be angling past me at about 30 yards and since I was itching to make meat with the new .62cal...and knew I had a family waiting just 1/2 mile down the road for any deer I’d give them...I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and put her down...quartering towards me, the 325grn lead ball performed as expected...drove down through her right shoulder/heart/lungs area and out her belly...she lunged a couple of body lengths and piled up.
Cleaned the Flintlock, and dragged her out of the woods well before dark”¦slid her up on the hitch-haul and delivered her to the “deer drop family””¦the 3rd deer I’ve given to them and the lady told me she already has the first two at the butchers having sausage and hamburger ground up”¦was thrilled at getting the 3rd one and when I said I’d try to get 3 more for her I thought she was going to adopt me !
Saturday and Monday mornings, I was seeing deer in the dark along side the road while driving to my hunting spots before sunrise, but then never saw any on stand after first light till noon.
When I got home, I checked the Solar/Lunar tables and sure enough, the high activity period for animals this week is from 3:00am till 6:00am...then they were down inactive for several hours...going back into high activity again from 3:00 to 6:00pm.
So I changed my strategy, slept in this morning and was on the oak ridge stand at 2:00pm.
Right on queue around 3:15pm, I heard a couple distant scattered shots...then about 4:00pm I hear something slowly coming my way through the dry leaves and pretty soon see this big ole Doe poking along in my general direction.
She would be angling past me at about 30 yards and since I was itching to make meat with the new .62cal...and knew I had a family waiting just 1/2 mile down the road for any deer I’d give them...I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and put her down...quartering towards me, the 325grn lead ball performed as expected...drove down through her right shoulder/heart/lungs area and out her belly...she lunged a couple of body lengths and piled up.
Cleaned the Flintlock, and dragged her out of the woods well before dark”¦slid her up on the hitch-haul and delivered her to the “deer drop family””¦the 3rd deer I’ve given to them and the lady told me she already has the first two at the butchers having sausage and hamburger ground up”¦was thrilled at getting the 3rd one and when I said I’d try to get 3 more for her I thought she was going to adopt me !
