First Time Deer Hunting and I Blew It!

[fischereco2]

Hey folks,

This weekend I went deer hunting here in Southern Illinois for the first time in my life. My in-laws were gracious enough to let me hunt on their 50 acres of woodland where there are frequently more white tails hanging around than you can shake a stick at.

I have never been hunting before, ever. It seems like it is generally an inherited skill and I've just never had any family or friends who were interested in it, so I decided I would do a little research and just "wing it".

I built myself a little makeshift blind on the edge of a rockface, so behind me there was a little depression I could look down into that seemed to have a lot of natural game trails running through it. In front of me up on the ridge was a long wooded slope with a lot of grass around the bottom where I was hiding. I had seen a lot of deer traveling through both these parts before so it seemed like a good place to me.

I was out there for about an hour and being a religious person decided I ought to pray for success. No sooner did I finish saying "Amen" did the largest buck I have ever seen on the property and a doe come crashing through the woods right in front of me, maybe 20 yards away. They both stopped chasing each other for a minute and I literally had the perfect shot.

I aimed my flintlock, set the trigger, KA-BOOM. They both scampered away unscatched. I couldn't believe I missed at that range. I spend an hour or two circling the area just to be sure, but I knew I shot wide. I made a critical mistake that morning which was deviating from my normal load. When I target shoot with my .62 caliber I normally use like 60 grains of 2FF. For some reason I read/heard/or just got it in my head that for hunting I needed to bump that up to at least 110 grains, I think I was actually using 120. I also foolishly decided that I REALLY need to make sure the gun goes off, so I put more powder than I usually do in the pan, and piled it against the touch hole.

These things combined had the opposite effect I was looking for. The ignition was a little slower than I am used to, so I jerked slightly, and the recoil was a lot more than I am used to, which threw off the accuracy as well. When I got back to the house on the property I tried a second shot at a fixed target doing exactly what I just did and I wasn't even on paper. I dialed it back to about 80 grains of 2FF, loaded the pan sparingly, and I was shooting a very tight group at about 75 yards away.

I'm still kicking myself because after that I didn't have a good shot again for the rest of the week. I still have next weekend, but to think I could have gotten such a beautiful animal my first time hunting, in the first hour, is still eating me up inside.

Is 80 grains of 2FF with a .62 cal sufficient for taking a deer? That seems to be the sweet spot and anything beyond that I start losing accuracy.

 

[Black Hand]

60 grains is more than sufficient to take deer.

Pick a charge and shoot until you know where the ball will go - don't mess with it. Even then, you WILL miss on occasion....

 

[Eric Krewson]

I have a problem with jerking the trigger if I don't keep telling myself to "squeeze it".

My last doe this year ran to a stop at 20 yards in front of me, I repeated my mantra, my gun went off quickly and the deer is in the freezer.

A few other tips, deer that are looking at you when you shoot a flintlock can duck as the shot goes off. I have to consciously aim in the lower third of the chest to kill these deer.

The day before I killed the doe I shot at another one looking at me and forgot to hold low. My gun hang fired (damp morning) and she ducked it.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Is 80 grains of 2FF with a .62 cal sufficient for taking a deer? That seems to be the sweet spot and anything beyond that I start losing accuracy.

Yes!...

Sounds like you experienced "Buck Fever"
It's a right of passage that we all endure at one time or another....

 

[necchi]

Lol, Great Honest story.
Remember to shoot at the deer's heart.
Don't just shoot at the deer, pick a spot you want to hit, then squeeze the trigger.

 

[excess650]

Write it off as a learning experience and be happy that you had the opportunity so quickly. Pick a charge that the gun likes and stick with it. Become proficient at the range and remember that a deer is just another target, but don't forget that they also have senses of hearing, sight, and smell. Stay calm when presented with the opportunity, and you'll be rewarded.

 

[Patocazador]

"Don't just shoot at the deer, pick a spot you want to hit, then squeeze the trigger."

Listen to Necchi, this and making sure you are downwind of the deer are probably the two most important things about hunting deer .. and most everything else too.

 

[Snow on the Roof]

Failure is life's greatest teacher. Never change your load with out testing it first. I hunt with a .62 Flint Lock in Colorado and consider 90 grains of FF with a .600 round ball to be sufficient for elk let alone those Illinois whitetails. I lived in Illinois for 23 years and killed several of those down state bucks with 70 grains of FFF and a .530 round ball.

 

[rushlake1]

Welcome to hunting....You took on the flintlock challenge...You were in their zone...You have a good place to hunt...It will come together....If it was easy we wouldn't do it..Your first hunt lessons will not be forgotten...You already corrected your mistakes....Wait till next season!!
Hunt On!

 

[George]

As an inexperienced deer hunter, there is one thing you absolutely need to learn. Deer can absorb tremendous, eventually lethal damage and keep on going as though nothing happened. I've killed deer several times which stopped to look back at me after the shot, appearing completely unscathed, only to drop dead within a short time and distance. Because of that, we need to do everything we can to make absolutely certain we missed. Many hunters are too quick to say they missed, give up the search, and start looking for another deer, IMHO, even when they have good reason to realize they actually hit the animal. If you are going to be a deer hunter, that's something important to keep in mind.

Spence

 

[okawbow]

Absolutely agree. I've had a doe appear unhit when shot with a .69 cal musket with 100 grains. It ran almost 100 yards with the heart shot in two.

However, I also know how easy it is to lift my head before the flintlock goes off, and shoot high.

 

[hanshi]

You should look high and low because that buck could easily be lying dead somewhere. If you did indeed "blow it"; well, it has happened to all of us at one time or another.

 

[Danny Ross]

Welcome to the club, you are not the first nor will you be the last to have episodes like you had. If you haven't, study the anatomy of a deer I would suggest you should. A good shot placement is in the lower third to mid body straight up from the center line of the front leg on a broadside shot. If the deer is quartering away, aim mid body aiming for the off side leg. Buck fever hits all of us and makes us do stupid mistakes (but I wouldn't know ANYTHING about that :redface: ), so try not to feel bad. If I had one bit of advice, which we all are full of: Focus on that front sight aiming at the spot you want to hit. In archery we make the comment aim at a hair or something that stands out where you want your shot to go. Then squeeze the trigger like you do at the range. Speaking of shooting at the range if you allowed shoot sitting on the ground, kneeing, standing, sitting in your hunting stool. You may not beable to hit the spot you are shooting at but, put a one inch dot in the middle of a 10inch paper plate. If you can keep your shot on the paper plate aiming at the dot you are in good shape. Try and mark exactly mentally where the deer was standing when you shot and go to that spot to start your tracking, even if you see the deer fall. The more you track the better you will get at it. There is a lot of info out there on how to track. If the deer is dead it ain't going anywhere. You won't always have blood or hair where where the deer stood and with all that smoke you don't always know which way the deer went unless it runs over you. We have all had to learn one way or the other. WELCOME to hunting, Welcome to Muzzleloading, and Welcome to the Forum. DANNY

 

[jethro224]

Lots of good advice to be found in these replies. :thumbsup:

Good luck this coming weekend.

I bet your heart was pounding like never before and your knees were shaking too. Ain't it great?

 

[fischereco2]

Thanks for the kind and informative replies folks, I appreciate it. Just to be clear, I did spend a few hours looking for that buck just in case I scored a hit, and the second day I looked for a few hours again. On day 3 I am 90% sure I saw the same buck on the property (just no where I could get a second shot at him) so that alleviated my conscience a bit. I know from watching a lot of videos of other people hunting, even with large bore flintlocks, that the deer typically take off running even when gravely wounded, so I wasn't expecting him to just drop dead in his tracks or anything. I just knew I missed though, I felt myself flinch and jerk way off target. But yeah, I definitely don't want to be "that guy" and leave some poor animal crippled or rotting in the woods, so it was awhile before I even thought about trying my luck a second time, and not before spending some time figuring out what I did wrong.

I have never heard the term "buck fever" before but that about sums it up. I just got so excited at the sight of him that I pretty much forgot everything I know about shooting and marksmanship in a matter of seconds and panicked.

Next time I'll prepare my rifle in a way that I'm familiar with and hopefully I will do better. I can usually get "minute of pie plate" accuracy at quite a long range with my standard load, so I'll stick with that and leave the overkill buffalo loads alone.

On a side note, the rifle I have is a TVM 'Jaeger' model. I opted for a longer barrel so I could have more of a transitional rifle and opted not to have the barrel swamped because of my budget. Does that really make a difference in terms of balance? I normally shoot this gun from the bench, but toting it around was really unpleasant. It's a very front heavy, unwieldy rifle. I'm wondering if maybe I should have gone for the more typical, short barreled 'Jaeger' style rifle...Oh well.

 

[Eric Krewson]

I have a straight sided 42", 7/8",.44 cal barrel mounted in a rifle. The first couple of times I hunted with it it felt like I was carrying a boat anchor after hunting with a TC Hawken for years. After a few trips to the woods I got used to the weight and love the gun.

 

[bender20]

Some guys like a gun "nose heavy" they like the way it "hangs" when shooting offhand. I was brought up shooting shotguns so I am not a big fan but if you get used to it it can be very pleasant to shoot. You just have to concentrate on making sure you don't drop the front once you pull the trigger. I would agree that they seem steadier when trying to line up the shot.

 

[Grumpa]

Your honest appraisal of the situation is admirable. A lot of folks hunt a lifetime without ever seeing a buck like you saw your first day.

Me? I missed, with my flintlock, the biggest buck I have ever seen while hunting. And he was standing broadside to me , unaware I was there. I fired from a rest, sights lined up on him, squeezed the trigger and, for once, the gun went off right now. I was so cool headed and focused...that I never noticed the dead tree trunk 10 feet in front of me that swayed, with the slightest of breezes, right in front of my sights! Cut a nice "C" right in the edge of that trunk and sent my ball off to God knows where - except NOT in the buck. It just wasn't his time, or my day.

You can't eat them, but sometimes misses make the best stories. Welcome to the Hunt. You'll do.:hatsoff:

Richard/Grumpa

 

[jethro224]

opted not to have the barrel swamped because of my budget. Does that really make a difference in terms of balance?

Yes.

Some folks do like 'em nose heavy. I prefer balanced, especially for offhand shooting.

 

[rushlake1]

From what I read..its time to trade into a well balanced rifle...They are a joy to carry and shoot.
You are young ...Do it sooner than later..you'll get more years of enjoyment...Its all part of the learning curve...Oh we all have have a couple of tales of the big boy that walked... your in good company.