flinter rain deer hunt

[armymedic.2]

So out we three be, i with my fowler in flint, my brother with his 54 caplock and my good friend with a borrowed .54 caplock for the day.

I sealed my frizzen with a thin roll of beeswax, used a cows knee and put on a wool vest to keep my lock under since it was supposed to be an outright soaker.

we really lucked out and it did rain,. but not near as bad as they were saying. spits and spurts.....a ton of fog, and high winds that made the trees drop recycled rain all over everything.

perfect deer hunting weather. rainy, windy, and 54 degrees in december. that oughta get em on their feet!......right

my brother and i split up to opposite ends of another property, and i set my friend up on my property in a blind. he was comfy cozy in there. bro and i sat for an hour or so at first light and then stalked towards each other. i saw zip nada, he saw four deer, but they were all out of range with no way to close fast enough as they came through.

we met up and decided to push a thick draw in between two hayfields we cut in the summer. it is about 100 yards wide, 60 feet deep, 300 yards long, and thhiiiccckkkkk!. But you can see to the bottom and all the way across since the edges are so elevated compared to the center .


i told bro to loop around up to the top on the downwind side, and when he was in position i would go upwind side, and poke in every twenty yards or so and pause. it's too thick to go through it, but you can make them nervous enough to run for it if you pause like you see them even when you don't.

i was about 3/4 of the way up the draw and did another one of my peekaboos into the draw. Twenty yards from me the thick brush exploded and a decent bodied deer ran down to the bottom of the draw, and then stopped.

80 yard shot for me, but he was angled to head towards my brother who was about 100 yards away at this point, if further bothered. I decided to bother him.

He was quartering away slightly so i aimed for his last rib and released the sear. ch-booom. Off he runs straight to my brother seemingly unscathed. Then he stops about 30 yards from my brother quartering to him a touch all while i watched. another smoke cloud, and off he runs out of the draw into the field about forty yards or so, wobbles and goes down.

"excellent" i think! "can't believe i missed though", i've been practicing alot to past 100 with this gun and i felt like the shot broke clean. Either way it was my brothers first muzzleloader deer so in was pumped for him, until the deer suddenly got up.

He then proceeded to run twenty yards, go down, get up run, go down, and so on all the way across the 200 yards open field.

I had a .45 flint pistol on my belt so i gave chase and watched him enter the woods on the far side of the field, but clearly not doing well. my brother joined me and we walked over to where he went in. we spotted him down in the thick woods just ten yards from the edge of the field, and went in to get him, sans rifles.

when we got to him he lifted his head, and lept up, but as he did i quickly pointed and fired my pistol. after a mad dash of twenty yards down a steep hill he went down for good.

many apologies were given as that chase went on for many more yards and minutes than we wanted. after the thanks ceremony was completed, we rolled him over to determine what had happened.

My original shot was perfect for a quartering away position. It hit the second to last rib halfway up the body, but for some reason deflected and went through the liver, never exiting or hitting lungs.

my brothers shot was not perfect, but not awful, it took out the fourth to last rib, perfect height, but only got one lung and probably some liver as well due to the slightly quartering towards shot.

my pistol shot was the luckiest one i have ever taken, and cut a couple arteries off of the heart before passing through below the opposite shoulder in the brisket area. I believe the great one guided my hand for that shot since it was totally reflexive and too fast to aim.

Now i have shot some deer before, and my brother too. and i;ve tracked every one of my fathers since i was 10 since he is colorblind, and helped on nmany other trails. i have never seen a deer go so far with such wounds.

You would also never get me to believe a .62 caliber ball propelled by 80 grains of 2f would not only not pass through but deflect off of a rib so badly. I've never seen anything like it and i hope i never do again. I know the shot was far but the ball could not have lost that much power in it's 80 yard trip.

So there it is. It was not a perfect ending, but it is real. Everything does not always go according to plan. I'd take that shot again, as i hit my mark within an inch of where i was aiming, and i expected to. I just was bewildered at how the ball took a turn off of a rib.

My brothers ball did not exit either. We did not find either ball, but hope to when we cut it up this week. Another interesting note is that none of the stomach or entrails were punctured.....so where did my brothers ball go after hitting the lung and likely the liver?

Sorry no pics, we were not in the celebratory mood after that long chase. In reality it was probably 15-20 minutes in total, but it felt like an eternity. Had we just left for an hour and come back i'm sure he would have expired. Property lines and rain made us follow quickly.

 

[nchawkeye]

A good story for the future though....

Deer do funny things, no matter what they are hit with...Easy to kill when hit right and not so easy when not...

The only thing that might could have helped is if your brother could have reloaded quickly and gotten another shot off ...

 

[ncmtmike]

Tough hunt.

 

[roundball]

All's well that ends well A/M...and you guys now have a good memorable hunt filed away too
:thumbsup:

 

[jamesthomas]

I'm glad everthing worked out O.K. was it a Buck or Doe? I believe you did the right thing, if you had waited till later the rain might have washed the tracks away and the deer might have found a hole to crawl into that would have been hard to find.

 

[Roguedog]

Wow A/M! That was a terrific story. Deer can do amazing things with terrible injuries. I shot a doe earlier this year with a .57 cal roundball propelled behind 110 grains of 2F Goex. The range was about 30 yards. The ball entered and exited, taking out the lungs and totally destroying the offside shoulder and the doe ran about 100 yards. Totally amazing. Anyway, great hunt and thanks for sharing. Good to know the gun went off, you hit where you aimed, and now you and your brother have a great memory to be retold many times in the future.

Jeff

 

[armymedic.2]

Thanks guys.

It was a big bodied spike. This property is a meat hunting spot. So as long as it is not a yearling its on the hit list.
My brother feeds the family with veni all winter.

 

[armymedic.2]

Thanks R D! We will remember that push for a long time thats for sure.

 

[Roguedog]

I try to feed the family with venison myself. Not exclusively, but we eat a lot of it. No growth hormones, antibiotics, etc. It's nice when you brown some ground venison and there's not any fat to drain out. Tastes pretty good too. Great hunt A/M and congrats.

Jeff

 

[Clovis]

In my limited experience, a liver shot deer will not go very far at all, perhaps 50 yds max. Liver shot will usually shut everything down very rapidly. I wonder if adrenilin (boy, I may have spelled that wrong) had a strong factor here? Scared, then shot...then shot again and pursued...?
As to your .62 seeming to lack power the only thing approaching an explanation I can guess, and it is only an opinion on the internet, is some how some moisture may have penetrated your defenses and dampened the load. I dunno...just guessing.
You guys did a good job on a tough hunting situation, congrats!

 

[Roguedog]

While not very often, I have had projectiles deflect off of ribs at funny angles before, thereby causing less damage and getting less penetration than expected. Thanks God it is rare! As they say, "stuff" happens. At least these men we're prepared for the next step and went after the deer and ultimately completed the harvest. Unfortunately in life, at least for me, not everything goes according to plan.

Jeff

 

[erock1980]

I know the feeling. This year I shot my first flintlock deer, and tracking was involved although I had the benefit of clear weather. It was pretty nasty yesterday up in these parts. I'm going to go out tomorrow hopefully I have some luck.
Congrats on the finishing kill shot with a pistol. That takes skill for sure.

 

[George T.]

My family and I were on a Texas Lease for 26 years and we harvested 16 or more deer a year. They were killed with modern rifles but a few MLR's kills too! I cleaned and peocessed most of them. I saw all kinds of odd bullet deflections and failures.

One thing I have learned over the years bow hunting is not to push the deer until you have given them enough time to expire. If a deer gets up after going down they will usually go farther than thought possiable.

Any way every kill is a learning process for us all! I think the longest shot I ever made with a MLR was 65 yards. Glad thing worked out for you! Geo. T.

 

[jrmflintlock]

Thanks for sharing! Sometimes we hate to share the sometimes unfortunate experiences, but when we do we can usually learn something. You did good following up and getting it done. My buddys bull elk took 5 shots out of his modern .50 to finaly put him down. all but one perfect in the boiler. I think the issue with him was distance, but I think he learned his limitations. Bullets sometimes do strange things

Again Thanks for sharing!

 

[Britsmoothy]

You done just about perfect :hatsoff:

B.

 

[armymedic.2]

Thanks for the responses guys. Yeah......its always more fun to share a perfect hunt, but without the real issues that pop up it wouldnt be real hunting.

Another thing i should have stated in the original story was that we went back and looked at the blood trail....er...where it ran. I am sure many a man would've thought he missed given the lack of blood. We saw him go down so it was easy....but another classic example of why i follow the rule "if the shot felt good, it was good. Keep looking!"

 

[erock1980]

any blood on the ground is a not a sign of good health...worth tracking it for sure.

One thing I learned this (my first year with a flintlock vs. the usual scoped 30-06) is there is a big difference between "shooting" deer vs "hunting" deer.

 

[Spikebuck]

It was a big bodied spike. So as long as it is not a yearling its on the hit list.

Congratulations to you and your brother. That first shot was a heck of a good one. :thumbsup:

Just a point of correction...a yearling is 1 1/2 years old, so if it's a spike, it probably is a yearling. You probably meant that Fawns are not on the hit list.

 

[armymedic.2]

Thanks, and you are correct sir.

If it had spots this summer, it is safe from us if we can help it! i wasn't sure one the correct term, as we just call them "dinks"

 

[ohiosam]

Great story! One thing I've learned in hunting there are no guarantees. I've seen deer hit in "good" spots run amazing distances, I've seen bang/flops from "poor" hits.