Hunting for what?

[musketman]

What was your first game animal you have ever taken with a muzzleloader?

Mine was the Fox Squirrel...

I was using a T/C .32 caliber Cherokee (cap lock) with a .315 home cast round ball and a .010 pillow tick patch, over 25 grains of FFFg black powder.

I shagged his fuzzy butt clean off a hickory tree's upper branch one late October's afternoon in Ohio.

 

[Don]

Well, squirrel was my first ML kill. I was out deer hunting and not seeing any deer and I was gettin ready to head home. I heard the leaves russle and saw a gray squirrel the size of a cat. I aimed my .50cal at him and fired. Killed him and dressed him in one shot. I usually shoot squirrels with a 20 gauge or a .22 but I could'nt pass up this opportunity.

 

[musketman]

"Killed him and dressed him in one shot."

Any closer and it would have smoked and cooked him too...

Didn't know what hit em?

 

[Rancocas]

Deer. It was about 15 years ago. I borrowed a replica of an 1863 Springfield. I thought I was shooting at a doe, but it turned out to be a button buck. One shot. About 50 yards. The original style Minie ball went clean through.
I've been hooked on muzzleloading ever since then.

 

[Bald Baron]

Made about a 40 yard shot on a big loggerhead. Was shooting for the whole thing, but the maxi went right through his neck. He just spund aroung one time. I'am sure he ate no more of my fish after that. His neck was a little smaller than a soft drink can.

 

[musketman]

Isn't a "Loggerhead" a sea turtle?

 

[roundball]

First flintlock game animal was a good bodied buck but with only a "cowhorn" shaped pair of main beams curving out but no points coming up off of them.
I had seen him coming, had a .54cal TC Hawken at the ready...since it was my first chance at a Deer with a flintlock, there was no way I was going to pass up the shot.
When he was crossing broadside directly out in front of me about 30 yards away, I whistled, he stopped, the ball broke both shoulders, stopping under the hide on the far side.
He fell, kicked a couple times, and was still.
I was also lucky enough to get two flintlock Does that season too...shooting anything except a flintlock now just isn't the same

 

[Buckskin25]

Doe Deer.... December 1994. hit her in the neck with a 490 RB from a T/C Hawkens at around 60 yds. She dropped in her tracks and never moved. Nice fat, tasty Alabama doe.

 

[vanstg]

My first ML kill was a hog. It weighed 109 lbs at the check station. Gun was a .50 cal Hawken style rifle, loaded with PRB.

 

My first kill with a muzzleloader, was a muley doe, rifle used was a CVA Mountain Rifle .50.
In the 30+ years since thet first BP hunt, I've taken.....

Grouse
Squirrl
Bunnys
Jack Rabbit
Coyote
Porkypine
Caribou
Moose
Black bear
Whitetails
Elk
Pronghorns
and, more muleys
All were taken with traditional muzzleload'n rifleguns, and roundball.
"Life has ben good"!!

 

[musketman]

In the 30+ years since thet first BP hunt, I've taken....Porkypine

There's a Porkypine season somewhere? ::

Not only didn't the round ball knock it for a loop, it also knocked the quills right off of it... :haha:

I'd like to hunt one of those pricklypigs one of these days, I'm switching over the bead work to quill work on my war indian war shirt...

 

"Porky season" is open year-round in Alaska, and thet prickly-varmit wouldn't stay out'a my wood-shed!!

 

[sse]

rollingb - Do ya hunt sheds in AK??

Regards, sse

 

[Magnumjh]

The first game I shoot with a muzzleloader was a fox squirrel with a Traditions .50 flintlock. This year I got two does with a .50 in-line.

 

SSE,.... Yep!!.. I kept an "eye out" fer sheds ever time I was in the "bush". I used to have 2 forty acre gold-claims on the Little Tok River back from the highway 'bout 17 miles. Ever summer I went up ther I'd always find lots of caribou sheds, and some moose sheds.

Come "New Years Eve" tho, and it was sometimes difficult for me to find my "wood shed",.... 'cause'a the apple-pie!! :winking:

 

[Rocky Johnson]

No closed season on quil pigs in Michigan. BE CAREFULL WHEN YOU SKIN THEM.. Rocky /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

Musketman,.... Rocky is right!! If you ain't never skinned a porky before, yore in for a "real treat"!! :applause:

Best way to git "quills", is to "slap" a live porky with sumpthin like a gunny-sack, then collect the quills from the sack!! ::

 

[No Powder]

Porky quills make great ice fishing bobbers.

 

[RJR]

Rocky, best way I found to get the quills out of a porky hide is to wrap your hand fully in a piece of elk hide and rub gently against the fur, quills come out of elk hide easy. Rick.

 

[AgesofDays]

my first kill was a maple sapling then i graduated to a walnut tree