Six Year Deer

[ike]

We all have items on our bucket list. Mine was to take a deer with my 62 Cal flint lock. I did it. This is the picture.


In the plan I needed to be able to hit a six inch circle off hand at 50 yds. 4 out of 5 shots.

I have hunted the Sibley State Park special muzzleloader hunt twice, and private land on other years. This year a land owner where I have hunted squirrels said I could hunt deer on his land. This land has been only hunted by family in the past and has very little hunting pressure. I felt very privileged to be invited. I was given a walking tour of all the best stand locations and explanation of the deer activity.

I spent one whole day exploring on my own and chose two stand locations. Thanksgiving weekend on Saturday morning I was in the stand early and thinking I would have my deer and be home by the time the grandkids came to the house. They have never seen a deer that was hunted and processed at our home. I needed to be home by 9:30 AM. Well no deer was taken. I hunted for four more days and did see deer but none were close enough. Last Monday I decided to change the location of one stand and it was after 3:00 PM when that was done. It was too late to go to the other stand so I climbed into the stand I had just set up. I did not have much hope of seeing a deer because of all of the noise I had made.

In about one half hour a deer appeared out in the slough and came to the edge to eat. It was over 100 yds. away so I just enjoyed watching. Then she ran back into the slough waving her tail in alarm. I could not see what had alarmed the deer. Oh well. Just as it started to get dark and doe appeared in front of the stand about 35 yds. away. My golden opportunity was at hand. I fired the shot and the flint lock worked perfectly. I could not see a thing, the smoke and beginning darkness hid the deer. I expected to see the deer on the ground. The deer had disappeared. Well, it could only go one way. I went to look. Too dark to see anything so I went home. I did not even tell my wife I had fired a shot.

I did not sleep very much that night. I could see the sight picture in my mind. I could not have missed at that range. The alarm rang at 5:30 AM but I was already awake. Time to get back into the woods and see what had happened. I sat in the stand for about an hour till it was light enough to see what had happened. In that hour another doe had come in to the area behind me but no need to shoot when one should be on the ground.

Well it is now light enough to see what happened. I climbed down and walked over to where the deer was when I shot. The first thing I see is hair on the ground. I did hit the deer. I can see tracks in the snow and mud. It has been so warm the snow is melting and the ground is muddy under it. I followed the tracks but I did not find any blood. I tracked the deer across a small creek and through part of the slough. The vegetation is high enough that I should see blood on it. There was no blood trail. The tracks continued up the hill into the buck thorn where I lost the track. The only thing I could do was to circle the buckthorn patch. About a third of the way around the buckthorn patch I spotted the doe laying on the ground. I had made a perfect shot in the lung bit a bit high. The ball exited low just behind the diaphragm. There should have been a blood trail in the grass but the ball did not punch a big enough hole

Let me explain the picture. It shows the 62 Cal. trade gun which is the first gun I made from a kit, the possibles bag made of buffalo which is my favorite, and a powder horn which was made by a very good friend for the thirty fifth anniversary of the BP club. The picture does not show the knife I cleaned the deer with. That knife I rescued from the garbage, cleaned it up and replaced the leather handle with new leather disks. The deer was processed in my garage and is now in the freezer or in the canning jars.

Every part of this hunt and the items I used have a special meaning. The deer spirits have granted me a lifelong memory and I thank them for it.

 

[robinsroost]

Congratulations on a good shot and staying on the trail until you recovered your doe. I am surprised that a .62 didn't leave a blood trail. Maybe she bled out internally or the temperature kept the blood conjealed........robin :wink:

 

[Skychief]

That's just great Ike! Congratulations on your trophy. :hatsoff:

Thank you for sharing with us, Skychief

 

[daniel collums]

you were lucky, if a deer stays in the woods around my house the critters eat it quick. i'm glad you got your deer. high hits are something i try not to make but it still happens a lot. i been shooting a 3 inch square target thats set at 50 yards. i do real good hitting the paper but i find that when i shoot at deer i'm not aiming at that 3 inch spot but aiming at the deers center mass. sometimes buck fever hits me bad.

 

[Spikebuck]

Good story. Congrats! :hatsoff: Looks like a good sized doe.

You guys got a bit more snow over there. We've had nothing to speak of here...nothing that stuck much anyway.

That was pretty darned nice of that landowner. Not enough of that kindness happening anymore now-a-days.

 

[will5a1]

Well done Ike, and thanks for sharing your special hunt with us.

 

[PaulN/KS]

Congratulations on a successful hunt. :thumbsup:
A good story and well told Sir. :hatsoff:

 

[Arcturus]

Congratulations. Way to stick with it over several years. I've killed lots with modern revolvers and arrows, but trying to get my first with a flintlock, too. Because I've always hunted with bows, crossbows, and handguns, flintlocks aren't a big handicap for me. Just waiting for the right shot! Hopefully in January.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Great story and congratulations :hatsoff:

Brit's.

 

[jethro224]

Congratulations. :hatsoff:
Great story. Glad you stuck to the trail. Lots of times a high hit doesn't bleed right away, if ever. The blood all stays inside the chest cavity.

 

[Brokennock]

Good for you. Congratulations.
Deer are funny critters. I've had many this year come in to my best bowhunting tree stand within less than 5 minutes of turning my head lamp off, soon enough that they had to be close enough to see it. I had one come in just after I dropped my coffee cup and it hit a screw in treestep ringing it like a tuning fork. I've had a lot of hunters tell me that the best time to hunt a stand is right when you put it up,,,, as long as the noise you made didn't include any vocalization on our part.

Good for you. Glad your deer was still there next morning, coyotes or bears would have gotten it here.

 

[pab1]

Congratulations and great story! :hatsoff:

 

[mancill]

Congrats

 

[Grumpa]

Congratulations. :thumbsup:

A good telling of a good hunt. Jethro's right on about a high hit often not leaving a blood trail.

 

[robinsroost]

I think a chainsaw makes a good deer attractant. Every time I have been cutting firewood, in the woods, with a chainsaw, I look up and deer are looking at me. They are curious creatures and the noise must attract them. Would it be considered baiting if you started a chainsaw, set it down on the ground, then got back down wind about 50 yards and sat down, LOL? robin :hmm:

 

[Spikebuck]

Every time I have been cutting firewood, in the woods, with a chainsaw, I look up and deer are looking at me. They are curious creatures and the noise must attract them.

I think they get to associate chainsaws with fresh "tops" on the ground they can nibble on. I have hunted around logging areas from time to time and as soon as the saws shut off and the crew leaves, out come the deer. It's kind of like the "Farmer Theory." They seem to know what kind of activity is dangerous and which is not.

 

[Patocazador]

Congrats with the rocklock success.

My granddaughter shot a deer Thanksgiving with the path of the ball just opposite from yours. The doe didn't start bleeding for about 75-80 yds. from where it was shot. The bullet exited about halfway up the lungs. The deer was dead ~30 yards from where the blood trail started.
With your deer there were 2 possible reasons:
1) high hit in the lungs which have to fill to the hole in in order for the blood to come out and
2) the exit behind the diaphragm means that organs (guts) could have plugged the exit hole.

I am not a huge fan of the PRB like everyone else seems to be because almost every deer I have shot with a Maxi-ball in a percussion .50 cal. has dropped in sight of the stand. That is either due to shot placement, bullet weight or both. Obviously, most flinters are equipped with slow-twist barrels which favor a roundball so the conical route isn't practical in most cases.