Successful Stalk

[Dwight Harley]

The Minnesota regular firearms season started on Saturday. I don't hunt with modern arms, so decided it was time to get my Isaac Haines .54, made by our own Dave Person to replicate an original, out for the season.

I could have ended my season at 7am Saturday on a very large doe at 25 yards, but it was too early in the season. I'll spend most of my season looking for a mature buck and then, if the opportunity presents, take a doe right at the season's end. Many times this results in tag soup, but that's OK.

Until today, I saw just does every time out. This morning I had come from stand on my own small acreage, had a little late breakfast, then was brushing my teeth looking out the bathroom window when I saw two 2 1/2 year old 8 points back in the woods a ways behind the house. I got a pair of binocs and was looking at them when a large mature buck, bristling and sidling toward them came out of a thicket. I could only assume he had a doe in there as why would three bucks all be together during the rut!

Looking the situation over, I could see the chance for a stalk using trees and terrain. Stalking whitetails? Difficult, but bucks in rut on a hot doe can be pretty stupid, so what did I have to lose?

I quickly threw on an orange hoodie and knit cap, grabbed my Haines and shooting bag and sneaked out a door on the other side of the house. I first went away from them, downhill into a steep ravine using that for cover. I had to go about a hundred yards up that then go up the side and get through a stand of pines before I would be able to see them...IF they stayed around. When I got to the top, I went into a belly crawl through the pines and was able to close within 60 yards of where they were. The two smaller bucks were nowhere to be seen, but the big buck was still there, though in brush I could not shoot through. I couldn't get closer without being exposed, so looked for and found some holes in the brush that, if he got in front of one, would be shootable. I had a good rest on a pine.

He finally moved into one of the holes, but was steeply quartering into me. Since I had a solid rest, I settled the front sight into the notch of the rear and put it about 7 inches below his throat patch and squeezed the trigger. He immediately reared over backwards as the .530 PRB hit the mark! He was thrashing wildly then managed to regain his footing and crashed right over a 15 ft high bank near a gravel hill road and into a thick over grown woods on the other side, stumbling as he went onto my neighbor's property.

I waited a bit then circled around to the gravel road to find where he crossed. It wasn't hard...scraping, stumbling marks painted heavily with lung blood showed the way. Now...I'm red/green colorblind, but even I could follow this trail, although he had just barreled downhill through thick patches of brush and cedars. Problem was, it was so thick I could only see but 10 to 20 yards ahead.

About 75 yards into the trail, I saw him get up and stumble/crash over another bank. I couldn't believe he was still alive considering the copious blood loss. Considering how bad he looked, I proceeded slowly and peeked over the edge. He was laying mostly on his side about 30 yards away but his head was up. If I could move about 3 feet to my right, I'd have a small opening. I very slowly made the move, lined up low on his chest, considering how he was laying, and tried to fight the adreniline to hold the sights steady. At the shot, he struggled a little, then all was still.

I sat there, regaining my composure, loading again, and just watching for ten minutes. Nothing. He was down.

He has five points on one side and seven on the other with double tines in two places. His field dressed weight was a tad over 180 pounds. Overall a really nice mature deer.

In 50 years, I've only successfully stalked a whitetail buck once before, and that was a young buck. To pull this off on a mature buck with a flinter is a dream come true.

View attachment 361672

View attachment 361673

My buddies didn't want to sit still for a pic with so much to smell!

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Well done! Thanks for posting the story and the pics. That was some good work on your part. Awesome white tail.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Well that was intense!
Glad you kept a cool head!
Well done you.

 

[Patocazador]

My buddies didn't want to sit still for a pic with so much to smell!

Very nice buck. Good shooting!

I like your dogs too. The smaller brown one on your left looks like my old Boykin spaniel who has now passed. Please tell me about it.

 

[smokepolehall]

Mighty fine tick toter, congrats to you & nice hunt & story on how the hunt went.

 

[VA Hawken]

Nice buck, and a great story as well!

 

[Terrier]

Great buck
Great pics
Great story to match…

And, Great job! Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[jiedgar]

Very nice buck.
I've sat out the season so far with a sore hip, it's better now so I may get out with my flintlock later this week. Always have the B season down here in SE MN so still plenty of time. Got a buck last year on the last day of B season with my Lyman GP percussion. Not flinching as much this year so I'm going with the flintlock.

 

[Daveboone]

That is one fine deer, and a great looking (and apparently shooting) rifle.

 

[smo]

Congrats Mike on another fine Minnesota bruiser…

Great storyline, one that will always be remembered for sure..

Great hunt, stalking has always been my favorite way too hunt..
But like you, my success rate has been very limited.

Beautiful rifle & fantastic photos.

 

[Spikebuck]

The smaller brown one on your left looks like my old Boykin spaniel who has now passed. Please tell me about it.

Sadie Mae. She is half chocolate lab and half border collie. Very sweet and sensitive like a lab, extremely energetic and intelligent like a border collie. She's 4 years old. Great dog. My daughter intentionally cross bred the parents to see what she'd end up with. Nine pups in the litter. Four looked like labs, four looked like border collies. Only Sadie seemed to pick up a mix of traits from both.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Sadie Mae. She is half chocolate lab and half border collie. Very sweet and sensitive like a lab, extremely energetic and intelligent like a border collie. She's 4 years old. Great dog. My daughter intentionally cross bred the parents to see what she'd end up with. Nine pups in the litter. Four looked like labs, four looked like border collies. Only Sadie seemed to pick up a mix of traits from both.

Mixed breeds are the best

 

[Spikebuck]

Great hunt, stalking has always been my favorite way too hunt..
But like you, my success rate has been very limited.

Most of my whitetail stalking has been during early bow season. Very hard to get into bow range stalking, at least for me. Yet my one success doing it was so freakish it's truly unbelievable!

Decades ago a video was released called The Bowhunter and was narrated by Curt Gowdy. In it they compared Native ways of hunting to today's bowhunting methods. One native method was to drape themselves in a deer cape and, in the open, pretend to be just another feeding deer to get close.

One evening I was coming out a little early and this small buck was feeding in a field...too far away for a shot. Wind in my favor. No deer cape, so I simply squatted way down, put my Bob Lee recurve over my head, and slowly duck waddled toward him. He'd look at me in the dimming light and go back to feeding. When I got within about 18 yards he really started getting nervous, so I slowly lowered the bow, that already had a nocked arrow, and holding it horizontally shot him! He only went 30 yards and piled up. Now that was thrilling!!!

Looking at the back of the pic I see I looked a lot younger 20 years ago!

 

[smo]

Another true trophy!

In 2019 I got within 60 yards of this 8 point & doe after watching them with my Wife & Grandson through the front door window for close to 30 minutes…

He would not let her get over 10 yards away from him…

He never noticed me, or didn’t seem too anyway.
He was totally focused on that doe…
Which made the stalk much easier.

It was his lucky day, I had other commitments for the day so he got a free pass.


Most of my stalking was back in the early days & archery as well.

Bucks were few and far between & the Does we’re smart…

 

[Garbear34]

Congratulations

 

[Mike in FL]

Very nice buck and rifle. I love the of the Haines style. I wonder why the first ball didn't do him in.

 

[Okie Hog]

Congrats on the super buck.

 

[jarentz]

You will have a hard time beating that!
Nice flintlock and story.

 

[Spikebuck]

I wonder why the first ball didn't do him in.

Well, here are my thoughts:

His left lung was mush from the first ball. He wasn't drowning as it was nearly all pouring out the hole in front. His diaphragm, right lung, and heart, until hit by the second shot, were still functional. It has been my experience that single lunged deer, where the wound channel isn't conducive to creating complete pneumothorax, can go for some time.

Make no mistake, if I had waited an hour or so before trailing, I'd have found him dead in bed #1...he was close when I kicked him out. My neighbor is very generous allowing a lot of hunters...hence why I tracked immediately to get in and out before they returned from lunch. That and the massive blood loss I saw and the fact he was freight training his way downhill through whatever was in his way...not a "thinking" action like a deer that isn't mortally wounded.

It's the one bad thing about a frontal shot...many times that's a one lunger. My usual shot is broadside to quartering away. But the few frontals I've taken have always been quick killers.

Lastly... big northern bucks...even the does...can take a lot of punishment. I've always said that success or failure of a shot can be mere fractions of an inch.

Again, just my thoughts after more than 50 years of bow & primitive gun hunting. Other's real experiences may be completely different for the deer they hunt and where.

 

[LANEY REECE]

WAY TO GO,good read and nice buck.

 

[oldschoolhunter55]

The Minnesota regular firearms season started on Saturday. I don't hunt with modern arms, so decided it was time to get my Isaac Haines .54, made by our own Dave Person to replicate an original, out for the season.

I could have ended my season at 7am Saturday on a very large doe at 25 yards, but it was too early in the season. I'll spend most of my season looking for a mature buck and then, if the opportunity presents, take a doe right at the season's end. Many times this results in tag soup, but that's OK.

Until today, I saw just does every time out. This morning I had come from stand on my own small acreage, had a little late breakfast, then was brushing my teeth looking out the bathroom window when I saw two 2 1/2 year old 8 points back in the woods a ways behind the house. I got a pair of binocs and was looking at them when a large mature buck, bristling and sidling toward them came out of a thicket. I could only assume he had a doe in there as why would three bucks all be together during the rut!

Looking the situation over, I could see the chance for a stalk using trees and terrain. Stalking whitetails? Difficult, but bucks in rut on a hot doe can be pretty stupid, so what did I have to lose?

I quickly threw on an orange hoodie and knit cap, grabbed my Haines and shooting bag and sneaked out a door on the other side of the house. I first went away from them, downhill into a steep ravine using that for cover. I had to go about a hundred yards up that then go up the side and get through a stand of pines before I would be able to see them...IF they stayed around. When I got to the top, I went into a belly crawl through the pines and was able to close within 60 yards of where they were. The two smaller bucks were nowhere to be seen, but the big buck was still there, though in brush I could not shoot through. I couldn't get closer without being exposed, so looked for and found some holes in the brush that, if he got in front of one, would be shootable. I had a good rest on a pine.

He finally moved into one of the holes, but was steeply quartering into me. Since I had a solid rest, I settled the front sight into the notch of the rear and put it about 7 inches below his throat patch and squeezed the trigger. He immediately reared over backwards as the .530 PRB hit the mark! He was thrashing wildly then managed to regain his footing and crashed right over a 15 ft high bank near a gravel hill road and into a thick over grown woods on the other side, stumbling as he went onto my neighbor's property.

I waited a bit then circled around to the gravel road to find where he crossed. It wasn't hard...scraping, stumbling marks painted heavily with lung blood showed the way. Now...I'm red/green colorblind, but even I could follow this trail, although he had just barreled downhill through thick patches of brush and cedars. Problem was, it was so thick I could only see but 10 to 20 yards ahead.

About 75 yards into the trail, I saw him get up and stumble/crash over another bank. I couldn't believe he was still alive considering the copious blood loss. Considering how bad he looked, I proceeded slowly and peeked over the edge. He was laying mostly on his side about 30 yards away but his head was up. If I could move about 3 feet to my right, I'd have a small opening. I very slowly made the move, lined up low on his chest, considering how he was laying, and tried to fight the adreniline to hold the sights steady. At the shot, he struggled a little, then all was still.

I sat there, regaining my composure, loading again, and just watching for ten minutes. Nothing. He was down.

He has five points on one side and seven on the other with double tines in two places. His field dressed weight was a tad over 180 pounds. Overall a really nice mature deer.

In 50 years, I've only successfully stalked a whitetail buck once before, and that was a young buck. To pull this off on a mature buck with a flinter is a dream come true.

View attachment 361672

View attachment 361673

My buddies didn't want to sit still for a pic with so much to smell!

View attachment 361674

The Minnesota regular firearms season started on Saturday. I don't hunt with modern arms, so decided it was time to get my Isaac Haines .54, made by our own Dave Person to replicate an original, out for the season.

I could have ended my season at 7am Saturday on a very large doe at 25 yards, but it was too early in the season. I'll spend most of my season looking for a mature buck and then, if the opportunity presents, take a doe right at the season's end. Many times this results in tag soup, but that's OK.

Until today, I saw just does every time out. This morning I had come from stand on my own small acreage, had a little late breakfast, then was brushing my teeth looking out the bathroom window when I saw two 2 1/2 year old 8 points back in the woods a ways behind the house. I got a pair of binocs and was looking at them when a large mature buck, bristling and sidling toward them came out of a thicket. I could only assume he had a doe in there as why would three bucks all be together during the rut!

Looking the situation over, I could see the chance for a stalk using trees and terrain. Stalking whitetails? Difficult, but bucks in rut on a hot doe can be pretty stupid, so what did I have to lose?

I quickly threw on an orange hoodie and knit cap, grabbed my Haines and shooting bag and sneaked out a door on the other side of the house. I first went away from them, downhill into a steep ravine using that for cover. I had to go about a hundred yards up that then go up the side and get through a stand of pines before I would be able to see them...IF they stayed around. When I got to the top, I went into a belly crawl through the pines and was able to close within 60 yards of where they were. The two smaller bucks were nowhere to be seen, but the big buck was still there, though in brush I could not shoot through. I couldn't get closer without being exposed, so looked for and found some holes in the brush that, if he got in front of one, would be shootable. I had a good rest on a pine.

He finally moved into one of the holes, but was steeply quartering into me. Since I had a solid rest, I settled the front sight into the notch of the rear and put it about 7 inches below his throat patch and squeezed the trigger. He immediately reared over backwards as the .530 PRB hit the mark! He was thrashing wildly then managed to regain his footing and crashed right over a 15 ft high bank near a gravel hill road and into a thick over grown woods on the other side, stumbling as he went onto my neighbor's property.

I waited a bit then circled around to the gravel road to find where he crossed. It wasn't hard...scraping, stumbling marks painted heavily with lung blood showed the way. Now...I'm red/green colorblind, but even I could follow this trail, although he had just barreled downhill through thick patches of brush and cedars. Problem was, it was so thick I could only see but 10 to 20 yards ahead.

About 75 yards into the trail, I saw him get up and stumble/crash over another bank. I couldn't believe he was still alive considering the copious blood loss. Considering how bad he looked, I proceeded slowly and peeked over the edge. He was laying mostly on his side about 30 yards away but his head was up. If I could move about 3 feet to my right, I'd have a small opening. I very slowly made the move, lined up low on his chest, considering how he was laying, and tried to fight the adreniline to hold the sights steady. At the shot, he struggled a little, then all was still.

I sat there, regaining my composure, loading again, and just watching for ten minutes. Nothing. He was down.

He has five points on one side and seven on the other with double tines in two places. His field dressed weight was a tad over 180 pounds. Overall a really nice mature deer.

In 50 years, I've only successfully stalked a whitetail buck once before, and that was a young buck. To pull this off on a mature buck with a flinter is a dream come true.

View attachment 361672

View attachment 361673

My buddies didn't want to sit still for a pic with so much to smell!

View attachment 361674

Wow. Thats a nice buck.Congrats to you!! And thanks for the story too.Heck i got excited reading it.You had some nice looking hunting buddies with you. THANKS FOR SHARING.