The state of muzzleloading today

[roundball]

FWIW, I pretty much have the same sentiment...and as game populations continue to expand, I would not be surprised to start seeing seasons changing to "anything goes"...because the herds have to be kept in check.

ML season here in NC used to be just for MLs, but starting this year bowhunters can now hunt during the muzzleloading season too.

And, NC announced unlimited 'bonus doe tags' this year for private land...but in reality, the average guy doesn't fill all six tags he already has, so I doubt making more does tags available in the big picture of things is really going to change the annual harvest numbers at all.

In the near future, it might very well become:
"Here are the season dates, here's a big stack of tags, hunt with whatever you want, have a good time"

 

It ain't that simple in PA. The law applies to the hunter and the animal being hunted - not the land it is on or the person who owns the land. For example - a legal buck in PA has to have at least 3 points on 1 side to be "legal". (BTW - this particular law has caused an entirely other set of issues). The law does not care if the deer that has less than that is killed on private land. If the deer is not legal - its illegal to harvest. People have a tendancy to get confused on this issue in PA and I have heard a lot of guys say that since it is their land then they make the rules. The Game Commission calls these folks poachers.

 

[PvtC]

Well said Slippyfoot.

The outdoor media of hyper commercialized hunting with a rock and roll soundtrack is starting to drive me nuts. Field and Stream has selected the CVA electronically ignited muzzleloader as one of it's best new products of the year. :shake:

Devotion to the sidelock will survive the fads. The art and the history of traditional muzzleloading has a timeless appeal.

 

[yankee thunder]

I enjoy the challenge and history of hunting with
my sidelock. I have given up on hunting with all centerfires.Blackpowder/muzzleloading will survive as long as the "experts" don't screw up more game laws. Hunting has become too commercial and expensive for many of us to keep up with. I like to keep it simple and enjoy my time out there.

 

[Sharp Shooter]

Muzzleoading is meant to be a challenge. Not to shoot 200yds. That is what Rifle season is for. It is meant to separate us from the long range hunters. Oh well. I consider that cheating.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

They need all that fancy manure so The John Kerrys of the world can kill bambi too

 

[Iron Jim Rackham]

I hunt pheasants with a flintlock fowler, buck with rifled musket, and doe with a revolver. In these parts we've got more deer than hunters.

All that said, I suppose it's just not muzzleloading that's changed. I look at centerfire arms, and they are ugly by design.Traditional wood stocks are increasingly rare. A bolt action or lever gun seems down right old fashioned. Heck even a Model 29 wheelgun is smirked at as an unfashionable piece of nostolgia.

I don't have an axe to grind with technology, I just don't have the desire to avail myself of it.
I looked at a copy of F&S today and found it about as interesting as a copy of Redbook. The cover featured a scoped plastic bolt action rifle, a traditional o/u sgotgun, a scoped lever gun with a laminated stock, and a plastic stocked inline with a red dot and electronic ignition. Scattered throughout the magazine were ads for various plastic stocked guns, blood tracking devices,( what kind of shot needs to track game?) futuristic crosbows, atv's, recoil reducers, and bi pods. Additionally there were the usual ads for medications.

Not being a youngster, I didn't understand most of the ads and didn't want any of the products, since with the exception of the o/u none of the products interested me. From flipping the pages I gathered that hunting is now a high tech affair, requiring more money than time, and pusued by men with a plethora of medical problems and a hightened sensitivity to recoil.

I'd be too damned embarrassed to put a bi-pod on a rifle, or a recoil reducer on a gun. Most of the stuff advertised looked like it was designed by men whose idea of wilderness resembled Central Park and wanted to spend as little time as possible in it without sacrificing their comfort.

I just don't get it, and can't fathom why someone would want any of the things I saw advertised. Looks like IKEA has taken over Field & Stream.

We have a couple of muzzleloading shoots per year at my club, and we have fewer and fewer people each year. Some of the folks who drop by for lunch, have told me they wouldn't shoot competitively if we paid them. They don't feel comfortable shooting offhand. I ask them if they hunt, and suggest that offhand practice would be a real benefit. They reply that they hunt from a stand and "always" shoot off a rest.

We sponsor youth shoots as well, and I always encourage the parents to try a shot. I'll have grown men, over 6 feet tall complain about the weight of a 2 banded musket, and then fretfully ask, if it kicks much. This, after watching a bunch of teenage girls shoot.

So much of what has happened to the shooting sports just leaves me flat. There's a lot of high tech pansy gear out there that seems designed to make hunting easier and less time consuming. It's a poacher's mentality rather than a sportsman's outlook.

 

[Fullstock58]

Today the inlines are the normal type Muzzloader and our Traditional Muzzleloader is the odd man out. Young people today did not grow up watching shows about Danial Boone and Davy Crockett, young people today have tons of different types of entertainment, we only had books (that intrested us)and the outdoors. Young people today want everything fast and easy, if it takes to much work then they just will not do it, they are lazy for the most part. Thats why the number of people who hunt every year are droping, as we the older generation die off, young people are not taking our place. As we die so does Traditional Muzzleloading, our younger generations just don't have the intrest like we did. Like compound bows in archery season, inlines are the norm in muzzleloader season, I'm sure it isn't going to change in the near future. 4" groups at 200yards may not be for me, but at least if inlines gets young people out in the woods learning and loving the outdoors it can't be all that bad, I look at it like the planting of the seed, someday they will feel it's too easy and want something a tad harder to challenge them and they will find traditional Muzzleloaders. Just like all them former compound bow shooters found the joy of traditional archery. I quess maybe it's just growing pains. :grin: It's hard for us older folks to understand as all we had were the old style BP guns, I quess if I was 20 years old today I too would lean towards the normalized inlines.

 

[roundball]

Its all about instant gratification, 'shooting', and high-fives...not actually hunting...more of a "how many" vs. "how". A lot of focus on the best times, techniques, and volumes of corn to put out every week, every other week, year round, etc...who makes the best solar powered electric timer operated automatic corn dispenser, and they sit over them 15 yards away with a scoped rifle big enough to tip over a mountain. Complaining now about the price of corn going way up and some saying they don't know if they'll be able to continue deer hunting because they can't afford to buy as much corn, etc.

Not many raised on farms any more...very few now grow up in and around hunting like a lot of us did back in the 40s/50s/60s...don't learn the values, don't really learn to hunt...and these things won't change and go back the way they were...only a fraction will sense it's not the way it should be...they'll 'get it' and go off on their own and figure things out, really learn to hunt...kind of sad that era is drifting away

 

[11th corps]

no young people are not lazy. they have just grown up in a different time then we did. Very few of them were raised on a farm, or had grandparents who owned farms. Gun ranges are being squeezed out as urban sprawl has moved people to the country to buy 5 acre plots in what used to be farm and hunting land. they are just city people transplanted to the country. they do not understand firearms, let alone muzzleloaders, or why anyone other then criminals would want them. Even farmers today want to live like city people, and have dug up woods, and plant crops from road to fence row so they can afford the same luxuries as their city cousins. As our population grows hunting land will become even more limited.
But I think muzzleloading will survive. It may be even more limited then it is today, but some members of the new generation will discover it again, and keep it alive. I have faith in the young. They will keep the fire burning.

 

[50cal.cliff]

I am going to make a perdiction here and may not live long enough to see it come true but here it is!
I think traditional muzzleloading will make a resurgentance. Right now all the companys from the Gun companies on down are doing everything they can to promote the danged inlines! :shake:
Ever heard that old saying,"everything that was once old, is new again"! It hasn't been too many years ago I took my daughter shopping for clothes one year and found out the popular styles was the same thing we wore in the late 60's and early 70's. If I had kept my clothes from back then they would have been, "in ,"hip", "cool" :youcrazy:
They have worked thru inlines and there progresson to the point now they have one with electronic ignition! The only thing left is one that shoots for you.
In the future someone with a name is going to discover a gun that our ancestors hunted with and he will enjoy the feeling to the point he makes a video and the resurgence will be on.
Now don't think that's going to be tommorow or that the renewed intrest will be continued forever.
Someone on this forum gave me the clue that may be needed to find that person and that is too try and convert as many as possible. Now matter how awful someone can be at the range, instead of laughing or scoffing at their ignorance, enlighten them! Then just maybe you might be the one that fosters an interest in the person that has the pull it will take to make Tradtional Muzzle Loading a front and center sport once again! If nothing else I bet you will be made a friend!!!!!!!! :wink:

 

[Robert Egler]

Although the use of inline ML in Muzzle loading season annoys me in principle, I actually never run into anyone using an inline.

But even before the inline ML made a significant dent in the ML market, I was ticked off when they started using compound bows. To me, that defeats half the point of archery season! I hunt with an 57 pound draw English (style) longbow that I made, with arrows that I made, tipped with heads that I made. No sights, no stabilizers. Guys with compound bows look at my long bow like it was a relic from the stone ages. I even get comments like “Can that thing kill a deer?” :cursing: Luckily, where I usually hunt I almost never see anyone, so I only get annoyed when I hunt someplace other than my usual.

 

[akapennypincher]

Interesting thing is I have Volunteered as a R/O, or Safety Person going on 10 years at a Public Shooting Range where I live. I have had SEVERAL CUSTOMERS who are HUNTERS, and only had an INLINE for the purpose of being able to HUNT because the Inline gave them a chance of being drawn for a TAG.

Several have abandoned their INLINES after they had someone let them shoot a Flinter, (ME) and saw the fun in it.

I personally see everyone of these INLINE SHOOTERS, as one step away from shooting a TRADITIONAL ML.

I at one time approached the Local ML Club PRES. to come out and be present with their FLINTERS when we got the NORMAL SWARM of Hunter Sighting IN.

I thought if some of the Members of the Local ML Club would show up and allow the Hunters the Experience of Shooting a Flinter.

It would be another stepping stone to a Traditional. The Pres. at the time of the LOCAL ML Club declined our invitation.

As a Side note the Range AGREED to WAVE SHOOTING FEES, and TARGET FEE for the ML Club if they came. :nono: :nono:

 

[Runner]

The state of muzzleloading today????

I have access to a 180 acre farm with a fifty acre lake in the middle of it. It is surrounded by private ground and farms. There is no close by public ground. On opening day of the muzzleloader season, people on four wheelers will start to run thru the surrounding properties doing motorized drives to run deer past shooters standing on the roads with muzzleloaders. Every minute or so, another truck with 2 or three guys with loaded guns will come driving down the road real slow looking for something to shoot at. If they see something, they will leap out and start shooting at running deer 200 yards away across a field they don't own, have no idea what is in there, if it is safe to shoot there, and in general do everything in their power to redefine the term slob hunter as something worse than it was before they were allowed to participate! I saw one traditional muzzleloader last year that I was not carrying myself. That was a semi custom given to the guy carrying it by his boss/hunting partner. It was in a truck heading into their property. I never saw a traditional sidelock gun in the field that was not in my hand. I am hunting in the deep woods where there are few deer and even fewer hunters to get away from the State of Muzzleloading Today! I never killed a deer last year, but by golly, I got in some peaceful memorable hunting days without being aggravated by idiots!

 

[JCW]

During the ML only hunt, I really don't have to get too far in before what seems like 90% of the other hunters get left behind, and most of them use in-lines. This means I don't get back to the main camp but every two or three days. I did the same thing when I hunted in the modern season also. The downside to this is having to bone out meat and haul meat, head, and hide out by yourself. Thankfully, we have the area here to be able to do this.

 

[rudy parnell]

08/21/07 06:17 AM - Post#450577
Not being a youngster, I didn't understand most of the ads and didn't want any of the products, since with the exception of the o/u none of the products interested me. From flipping the pages I gathered that hunting is now a high tech affair, requiring more money than time, and pusued by men with a plethora of medical problems and a hightened sensitivity to recoil.

:haha: I looked at the same issue of Field&Stream and wondered. Then, I see today that the New England Journal of Medicine has just come out with a report about the private (#%*) life of older people. Apparently 74% of people 57-64 have one and 23% of people in their eighties have one and the rest are somewhere in between. Oh! and older people that are physically active and mentally aware....are more likely to have a private (#%*) life.

:hmm: I'm guessing the companies advertising figure they can possibly sell products to 26% of the people 57-64 and 77% of the people in their eighties and the rest will fall in there somewhere. Now there is no way for me to determine the average age of the reader....but I'm guessing it's alot younger than 57. Still that leaves more than just a few old people that will pick up a copy in the doctor's office. :rotf:

I am a current subscriber to F&S and have been for many years.

 

[rudy parnell]

:snore:[url] http://content.nejm.org[/url]/