Virginia Muzzleloader Season upon us

[yoderjac]

The muzzleloader season is sneaking up on me. My last archery hunt was a few days ago. I then headed to PA to visit my mom. They were calling for more rain today so I'm not archery hunting. Each year our neighbor, who turned a chunk of old silo into a bar, has a Halloween event with a hay ride, complete with monsters, for the kids. I'm committed to helping setup for that tomorrow. The event is on Saturday evening, opening day of muzzleloader. I'll probably get out for an hour or two in the morning.

I fouled the smokeless muzzleloader this after noon and checked out the Eliminator 6 scope. I was pleasantly surprised that the battery was full strength. Burris also makes the OracleX on my crossbow. For some reason, they don't have an off switch for it. You push a button on the scope to activate it, but instead of turning off, it goes to sleep and for some reason continues to consume power. Each season, so far, I've had to change the battery at the beginning of the season. Fortunately, it has non-volatile memory and doesn't lose settings.

Fortunately, last season at the end of Muzzleloader, I got all the setup done for this year. So, the only thing I had to do today was foul the barrel.

 

[yoderjac]

I only hunted one hour opening morning as I had agreed to help setup for a Halloween party that night. I missed a doe. I sat for an hour or so on Sunday evening. Had a truck drive through and spook some deer about sunset. They were back out but about 350 yards away at the end of shooting time. I messed up this morning with the time change and my alarm when off an hour late. I sat for a bit but saw nothing. This evening I passed on two does. First shot opportunity was 244 yards, too long for the lighting and conditions. The second one was 107 yards, but it was a minute or two before the end of legal shooting hours and I didn't like the shot in light that low. Tomorrow is another day...

 

[yoderjac]

What we think we see is not always reality!

There were deer everywhere around me before shooting hours. I was using my barn as a blind. I had a spike feeding 5 yards in front of me. By legal shooting time, he had move to about 40 yards, but I had my eye on a nice buck bedded about 100 yards away. When he stood up I could tell he had a full rack, but I could not size it through the binoculars in the low light. He walked along a wood line and into the woods before I could get on him with a comfortable shot. Here he is:

About the time he left, I had several does come out of the woods pretty far away. I was just starting to get better light. I used the Eliminator and ranged one of the does at 244 yards. I had enough light, it is supposed to be a 300 yard smokeless muzzleloader, she was in the middle of the field, I had shooting bags as a rest, so I decided to take the shot.

Total Miss! I watched her bound off into the woods white tail held high. I ran a dry patch down the barrel and cussed at myself a little for taking the shot. I had made a 200 yard shot at the range last year. Once I calmed down, I did the responsible thing, instead of continuing to hunt, I headed out to the impact site to make sure there was no blood. I found none. From there I headed to the corner of the field where I last saw her bounding into the woods. No blood.

I decided that If I did hit her, I obviously didn't know where, so rather than entering the woods, I figured I'd head back and wait. When I got back, I decided to check the security camera footage. What I saw, or thought I saw, was completely wrong.

The video above shows what really happened. I watched the wrong deer bound into the woods. I knocked my deer to the ground. She got up and tried to run off, clearly injured, but at that distance, the video was so grainy, it was hard to tell where she went. The video shows the shot from two different cameras. The first camera is about 20' to my left and the other is about 40' to my right. The deer was in the overlap of the camera FOVs. I edited the videos and zoomed in on the deer.

With the video evidence, I headed back out to look for her. Again I went to where I thought the impact site was, no blood. The woods surround the field is pretty open here and she was clearly not in the field. I had used my FLIR to scan the field on the earlier search. I decided to walk a grid pattern in the woods. It took me about 20 minutes to find her.

The shot was exactly where I had aimed! The entry was on the other side of the deer about 2" further back. I back trailed her to the field, and there was a good blood trail. Either it took her a while to start bleeding, or, more likely, I was wrong about where I thought the impact site was.

Either way, she was a good mature doe for our area. Her live weight was 100 lbs and dressed was 78. This was the longest shot I've taken with the SML and it really helped build my confidence.

 

[Drycreek]

Good shooting Jack ! I was handgun hunting yesterday afternoon before the wind got squirrely and saw a buck I wanted to take out. He has a normal left side but a goobered up right, and worse than that, there are two of them exactly alike. One looks to be a year older than the other, but both or either needs to be gone. He only came close enough once and his vitals were behind a tree until he turned and walked directly away from me. Maybe another time !

 

[yoderjac]

Good shooting Jack ! I was handgun hunting yesterday afternoon before the wind got squirrely and saw a buck I wanted to take out. He has a normal left side but a goobered up right, and worse than that, there are two of them exactly alike. One looks to be a year older than the other, but both or either needs to be gone. He only came close enough once and his vitals were behind a tree until he turned and walked directly away from me. Maybe another time !View attachment 30577

Yep, there is always another day. We had a wedding yesterday so I could not hunt. I reviewed camera footage and deer were everywhere and many chip shots. What a difference a day makes. Absolutely nothing moving today.