Tomorrow will be my first MD Deer season in a few. The area is shotgun only but we can use muzzleloaders during modern gun season. Eevery year I find myself leaving the slug-gun at home and using the muzzleloader all season long. Anyone else skip the shotguns and rifles and go for the muzzleloader instead?
I've lived and hunted Maryland for 48 of my 56 years, and I live in the heart of "no rifle country". You CAN use a rifle in Allegheny and Garret counties. Opening day is today, but we both have to work. But next week I will be taking my son out in Allegheny County so he can try his self-assembled AR-10 in .308 for deer. I will bring my Israeli Mauser, K98 Gewer, set up as a
Scout Rifle, also in .308 as a backup. BUT....,
All of the deer I have ever harvested have been with my Cabin Creek flintlock .54 PA Mountain Rifle using patched, round ball. I got a deer with it in January of this year, and then another in early BP season in October. I've been harvesting deer with it for almost two decades.
OH I have a very accurate, 870 Remington with an old-school, smooth bore slug barrel with iron sights. Using 1 ounce, 2¾ Brenneke slugs, it will put them into a clover-leaf pattern at 50 yards. I've never shot a deer with it....it was my "rain backup" when I started with the flinter. THEN I got a TC New Englander, caplock, also in .54 as the backup. Now, since I've seniority where I work, I can usually arrange to hunt when weather won't cause me to need the rain-backup.
Speaking of "backup plans", I gave the New Englander to my son, the AR-10 builder, as a graduation gift more than a year ago. He's not interested in "old school"...(gee he sure likes to eat the venison that I get via old school rifles
) So..., if we don't get a deer with his rifle, we will come back down, and he will get a chance with his graduation gift, old-school-style.
Maryland has some odd notions about firearms, but the danger is if we educate the legislators, they will likely make things worse. For example, you can hunt some places with a modern handgun, where you can't with a breech loading rifle. No idea why they can't say a rifle in .44 mag or .357 mag that matches the ammo requirements for handgun hunting isn't equally valid. In addition to lever actions, NEF and Rossi made a single shot in those cartridges or even (iirc) NEF made one in .500 S&W. BUT...., anywhere you can hunt in this state you can load up your inline to surpass a .45-70 rifle......
LD