Way back in the early seventies, slightly after the midpoint of the last century, I drew a deer permit for muzzle loading rifles for Illinois. Back then, you had to specify whether you were going to hunt with a shotgun or a black powder rifle. Restrictions were pretty severe, though ill conceived. .38 caliber, round ball only, 28” barrel, and so on and so on. Flint or percussion, outside hammer (even though there were few if any straight line muzzle loaders around.)
I had been shooting in black powder competition across the state and the Midwest with several black powder guns including, but not limited to: a replica Remington Zouave .58 rifle musket, a Bob Tingle .45 cap lock rifle, and a John Rupp flintlock .45 I had built from pictures in the “Kentucky Rifles in the Golden Age” book. I knew where that .58 shot from 25 to 125 yards. It had a Numrich 7 groove NSSA approved barrel and I used a .570 round ball, an Indian Head linen patch, a 20 gauge .070 card wad and 70 grains of DuPont fffg powder. I used a rifle cap rather than the top hat musket kind. I had broken a long standing record at the nationals in Friendship in the fall at 50 yards with that combination. To say I was confident would be an understatement.
My tag was for Warren County, in West Central Illinois, where I was raised. Cedar Creek cut through the county from Knox County on its way to the Mississippi through Henderson County. We had permission to hunt a patch of ground, long and narrow just off route 34. The land was sloping, on either side of the creek about a quarter mile each side. I had found a depression a half mile from Route 34, to the west, and brushed it up with some scrub and had a fine view a half mile in each direction.
Opening day found me sitting in the depression well before sunrise. Wearing my orange vest and cap, holding my musket and confident that this would be the day that I would “make meat”.
I could see the creek to the south, hear some trucks on Route 34 to the east, and wished the ground fog would clear as the sun rose so I could be ready for the buck which would set personal records and end the Geisz family drought.
The sun began to cut through the ground fog and I sat in my depression and scanned to left and right. To the left, East, I saw, about a quarter mile off, the sight that would stop a hunters heart back then. Ten points at least! Tall tines. Slowly ambling along the bottoms right toward me. My pulse pounded, my eyes watered, my heart soared. I shut my eyes and tried to breathe slowly. I settled down.
After about ten hours, or minutes, the monster was about sixty yards away, in plain view, slightly quartering toward me. I put my thumb on the hammer, eased it back a little, pulled the trigger back a hair, pulled the hammer all the way back and let the trigger go forward making no noise in the process. I held the sights in the crease between his neck and right shoulder line, a few inches above the bottom of his chest. A downhill shot would hit a little high. Calm, cool and collected I squeezed the trigger. At the shot, of course, a huge cloud of white smoke billowed out obscuring my view. I expected that to happen, having shot a keg of DuPont’s best each year for several years. I eased back in my little burrow planning how I was going to gut, hang and butcher my deer of a lifetime. (Back in those days, shotgun hunters were seeing about 20% success rate).
Fifteen long minutes later I reloaded my gun, got up and walked, maybe even swaggered, down to the site where the buck should lay. Nothing. Not a drop of blood, not a hair lay on the dusting of snow. I circled the area. Nothing. Standing exactly where the buck had stood when I sho at him, I looked back toward my hidey hole. Halfway between me and the blind I saw a two inch sapling with a 5/8” half-moon hole cut in it about two feet above ground level. I had killed a damn honey locust sapling. Talk about humiliation.
Fast forward to 2014. Son John, sitting in my tower blind on my small Illinois deer hunting paradise, shot at a six point with his muzzleloader. Only no deer. He saw the same disheartening thing. Looking back at the blind, a horizontal limb sagging from a half-inch cut from the sabot slug he’d fired.
Funny how a deer not too far away can blind you to a limb, sapling or other obstruction in between. I learned a lot from that event and finally, last fall, got my Moby Dick Buck, from fifteen yards, no obstructions, no problems.
I had been shooting in black powder competition across the state and the Midwest with several black powder guns including, but not limited to: a replica Remington Zouave .58 rifle musket, a Bob Tingle .45 cap lock rifle, and a John Rupp flintlock .45 I had built from pictures in the “Kentucky Rifles in the Golden Age” book. I knew where that .58 shot from 25 to 125 yards. It had a Numrich 7 groove NSSA approved barrel and I used a .570 round ball, an Indian Head linen patch, a 20 gauge .070 card wad and 70 grains of DuPont fffg powder. I used a rifle cap rather than the top hat musket kind. I had broken a long standing record at the nationals in Friendship in the fall at 50 yards with that combination. To say I was confident would be an understatement.
My tag was for Warren County, in West Central Illinois, where I was raised. Cedar Creek cut through the county from Knox County on its way to the Mississippi through Henderson County. We had permission to hunt a patch of ground, long and narrow just off route 34. The land was sloping, on either side of the creek about a quarter mile each side. I had found a depression a half mile from Route 34, to the west, and brushed it up with some scrub and had a fine view a half mile in each direction.
Opening day found me sitting in the depression well before sunrise. Wearing my orange vest and cap, holding my musket and confident that this would be the day that I would “make meat”.
I could see the creek to the south, hear some trucks on Route 34 to the east, and wished the ground fog would clear as the sun rose so I could be ready for the buck which would set personal records and end the Geisz family drought.
The sun began to cut through the ground fog and I sat in my depression and scanned to left and right. To the left, East, I saw, about a quarter mile off, the sight that would stop a hunters heart back then. Ten points at least! Tall tines. Slowly ambling along the bottoms right toward me. My pulse pounded, my eyes watered, my heart soared. I shut my eyes and tried to breathe slowly. I settled down.
After about ten hours, or minutes, the monster was about sixty yards away, in plain view, slightly quartering toward me. I put my thumb on the hammer, eased it back a little, pulled the trigger back a hair, pulled the hammer all the way back and let the trigger go forward making no noise in the process. I held the sights in the crease between his neck and right shoulder line, a few inches above the bottom of his chest. A downhill shot would hit a little high. Calm, cool and collected I squeezed the trigger. At the shot, of course, a huge cloud of white smoke billowed out obscuring my view. I expected that to happen, having shot a keg of DuPont’s best each year for several years. I eased back in my little burrow planning how I was going to gut, hang and butcher my deer of a lifetime. (Back in those days, shotgun hunters were seeing about 20% success rate).
Fifteen long minutes later I reloaded my gun, got up and walked, maybe even swaggered, down to the site where the buck should lay. Nothing. Not a drop of blood, not a hair lay on the dusting of snow. I circled the area. Nothing. Standing exactly where the buck had stood when I sho at him, I looked back toward my hidey hole. Halfway between me and the blind I saw a two inch sapling with a 5/8” half-moon hole cut in it about two feet above ground level. I had killed a damn honey locust sapling. Talk about humiliation.
Fast forward to 2014. Son John, sitting in my tower blind on my small Illinois deer hunting paradise, shot at a six point with his muzzleloader. Only no deer. He saw the same disheartening thing. Looking back at the blind, a horizontal limb sagging from a half-inch cut from the sabot slug he’d fired.
Funny how a deer not too far away can blind you to a limb, sapling or other obstruction in between. I learned a lot from that event and finally, last fall, got my Moby Dick Buck, from fifteen yards, no obstructions, no problems.
