Got my first deer with a muzzleloader the last day the season. We had antlerless special permits, so I capitalized on that and got myself a nice doe. We hunted the early season with no luck. But did almost get a giant black bear that we happened to stumble upon. Unfortunately things didn't work out. Then we hunted the late season from Thanksgiving until sunday, with no luck. Then went out again on the 11th of December to the 15th. We hunted hard from the beginning of shooting light to the end of shooting light. And finally got one on the last day.
Had a couple funny stories and missed oppurtunities. Also came to appreciate the difficulty of muzzleloader hunting, as this was my first time for that as well. To caveat on that, my partner and I were driving down a long straight road when we noticed a couple deer standing in the road about 400 yards away. I decided to put a stalk on it. The road on both sides had about 7-10 ft. tall fir trees and a little ditch on the side of the road covered with tall grass. So I cut the distance by about 100 yards just by crouch walking. Occasionally I would take a look in my binos and see the deer trying to figure out what I was, just standing there. Now I got down and started low crawling, army style. After quite a while I had low crawled about 200 yards, and was pretty dang tired at that time. So now I am about 100 yards from this deer, which is still standing in the same spot staring my direction. I slowly crawled out into the road and set up for a prone shot. After I got situated I pulled the trigger slowly and steadily... and only the musket cap blew! No bullet. Frustrated, I rolled in the ditch and left the muzzleloader on the road and dug out another musket cap from my pocket. Then rolled back up into shooting position and the deer was still standing there looking my way. Put the musket cap in and fired once more. This time, just the musket cap blew, then about a second later the rifle fired. Needless to say, I missed the deer due to the delayed shot, expecting it not to fire again I lifted my head to soon. That is just one story as to my new found appreciation for muzzleloader hunting.
The way I actually got my deer was way less involved than that story. It just so happened to be standing off the road about 40 yds. Got out of the truck crouch walked up to this berm full of blackberry bushes. Set up and took the shot. This time without any incident, and dropped the deer where it stood. Very thankful for it too. We hunted hard and never gave up. Had a great time, and learned a ton.
