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Buck 2017 redux

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George

Cannon
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My first tall tale about my deer hunt this year was apparently hacked, so I'm reposting. Fingers crossed for this one. :grin:
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In about 1985 I built a percussion plains rifle from an Ozark Mountain Arms kit, and it was my main hunting gun for quite a few years, gave me excellent service. It is .54 caliber with a 1:70 twist, .010” rifling, 34” barrel, and was always very accurate. I worked up a heavy charge for it, 110 grains 3F, because I was hunting some in the west where long shots are assumed. In 1997 I got my first flintlock smoothbore, and the Hawken got almost no use after that. Several weeks ago I got the urge to hunt with it again, so I set about working up an accurate but lighter load. That worked out very well, and I sighted the gun in for 75 yards with 85 grains 3F.

When I started reenacting everybody in my area was doing western mountain man, so that’s what I did. I set out to build up that persona, and the Hawken was the start of that effort. Before long it dawned on me that I live in the middle of colonial frontier history and western fur trapper was not the most appropriate choice for me, so I switched to colonial. By that time I had collected some mountain man accoutrements, bag and horn, capote, etc., and they were put aside, too.

When I had the urge to work up a load and hunt with the plains rifle, I thought. what the heck, why not dig out some of that stuff and make it a fur trapper hunt. I did that yesterday.



I was on stand at my favorite spot, a small grove of trees standing isolated in the edge of a field, with a couple of distinct deer trails crossing through a patch of woods and a weed patch nearby, at about 30 minutes after sunrise. Temperature was 29F, wind was very light but variable in direction, sky was partly cloudy. Sitting on the ground, snugged down and warm, I had high hopes of getting a shot with my old gun with a new load.



About an hour went by with no activity, then a deer blew at me 3-4 times in the trash to my right, but I couldn’t see it. I had been doing a good job of sitting the stand, so that surprised me. I figured it was that variable wind which tattled on me, and in a couple of minutes I saw a white tail flag flipping in the trees as the deer left, blowing.

By 1100 I was a bit chilled and in need of a hot cup of coffee, so I hiked the quarter mile to the car and had a break of about an hour. Back on stand by 1230, things were still quiet. Then, at 1245, a fat fork horn materialized in the edge of the trees not 30 yards away, stepped out into the field and began to graze while moving in my direction. Of course he was right in that zone to my right which I couldn’t shoot into, and my gun was lying on my legs. There was a light screen of weeds and saplings in front of me at my stand to at least partially block the deer’s view, so I slowly began twisting to my right while raising my gun. It was a no-go, couldn’t cover him. I leaned back and did a quarter roll, managed to get the gun pointed at the deer, but much too high, much too far back. Contorting my old bones like the rubber man at the carnival, I managed to get things lined up, but the deer now had its right shoulder toward me, no clear shot into the chest, so I had to wait for it to turn a little. And wait. And wait. When it finally, finally did, I touched the trigger and the new/old gun reared back. The deer jumped straight up, all four feet off the ground, then hit the ground running for the fence to the neighbor’s farm 50 yards away, disappeared over the fence, running fast.

I reloaded...85 grains 3F Goex, a spare patch wadded up OP, a .530” ball cast with my brass bag mold and tumbled, .014” ticking patch with lard-beeswax lube...and went to the spot, looking for sign. Nothing. Walked his path to the fence looking for blood. Nothing. Back to the spot, and found a small tuft of body hair, so I knew I had hit him. Another time over the track still turned up nothing, so I crossed the fence, and on a dead weed stem just there I spotted a few drops of bright blood. Across the fence and beyond the grown up fence line was a large field with tall weeds, and there were many plain-to-see deer trails criss-crossing it, each of them branching every few yards. It was obvious he had run down one of them, but which one of many? I spent 15 minutes checking them out, following only those with blood sign. When I was about 75 yards from the fence I spotted the buck down and dead. Wow, what a relief. The shot was high, as I thought, but it got both lungs and did the job.

He was a fat one. I started dragging him out, but he was too heavy, I had to field dress him, and it still wasn’t easy.



Pictures, a small dance to Artemis, and I hoisted the deer for skinning and boning. When I was doing all that work on the new load and trajectory I was preparing for a long shot, but this one at only about 20 yards will do just fine, thank you. I’m going to call this one my eighty-fourth birthday deer. I usually celebrate those with a little trek, but this was a special hunt, a special gun, a special deer, so why not?



I think I’ve killed 4 deer and 2 turkeys while sitting in that exact same spot. I’m already looking forward to the next time.

Spence
 
Looking good twice now! :wink: :haha: Looks like I'll have to get mine this year with the Buick! :shocked2: :rotf:
 
I'm dubious. A "Kentuck" retelling a hunting story the same way as originally told? :hmm:

Figured you may have endured a hail storm or a quarter mile belly-crawl, or some such this go-around partner. :haha:

Thanks for taking the time to post again.

Just wonderful. Great hunt, great outcome, great account of it all.

You are a modern day original Spence.

All the best and congratulations, Skychief :hatsoff:
 
Happy Birthday Buck Spence!

Great weather ,Good stand ,Good shooting!

Only Hope to do that at 84..

Who could ask for more?

Keep after it Spence...
 
Great hunt , Great story and Great pics Thanks for posting .

And a belated Happy Birthday to ya’ Spence. :hatsoff:
 
Happy birthday Spence, and great story. I will be seeing my 84th in a couple of weeks, but I cant climb fences any more. Always enjoy reading you. :thumbsup:
 
Beautiful rifle, nice outfit, fat buck. That looks like a perfect birthday.
If you shot a bigger buck, I guess you would just have to make camp and work on him for a few days until what was left was light enough to carry out. :thumbsup:
 
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