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PA flintlock doe

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pamtnman

Hunt to Live
MLF Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
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Location
Central PA
This is the third deer *ever* that I’ve brought to hand using a flintlock, and it is the first deer I’ve brought to hand with this particular flintlock. It is a .54 made in 2013 to replace my original .45 Pedersoli, and it has seen a lot of time afield, but not much shooting during hunting season. For whatever reasons, it just hasn’t been pointed at deer much. My rifle season is usually successful, so sometimes I don’t have a tag left. In the past, I’ve shot a couple deer with it, and not been able to find them, including one last year that I distinctly heard crash and pile up, but could not find because of the jungle conditions where she died.
Anyhow, the first shot this afternoon was from a decent rest, uphill about 112-115 yards (range finder results). She stepped forward just as the gun fired, and the ball hit her a little behind. It angled down and exited from her belly. She mule kicked and ran hard with her tail down. I reloaded and slowly picked my way to where she had been standing. Hair, lots of hair, brown and white, but no blood. Her tracks tore up the leaves, though, so she was pretty easy to follow. At 25 yards blood appeared. Not much, but enough to follow looking closely and carefully. As I was in super slow Elmer Fudd mode, I looked up and there she was at 40 yards, looking at me, slightly blocked by a blowdown. I cocked the gun, shouldered it, aimed at her side, and took a half step to the right and fired. She jumped high again and tore off. At her immediately former spot was another bunch of cut hair; another hit. But no blood spray. So I reloaded and for twenty minutes I carefully tracked the light blood trail through the woods. Sometimes backtracking, leaving markers of branches and stones at each good sign. When she turned downhill and her tracks in the leaves became unsteady and sloppy, I expected to find her. And another fifty yards downhill she was piled up under a small pine tree. First shot was mortal but not immediately fatal. Second shot also, but did not exit, and the entry hole was plugged up with innards, so it didn’t bleed. Very faint blood trail the whole way. Probably ran a total of 200 yards.
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Congrats, they were moving today! Good shot, that's pretty far!
I saw quite a few deer on their feet while I was hauling stone today. I came close to making it happen just before dark this evening.
Love the late season.
 
Congrats, they were moving today! Good shot, that's pretty far!
I saw quite a few deer on their feet while I was hauling stone today. I came close to making it happen just before dark this evening.
Love the late season.
Thank you and I really like your screen name. You’ll get a deer tomorrow or Saturday, because there’s supposed to be SNOW. Which I no longer am able to recognize. But i hear it’s helpful with hunting 😃
 
Congrats! Nice deer and any deer with a flintlock is a trophy.

My first flintlock deer the same thing happened to me. Nice shot, mortal, no blood and no exit. She went 50 yards and was piled up in a hedgerow.

This year it was another good mortal shot with little to no blood for the first 40 ish yards. She was another 30 yards past that with good blood as I got closer.

I follow a number of hunting pages and forums online and it always bothers me when people say "shot and missed" The mentality of if the deer isn't dropped in its tracks it was a miss or no blood so it was a miss is bothersome. I'm glad you took the time to properly check to see that you hit and followed this to it's conclusion. It's refreshing.
 
Yes they just don't bleed much do they, and snow helps with that situation.
Id be fine with an inch, but no more, adds too much with to my large daily work load at it is!
 
Congrats! Nice deer and any deer with a flintlock is a trophy.

My first flintlock deer the same thing happened to me. Nice shot, mortal, no blood and no exit. She went 50 yards and was piled up in a hedgerow.

This year it was another good mortal shot with little to no blood for the first 40 ish yards. She was another 30 yards past that with good blood as I got closer.

I follow a number of hunting pages and forums online and it always bothers me when people say "shot and missed" The mentality of if the deer isn't dropped in its tracks it was a miss or no blood so it was a miss is bothersome. I'm glad you took the time to properly check to see that you hit and followed this to it's conclusion. It's refreshing.
Thank you. Over about twenty years I probably shot a couple dozen deer with a “XX” caliber Pedersoli flintlock (I am not debating that subject ever again), and very rarely did I find blood, or enough blood to make me think the deer was hit solidly. I know I gave up prematurely on a bunch of deer that I had mortally hit with that Pedersoli, because we ended up finding those deer dead over the following couple days as we continued to hunt. That experience bugged me and got me looking for any blood at all after shooting with a flintlock. Long story short, I learned the hard way to follow up every shot. Seeing this particular deer mule kick and run tail down, I knew she was hit hard. It was her step forward and angling slightly away as I fired that turned a perfect shot into a tracking job.
 
Bad shots happen to the best of us, never a good feeling but at least you recovered her. Practice tracking is never a bad thing either!
Good job mate
 
Bad shots happen to the best of us, never a good feeling but at least you recovered her. Practice tracking is never a bad thing either!
Good job mate
Well said. I appreciate your wise words. Probably the biggest takeaway from this is how little blood there was, and yet how incredibly badly wounded she was. Twice. It’s why I recovered so few deer shot with round ball in the past. Either no blood or very sparse. It took a long time to piece the trail together, and the woods is a big place. I’ve stepped right over dead deer I was looking for, and kept on going. And those had left a big blood trail… anyhow, your word “practice” really hits home.
 
First off great job, I love to see late season Pa success!
My buck this year did not give me a good broadside shot so I had to take him face on, a .50 cal PRB in the chest had him spraying blood like a garden hose. Ball severed the major artery between the lung and heart. He still ran a good ways but I had to take a wide berth so I didn't get my boots bloody (;-)!
Now the smoothbore deer I took after Christmas was hit back and just nicked the liver, that was a tracking job! a drop of blood every 20 yds or so.
Shoot for the shoulder, take their wheels and they are pretty easy to find.
 
Nice job. Congrats.

I shot a small buck one time that bled maybe three drops, then nothing. My sons and I trailed it hoping to find more. Never did. Deer was moving when I fired, and all I could conclude was that I mustve hit it farther back than I had thought. Made sense, since I couldn't recall whether I had lead the deer or not when I fired. Never did find that deer.
 
These patched round balls just don’t often get a lot of blood, no matter where the deer is hit. Not like a modern high velocity round. I hunt with paper patched black powder rifles, and they also don’t result in as much blood as a modern smokeless round. They might plow their way from stem to stern and out the back end of the critter and keep on screaming down range, but they just won’t leave a big blood trail. Anyhow… contemplative moment over. Thank you, men
 
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