DE_Shooter1
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- Joined
- Oct 30, 2014
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That would be me, my first deer with a muzzleloader. I headed out this morning on this second day of muzzleloader season and this last week of deer season here in Delaware. It was 20* at 6am when I got out to my new hunting location and then a 1200yds walk down the logging road to set up my seat. By 7:30 the wind started blowing and my shivering got worst. At about 8:30 I had enough and decided to get moving to warm up some. I knew that there were deer at this location; I just didn’t know what time they were coming through. So I did a stalk further down the logging road back into where the loggers stopped. I saw a lot of tracks since the big rain but nothing new.
At 10am I decided that I would head back to my SUV which was over a mile walk and have another try at the deer tomorrow. It was a slow stalk down the road as I was looking at everything around me. Then all of the sudden in front of me at 70 yds (I ranged it afterwards) this buck walked out onto the logging road. I had to quickly pull back my wool mitts, cock the ML and get up on my shooting stick (that I also use as a walking stick).
When I got him in the scope he was looking right at me, I but the cross-hairs on his shoulder and “BAM”. He bolted crossed the road and into the thicket, when I went looking for a blood trail there was nothing. Then that feeling came over me, "I missed" so I decided to do a grid search and look for blood where I saw him go into the bush. No blood but I found him lying about 60yds in. Never did find a blood trail.
That blood you see in the pic is the exit wound. I shot him on a slight angle, the bullet took out the left lung and exited out the right side. Thing is I think the 250gr Barnes Expander-MZ never expanded. The entrance hole was about the size of a nickle and the exit hole was about the size of a quarter.
One good thing is that we're allowed to drive our vehicles down the logging road to retrieve deer.
At 10am I decided that I would head back to my SUV which was over a mile walk and have another try at the deer tomorrow. It was a slow stalk down the road as I was looking at everything around me. Then all of the sudden in front of me at 70 yds (I ranged it afterwards) this buck walked out onto the logging road. I had to quickly pull back my wool mitts, cock the ML and get up on my shooting stick (that I also use as a walking stick).
When I got him in the scope he was looking right at me, I but the cross-hairs on his shoulder and “BAM”. He bolted crossed the road and into the thicket, when I went looking for a blood trail there was nothing. Then that feeling came over me, "I missed" so I decided to do a grid search and look for blood where I saw him go into the bush. No blood but I found him lying about 60yds in. Never did find a blood trail.
That blood you see in the pic is the exit wound. I shot him on a slight angle, the bullet took out the left lung and exited out the right side. Thing is I think the 250gr Barnes Expander-MZ never expanded. The entrance hole was about the size of a nickle and the exit hole was about the size of a quarter.
One good thing is that we're allowed to drive our vehicles down the logging road to retrieve deer.
