There's got to be a story behind everyone's choice made to shoot and hunt with a muzzleloader. Me? I got tired of all the crap with shotguns and the ammunition. Plus, I seldom needed more than the one shot.
I grew up using a smoothbore shotgun and foster slugs to hunt deer, starting at the age of 14. I shot deer and got pretty good at killing them. I put together a slug gun over time that sported a scope and rifled barrel and that made the hunting that much more humane. What griped me was the constantly changing world of ammunition and with each change the price of using it going straight uphill. I'd shot a handful of deer with a TC Renegade .54 during the regular gun seasons which is where I started developing my attraction to the "one-shot theory" that I'd always adhered to and pushed at my hunting partners, but they were firm in their shotguns.... and making the woods sound like a war zone.
I stumbled across a Winchester bolt .45 muzzy and bought it new at a locally new Cabelas. I scoped it and shot a hundred pounds of bullets and sabots through it getting ready for the next deer season. For the next four seasons this gun and I took as many deer as shots to collect them. BUT, I still played with shotgun game too and ran out to buy the newest and latest and greatest sabot slugs, usually spending $100.00 on them so I could shoot the gun in to them and then use one to kill my deer. Back then I hunted a second season which usually meant hunting on snow or in falling snow. Generally, it was cold, but it was also back when we started to see much warmer weather and hunting in slop was as common as hunting while it was below zero. The shotgun afforded me a reliable first shot while sometimes that front stuffer would balk at the trigger pull and I'd get to see a white flag leaving the area. Over time I was able to find some confidence in what I was shooting in in my muzzy during this late season and somehow just made the switch to using is while my buddies were blazing away and their deer harvest boasted of their lack of accuracy, often sporting two to four hits on a deer. to them it was a deer take. To me I saw waste.
About 25 years ago I got the opportunity to manage a property for an elderly couple. This gave me specific permission to post the property on their behalf and control who was on or using the property. The property was an absolute deer haven, so I decided to hunt it myself, as in by myself. I used my muzzleloader and enjoyed the peace in waiting out deer or the peace of still hunting. After 5 years both of the elderly couple had passed and their kids sold the property. While I managed the place I gave a neighbor permission to come in and harvest downed trees for his firewood as he heated with wood. Not only did he help clean up the forest floor but he help eliminate to a great degree the threat of fires. When the property was lost for me I asked him about hunting on his parcel just up the road. He was more than happy to let me on to hunt and to this day he is one of my best friends. I can count on one hand how many deer I have taken off his land with a shotgun. I have no idea how many I have taken with the muzzies.
Over the years I have added to my muzzy collection, mostly in-lines but also a couple sidelocks. I'd sold that Renegade I hunted with earlier hoping to find a single trigger model. I finally found one only a few years back here on this site. I still haven't shot it and as far as I can tell its never been shot. I sold the Winchester.45 too and hope to someday find another. I have a couple older .45 TC Hawkens that I don't shoot, but they are fun to handle occasionally. There's a lot of memories tied up in those sidelocks and the beginning of the muzzleloader love affair. I seriously shoot at a local club where I'm a long time member and some of the rifle shooters there are simply shocked to see a front stuffer poking holes in holes at 100 yards, so over time my shooting has evolved and gotten much better. So back to the original question.....
Shooting these muzzleloaders either at the range or in the stand has taught me to relax and not be so hurried to shoot. They've taught me several things by the most important is to have confidence in what I am shooting and what I am shooting at. We all go thru little trials with the smoke belching guns, but the trials become teachers and we pay attention. Hunting with muzzleloaders has taught me to appreciate that first shot, and except for twice in all these years, is the only shot that really matters. Hunting with muzzleloaders has allowed me to thoroughly look at the experience, each and every day different from the day before, not so much from the standpoint of the kill but to simply experience what the woods has to offer: the snow falling, the still and quiet, the birds and other animal life, sunrises and sunsets that so many others simply don't see or can't see. I'm getting older and know it... feel it. I don't go to the woods with my muzzies to lament what is coming someday, probably sooner than I'd like, but I go there with my old friend the muzzleloader to be thankful for being there today. I'm a sausage maker and I really do intend to kill deer for that purpose, so I struggle with the idea that I am going there to kill, because the whole experience is so much more than that. Over the many years of hunting with the stink stick I've learned to be more selective in what I take. Horns are nice if what I am aiming at has them but the long nosed, tall eared, does are welcome too. I watch an awful lot of deer come and go while I have that muzzy in my lap. And I don't have to listen to that terrible racket of a shell being racked up.
So, to say that making muzzleloaders my choice over the years is a matter of evolving, the statement would be correct. Being a part of this family here at MM has allowed me to spend time with other who have sauntered down a similar path in their hunting/shooting life. Its given me a chance to watch posting as newcomers go thru the trials and tribulations that making smoke seems to bring with it early on and watch them grow to confidence. My grandkids ask why I don't hunt with a rifle. I tell them I do. The oldest grandson has a muzzleloader but he's still stuck on the cartridge hunting. One day though, he'll get the bug and like all of us here, the evolution will begin in him.
