# After 40 years playing with a muzzle



## alleyyooper (Dec 26, 2014)

Got two new springs 30 pound ones and installed them in the bolts of the Firearm season 2014 I harvested a nice 7 point opening day, Missed another nice buck in some brush 5days latter. Saw at least two really nice bucks but they were chasing does and moving right along so I never got a shot at them. Muzzle loader season comes. I decided I am going to wait for a chance at those bigger bucks rather than shoot a spike I had been seeing right along all thru both firearm season and ML season. As I was going out in the afternoon on the 6th Kare asked if I was going to shoot a spike. I told her not right away I was going to wait to see if I could get one of the big guys. 30 minutes latter a spike walks by my blind 35 yards away. Never seen a buck after that except when I was out walking the dog seeing the same spike twice in as many days. Season is coming to an end quick figure I have 3 days left as I went out the door Thursday morning. When I came in for lunch Kare said she wanted to go to her mom’s on Friday as her birthday was Saturday the 20th. I decide at that time any legal buck I saw I was going to try to harvest. After lunch I walk to my blind in the front yard and get settled in. The first doe comes out of the pines at just after 4:00 PM to feed slowly across the lawn to the woods on the other side of the driveway and then go to the corn field across the road. They kept coming till I had counted up to 9, I was talking on the radio to Kare who said there were deer in the back yard that had got my pup to barking. She also said there were a few out the living room window across the creek. It had been over cast all day so never was what you could call bright. About 5:00 PM I decided to start packing things up for the walk back to the house when another deer walks out of the pines at my 70 yard marker. I look at it with the binocs and see it is a spike I had never seen before. I turned the scope up to 6 power on the 50cal Remington loaded with 80gr. of triple 7 MMP green sabot and a 300gr. Speer gold dot bullet. He was quartering to me at about a 50 degree angle so I put the cross hairs just in front of his left shoulder and touched it off. Fire jumped out the end of the barrel and the blind filled with smoke. I got a very quick glimps of the buck hunching up and running. I grab a quick load dump the powder in the bore then start the sabot and bullet down the bore, pull the ram rod and drive it home. Kare comes on the radio and asked if that was me who had shot. I tell her yes it was, she asked where I was I told her reloading in the blind as I searched my coat and pants pocket for my capper. Kare said I didn’t need to reload as he wasn’t going any place he was laying just off the lawn by the barberry bush along the creek; he had run about 45 yards. I go to the house strip off my hunting duds turned on the flood lights, went down to him with Kare and got pictures of my first muzzle loader deer with 5 inch spikes. Since it was now dark it was nice to have the flood lights to field dress him by. Small body deer, am torn now if I should have waited longer for a bigger buck.













 Al


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