October 16 was the first day of muzzleloader season. I had been hunting with a bow for a few weeks but the only deer I'd had a chance at shooting were some does and fawns, and a small buck. I let them pass because I had a lot of days left to hunt and was hoping one of the big boys would show up. We have 3 really nice bucks on the trail camera this year, that we saw last year too. Wendell, Norm, and Brownie. Wendell was my main man, I was really hoping to see him sometime this season. Wendell is a heavy 10 point, Brownie is named for his super tall brow tines, and Norm was named because his rack was "abnormal". Last year he had five brow tines coming out. He is a very old deer and his rack is starting to go downhill, because this year he only had 7 or 8 points that we could see on the camera. I knew if I saw Wendell or Brownie I would definitely shoot, but I didn't think I would shoot Norm right away. That idea definitely changed when I saw him in real life! They look so different in the pictures.
So after waiting for Tyson (my fiance) to get off work, we got the muzzleloaders loaded up and headed out to the blind. The blind is a wooden box about ten feet in the air, that we recently added on to to make it bigger. We got there at about 4:30 or so, and didn't have to wait too long before we could see two does and two fawns in a small patch of grass to the south of the blind. We watched them for a while but weren't too interested because I don't want to shoot anything that has a baby. They eventually made their way down to within 70 yards of the blind and starting feeding on corn, so we watched them a while longer. Eventually something spooked them and they took off to the south and over the hill. Maybe they heard us, because the wind was in a good direction where they couldn't have smelled us. It started getting later, and all we were seeing was a red tailed hawk and two bald eagles flying overhead, and a flock of geese. I was starting to get pretty hungry, and was overjoyed when I found a bag of Dove chocolates in my pocket. Tyson whispered that we only had about 15 minutes left, so I enjoyed my chocolate as I waited for the season hours to close. It was getting chilly and I was pretty much ready to leave when Tyson said "I see a buck! It's Norm!" as he looked at the deer through the binoculars. He had been bedded down north of the blind the whole time. I looked up and saw this massive bodied deer, and I asked "Can I shoot him?". Tyson said "He's too far away, he's 150 yards." Our muzzleloaders have a range out to about 125 yards, so we hoped he would get closer. We only had minutes for him to make his way toward us. I quietly got out of my chair and onto my knees. I put my gun up on the railing to use it as a rest, and found Norm through the scope. I watched him as he would take a few steps, stop and look around a bit, and then continue on. As soon as I had the crosshair on him, I was trembling from head to toe from nerves. I waited what seemed like forever for Tyson to tell me he was in range. "115 yards. Do you have a good shot?" he asked. I did, but I was shaking so bad I didn't think I could take him. I could feel myself about to flinch each time I tried to pull the trigger. I told Tyson this and he kept reassuring me "You won't flinch, you'll do fine." and finally I pulled the gun tighter to my shoulder and forced the crosshair to be steady, holding it just behind his shoulder, aiming for the lungs. The deer was perfectly broadside and still, just looking around. He was in no hurry, he had a whole night ahead of him. I don't even remember squeezing the trigger, but suddenly there was a loud BOOM and I was surrounded by a cloud of white smoke, obscuring my sight of Norm. I looked up from the gun to see Norm running to the east. I turned to Tyson and said "Did I get him??" and he said I did, and by the time I looked back Norm had dropped out of sight in the tall grass. I literally had shot him the last minute I legally could. We hurried down from the stand and walked the 250 or so yards back to the truck, and had to drive to the other side of the river to get to where we last saw Norm. We got out of the truck and put some headlamps on, because it was getting dark in a hurry. We walked through the tall grass, looking for blood or a deer. Twice a pheasant flew up next to me and scared me half to death. We made a couple of passes through the tall grass and I was starting to get worried that maybe I had made a bad shot or that we wouldn't be able to find him in the dark. Suddenly I saw some legs sticking out of the grass. I took a few more step and saw a giant, fat, white belly. "I found him!" I yelled to Tyson, "He's HUGE!". As Tyson hurried over, I saw where my bullet had hit him, perfectly placed behind the shoulder and in the center vertically. I couldn't believe I had shot him so perfectly even though I was so nervous. He was a massive deer, probably 250lbs live weight. He had ten points on his head, but one was broken off, and he was a very unique deer. We knew we had a lot of work ahead of us now because we had to try to gut him by ourselves without Tyson's dad's help, AND get him in the truck. We left about 50lbs of guts behind as we drug him by the antlers through the corn stubble to the truck. Somehow we managed to get him up into the truck bed, and then it was time to get him hung up. I can't wait to eat fresh deer steak! I plan on mounting the head so I can always remember my first deer.
These are Norm from 2009, you can see all the crazy stuff he had going on.
These next two are trail cam pics from this year. We had pics of when he broke his tine, it hung upside down for about a week. We hoped it would cling on and be a drop tine, but it fell off.
And here is what you've all been waiting for...
Thanks Tyson for getting my into hunting and putting me on my first deer. I hope you realize you've created a monster.
