Originally Posted by cayugad

I went to muzzleloaders because the center fire rifles lost some of the enjoyment I had hunting deer. Where I was living, deer were thick. We'd see 20-50 some days. 20 for sure.. They would cross the picked corn fields in front of us. We were sitting behind hay bales (small hay forts with a good dose of manure spread in front of them to hide our smell) of course on nice seats and the hay was our bench rest. You'd basically wait for the deer you wanted to enter the corn field and shoot it. I was shooting deer at some hard to believe distances with my 7mm mag Ruger M77. It got to the point where deer hunting was meat season. You'd go out and fill your three tags and go home.

Then I ran into a friend of mine that hunted with a muzzleloader. He invited me to his private range and we shot a CVA .58 caliber Mountain Rifle and a .58 caliber original Springfield 1861 rifle. I had a blast that day. It was not long after I bought my first .54 caliber Renegade kit.

The first year I hunted with that Renegade I almost got skunked. I had to break out a center fire and kill some deer on the last couple days because I had lost the range factor with that muzzleloader.

But I changed tactics and soon was harvesting them with a single shot muzzleloader. That's all I ever used after that. I will grab a 20 gauge shotgun sometimes for grouse, but often take a black powder shotgun. (Depends on how hungry I am for grouse) So I now hunt with mostly all black powder weapons.

Bow I had to give up. I injured my shoulder many years back and when I draw my compound it feels like someone is driving a nail through my shoulder blade. So I no longer bow hunt. I kind of miss that, as I liked sitting up in the trees, when it was warmer, and just looking into the woods.