HuntingNet.com Forums - Buck Down In NC (UPDATED)

I would like to thank all that gave me advice. I was able to knock down this 8 point buck thisAM (Friday 12-14-2007)with my new NEF Sidekick and a powerbelt. He ran 60 yards, double lung shot. I will give more details later.

OK heres the full story. To this point I have over 100 hours on stand mostly bow hunting, for the season. Friday morning I met my Dad for a morning hunt. One day left in our firearms season. We live about 30 minutes North of Charlotte, NC. Pops gave me a new muzzle loader for Christmas this year,gave it to me early in hopes that I would break it in on a deer before the season ended. I am primarily a bow hunter butI enjoy all types of hunting. Back to the story,I get to his house just on time and load up my muzzle loader (no primer of course), then load my pack and gun into his van. We drive to my spotabout 5 minutes away, he drops me off, we say good luck. Then he says " I want to hear that Muzzle Loader shoot this morning", I respond with "Yeah that would be nice, maybe those does will come by again".I walk down a ravine into the dark woods. The woods are starting to get brighter, as I realize I am later than I thought and I better waste no time. I get up into my stand, strap in, get my primer in, hook my pack on and begin to sit motionless.I am a couple hundred yards into the woods on the edge of a very thick area. I started to relax and look around. Within 5 minutes I see movement just off to my left, I focus in on it and it's a deer, and it's a deer with horns. The horns looked very bright coming through the woods at an angle toward me. I take one look at his rack and think that's a shooter, I'm not going towaste timechecking how many points, I just know he looks pretty good. He is getting close to my shooting lane so I cock the Muzzle loader back, he puts his head behind a tree and I get in position silently. He steps out, but it's to thick, a few more steps and he is in my shooting lane. I do a mouth grunt "maaa", he stops broadside at 20 yards and looks my way. I put the sight right on the rear edge of his shoulder and squeeze, BOOM. I am now sitting in a cloud of smoke, can't see the deer, can't tell if I hit him (although I am pretty sure I did), and I have no idea which way he ran. I am pretty nervous, I may not have a good blood trail because I am using the 150 grain load of powder at such a close range but I didn't have time to field test lower loads and the Point Of Impact. The smoke clears and the woods are silent, no deer, no movement still getting brighter out, just after 7am. I call my Dad and he just got settled in but was coming over. I told him it wasn't a doe and it was probably a 6 or 8 pointer with a descent rack. I called my girl friend and told her what happened and she wished me good luck. Pops came over about 30 minutes later. I stayed in the tree and he marked the point of impact, we could just see scuffled leaves, NO BLOOD. We thought about likely routes it could have taken where the smoke would have masked his escape. We checked slowly for signs of freshly turned over leaves and blood, but there was no blood. Pops began to walk up toward where I pointed the buckcame from.I hear him say "Here he is, oh the rack, the rack". I said "Your not kidding are you"? The buck lay just about 60 yards from where I shot him. It was a great sight. The 295 grain Powerbelt shot right through him with very little expansion just a Frontier Gander explained on a postI read the night before. Luckily the shot placement was perfect and he didn't go far. A light blood trail started about 2 yards from the buck. I will be experimenting with much lighter powder loads before I shoot another, I got lucky with being there just on time and finding that deer so easily.I am very happy with this Buck and the experience I got to share with my Dad. I hope everyone gets a chance to have this kind of rewarding hunt.