Hey guys....I don't post over here much...but last July a lot of you guys here were very helpfull getting me set up and straighten out on my first muzzle loader hunt...What a pain in the ARSE!!!
Thank you guys for the help....

well i didn't do any damage on my elk hunt, but i got a dandy blacktail with this old smoke pole yesterday... thought i'd share this harvest with you... your efforts in helping me paid off nicely...Kirk

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darn nice buck! What was your load and set up?

Congratulations Kirkill. That's a nice one. I like that wide rack with the big fork. I'd do a skull mount on that one and hang it on the wall.

nice buck and congrats!

Congrats on the very nice blacktail.

Beautiful, nice buck. What you shooting in the smokepole? Looks like a TC Renegade, is it?
Chap

Nice buck congrats

That is a nice buck.. big body on that thing too.. How about the story of the hunt. We are suckers for a good story.

Well done!!! Yes, a story is required.

Ok hers the story....

This time of year is still pretty mild weather in the Willamette valley in Oregon. the leaves are turning and the apple trees are sheading their fruit in a big way....This always brings the deer up near our little ranch in Muiino....We live out in he country hereon a little 2 acre place that is surounded by big acreage lots. The next door neighbor has 20 acres that he's let me hunt for 18 years now, and it's about half overgrown in thick brush and blackberries. Those deer will make tunnels through the brush, but the give those blackberries a wide birth..... there are a couple overgrown orchards in the middle of that thick stuff that really attract the deer....

i was sitting there having some lunch right before noon when i see this smaller buck wander accross the road into my pasture toanother apple tree. i looked at my wife and said i think i'll go invite that young buck to the dinner table.... she agreed it was a good invitation..... so i grabbed up the Hawkens which i already had a load set, and slipped out the back door.... as i was capping the nozle that young buck spotted me and headed back accross the road.... i pulled the cap off and decided to wait a couple hours till about 3pm to go hunt him up...... I had a good set of tracks to follow and that buck wasn’t walking like aspooked animal at all… i followed the trail slowly until i founda couple really nice rubs...i knew there was a bigger buck in here because thec neighbor had been complainig about thisbig deer tearing uphis fence and eating his wifes roses.....I backed out whenthe tracksheaded into the blackberry tunnels. the wind was wrong to pursue him farther into his thicket anyway.......So I circled around and came back into the wind from the other side of the briar patch. I was moving real slow with my rose pruners in one hand and the smoke pole in the other..... i hadn't cleared my trail yet this year so it was slow going.

Finally I kicked them out of bed….yup I said them. The one I hadseen earlier jumped up and took a couple bounces and stopped about 40 yards out.The big boy jumped up just as I was bringing the gun to my shoulder…. I immediately switched targets and that point. This one was huge in body compared to the first one. he didn’t stop and pose for me like the first one did either..… he high tailed it down that trail and turned back towards my house…..I figured this guy was a bit smarter than the young buck, and wouldn’t cross the road in day light....i figured this old boy was going to put the old indian sneak on me rather than cross that road....They get into these brush thickets and will circle around on you rather than expose them selves….. so I slipped down the trail watching to my right one step at a time until I caught movement. There he was trying to sneak back past me again..... he stopped cold and peeked at me,and I took him at about 12 yards through the blackberries….. the cool part was that he took about 3 bounds right towards the house and dropped dead no more than 20 feet from the road right across from my driveway…..

i can honestly say this was the easiest deer harvest of all times for me.... i just backed the trailer accross the road and slid this guy right off the bank, and down into the trailer....it was almost effortless.....if you look back at the close up photo of the deer in my trailer, you can see a telephone pole in the back ground. i shot this buck between the road and that pole about 20 yards... the trailer is in my driveway....

I'm sure the secret to my sucsess was that fancy camo i was wearing at the time....or maybe it was the suspenders....LOL!

her's a couple more shots after i got him hung up....

http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u301/kirkll/Hunting%20pics/muzzleloaderhunt08020-1.jpg

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