Virginia's muzzleloader season opened November 5. I had seen some trophy bucks around the property over the past several years, but they seem to elude me when I had my rifle in hand. After a few uneventful days carrying the "anything goes" MLer in the morning and flinter in the afternoon, I decided to just carry the flinter. My stand is situated on a bench facing E-SE in a laurel thicket (ivy to the locals) so that my view is optimum for a RH shooter. As I was looking left on Wednesday morning, and buck decided to come in from my blind side. Unlike the other cruising bucks (pre-rut) that I had already let walk, this one had his head up. He was too tempting to pass with a flinter, so when he quartered towards me I put the silver blade a bit high on the right shoulder. At the shot he ran into the more than head high laurel and reappeared about 40 yards off. I could only see his head and neck as he looked around, and then disappeared to his right. It was a good hold, no flinch, and I was afraid that a branch or sapling deflected the .58 cal patched round ball. After reloading, I took extra time to survey where I thought he was at the shot and where I saw him last. Things look considerably different on the ground in the middle of the laurel as compared to being perched above it! I found no blood, didn't see hair on the leaves, and couldn't see any limbs that might have been hit. As I headed in the same direction as the buck ran through the laurel, it gradually opened up. When I got to where I thought I had seen him looking around, I saw that he only made it a few more steps.
The ball had hit high on the right shoulder and angled down through the lungs and exited midway up the ribs on the off side. There was no blood on the hide and the only blood seen had come out the nose and mouth, and seemingly only where he lay. I soon found that this was likely the heaviest mountain deer that I had ever taken. It took me the remainder of the day to get him out, skinned, and butchered as afternoon temperatures were in the 60s.
On Thursday I took the flinter again, but it started to rain by 8:30, so I made my way back to the house. There were some errands to run and by the time I returned shortly after noon, the skies had cleared. I had seen several flocks of turkeys on my way to and from town, but hadn't seen any on my property recently. While out sneaking through the oaks I caught sight of movement. As I waited about a dozen birds appeared and 2 of them seemed to have longish beards. I aimed a bit high on one of the larger birds and took the shot. It was about 75 yards, offhand, and the bird just flopped over.
The impact was high and broke a wing and took out the spine. I didn't have a scale but guessed it weighed close to 20# and had a 10-1/2" beard.
Certainly I was blessed to have such success.
