LITTLE ROCK — Despite a bad start, I closed the 2007 muzzleloader deer season with success.
I am a firm believer in spending all your screw-ups in one place, at one time. Get them out of the way, get them out of your head and finish strong. I run into big problems when I sprinkle my mistakes over a week because I always seem to save the "grand mal" for last. When one of the biggest bucks of your life walks under your stand and steps over your gun on opening day, you know it can only get better.
I spent the rest of the week in the same stand, and although the same doe and yearling visited every day, I didn't see another buck. The doe and yearling arrived late every afternoon to eat the lush green grass in the lane that stretches in front of my stand. I let them go partially in hopes of seeing something better, and partially because I didn't want to spend the night processing a doe.
I did make a couple of adjustments through the week, however. I have always shot my .50-cal. Austin & Halleck muzzleloader through open sights and have killed two deer cleanly at distances exceeding 200 yards. My eyes aren't as sharp as they used to be, so on Monday I mounted an old Weaver K-4 scope on the gun, using Weaver bases and Leupold Weaver-style rings. I have long favored Redfield-style rings, but Leupold's Weaverstyle rings provide a rock-solid foundation, and Weaver-style rings are a lot easier to align.
Also, I switched bullets. Since 1999, I have used 250-grain Remington hollow points. My gun shot them very accurately when I powered them with Pyrodex, but not when I switched to Hodgdon Triple 7. I also tried 250-grain Barnes MZ Expander hollow points, but my gun doesn't like them at all. So, on the advice of my good friend David Cox, I switched to 295-grain Powerbelt copper bullets. With 100-grains of Triple 7, my gun shoots them very accurately.
Friday afternoon found me back at the same stand, listening to a sports talk radio program through headphones on a portable radio. I keep the sound barely audible so I can still hear all the sounds of the forest. When I hear an odd rustling or woody snap, I quietly slide the headphones off my head. Even when it's really windy, as it was on Friday, it's amazing how you can still hear little inconsistencies in the natural rhythm of the woodland soundtrack that betrays the presence of other creatures. Usually it's woodpeckers or squirrels. Sometimes it's deer or, as happened Friday,a flock of turkeys. A coyote also visited my stand frequently during the muzzleloader season.
My last meeting with the coyote was Wednesday. I was walking to my stand when five turkey heads popped up through the grass on the south side of the lane. They weaved around indecisively for a couple of seconds before gathering their wits and tearing off through the woods.
"Cool!" I said out loud.
Just then, the coyote bounced into the lane, just a few feet from where the turkeys had been, and he looked very disgusted. He shot me a baleful glare, the kind bird dogs often give when I miss a quail or pheasant, and then he sauntered slowly down the lane,not once looking back.
The rest of the afternoon passed inauspiciously. The sun melted into that wonderful shade of light I call "October," and the wind died. The shadows closed across the lane, and I sat back and hoped the big buck would return before I ran out of shooting light.
Sensing a presence, I looked left and saw a big doe standing in the middle of the lane, steam rising from her muzzle. I raised my rifle, centered the crosshairs on her neck and squeezed the trigger. When the smoke cleared, I had meat on th etable, and a big processing job that ended at midnight.
The doe had no teeth except for a row of small incisors on the front of the mandible that were worn nearly to the gum. I estimated she was between 8-10 years old, ancient for a deer. She was lean, still in good tone, but she had no fat. She probably wouldn't have survived the winter.
I'm glad I got her instead of the coyote.
Sports, Pages 22 on 10/25/2007