Got back Friday afternoon from Galia county, OH chasing whitetails. This year the hunting sucked the root for me! I hunted hard for five days and got skunked. The group did good overall, taking 11 deer for 12 hunters is pretty damn good where we hunt. But the beer was cold and the food was good. Had a great time other than getting skunked.

On to the hard lesson learned. I have killed deer from one certain spot every year I have sit there. Its a big rock sticking out of the ridge(almost to the top), of this mountain with a decent sized tree growing in front of it on the downhill side. I decided if I always kill from that rock, a stand in the tree in front of it would be killer sweet. So I packed my stand up the mountain and hung it Sunday morning and bowhunted for a while with no results. Monday I hit it morning and night with no results. Had a little 6-point come in Tues morning but he trickfucked me and came around from behind me quiet as a church mouse. Almost got a shot off but he spotted me(shoulda been paying more attention and fucking with my phone less :-( ). Wed morning heard one come into a thicket 100yds to my left before first light. Sat till it got light enough and started glassing the thicket. It was nasty thick so I never saw anything. About ten minutes later the deer in the thicket blows at me and takes off. About 15min later same story. So I'm trying to figure what the hell is going on. The wind did shift on me but I didn't think that was it. Its not like i was up there dancing a jig or something, I had been standing pretty damn still the whole time. After a third deer blew and busted out of the thicket I said fuck it and got down from the stand. I walked down to where they all were to look around. When i turned to look back up the hill I became painfully aware of why I was getting busted. Being on the ridge like that gave me absolutely no back cover. All they had to do was turn and start walking up the hill and without even looking up in the air much I was getting skylined. I would have stuck out like a sore thumb against the sky.

I home Friday afternoon fairly late and spent some time with the family. But since the freezer is almost empty went out Sat morning for a while. It was about 17degrees with 10mph winds so I only sat in the tree stand for about an hour and a half. Then went for a walk on some family ground. I was easing my way through a grown up pasture when two flatheads came trotting by out in the field about 70yds to my left. My muzzleloader is heavy enough that its a bitch to shoot offhand so I snuck to a group of trees to take a rest. They had stopped but when I got to the group of trees they started moving again. I boogied out some more towards the fence row and when I got there they both stopped and the bigger one turned broadside to take a look back towards me. I guessed it to be about 100yds, so I settled the crosshairs and squeezed one off. It was windy enough that the smoke cleared pretty fast so I saw him stumble then start making tracks. I reloaded as I watched them run, but the fence zig zagged and I lost view of them.
After a few minutes I went out to find where they were standing. It took a little bit because the plowed field was frozen hard as a rock, but finally found some hair, bits of meat, and some good sized foamy blood spots.I wanted to give him 20minutes or so to die so I got my range finder out of me pack and ranged the post I leaned the gun on. I couldn't believe it, so I left my pack lay at first blood and went back to the fence post. Then I ranged my pack, it was 150yds from the fence post!!! I finally got to shoot something with my muzzle loader over 35yds! The button buck ran about 200yds and piled up against a fence. I was amazed that my muzzle loader sighted in at 100yds hit exactly where I aimed at 150yds. So now the freezer should be stocked well enough to last till next deer season. Now if I could only get a chance to take one with my bow.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b50/Groundhogwhacka/PC060059JPG2.jpg

good shooting and nice post! Getting skunked has to suck tho :D .

Nice one you got there whacka. Caught 'im broadside too! :)

Glad to hear of a success story with your muzzie, which, I must say, looks to be a beautiful piece of work.

I'll get around to e-mailing ya seen once I get my new work schedule figured out. Gotta get together and squeeze off a few thousand rounds for the fuck of it.

Looks like a pretty clean kill, very NICE!

^^^ I actually wish I would have shot a bit lower. I double lunged it but missed the heart, prolly wouldn't have gone 50yds then. Oh well one good thing about double lunging them is you get to save the heart, yummy!

Out of curiosity I hunted up the ballistic coefficient of the .40cal 200gr Hornady SST's I shoot out of my muzzleloader and ran it through the ballistics calculator. Now I guessed a bit on the velocity because I haven't shot it through the chrony with this load, but even with a very conservative velocity entered it shoots pretty damn flat to 150yds. Like a 3" arc from muzzle to 150yds. After 150 it really starts dropping. But if I knew exact yardage to target I would feel pretty comfortable taking a 200yd shot at a standing whitetail. It shoots just under 2" groups @ 100yds so it should shoot about a 4" group @ 200yds. 4" doesn't sound great but we're talking about whitetails not prairie dogs. I really gained a whole new respect for my M/L and that one shot made me really realize what the equipment is capable of. The biggest hurdle to overcome is in my head and having the confidence to take those longer shots. You can't kill em if you don't pull the trigger.