Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Hunting and Trapping Fall/Winter 2010/2011

Well, Esshups's Savage muzzleloader struck again this morning in Eastern WV! As some of you know, I came over to spend a couple of nights with Catmandoo and his wife and do some hunting, fishing, tractor looking, eating, and lying.

We headed out this morning a little after sun up and went out to see what we could see. Which ended up being pretty much nothing. After Ken did a walk around to see if he could scare anything up from the usual places, with no love coming from the deer, we ended up meeting up and decided to walk the perimeter of his property just to allow me to see the layout of his land.

We had made it about halfway around and were just trudging along through the woods, chatting, when he spotted about 7 deer that were as surprised to see us as we were them! They were about 30 yards away and 5 of them took off without a chance for a shot. Two, though, as it turned out, were young and stupid, and decided to stand there. Big mistake. Neither one was very big, but at least one of them was destined for the freezer. One was just at a bad angle, but the other one was a little better, so I leveled the Savage and let it fly. Suffice it to say, a .50 cal round entering just ahead of the left hindquarter and coming to a rest just inside the pelt at the right front shoulder did the trick. Unfortunately, there will be no tenderloin from this guy!

The deer dropped in place, but was still alive, so Ken got credit for 1/2 of a sack by putting a round through its head so it didn't suffer too much. It is now hanging, skinned, to drain a bit and dry off before we butcher later tonight.

Here I am trying to use the Condello technique with the deer, but I think all I succeeded in doing was displaying the results of the coup de gras administered by Ken!



Beginning the skinning process.



Post-skinning with some obvious .50 cal damage. Oh, well. The tenderloin may be gone but the backstraps are still intact. One hindquarter is a bit damaged as well, but there's plenty of good meat available.



And here's Ken holding the round that we recovered. As I was pulling the skin down at the right shoulder, I heard something fall and hit my knife and looked down and here was the round. I came through the muscle, but stopped just inside the pelt. Kind of a cool find.



We're now about to sit down to a lunch of Brunswick Stew, a meal that is evidently enough of an art form that Ken was required to do a 5 year internship before he was allowed to make it on his own! And the best thing? There's nothing funky in this stuff and none of it was made from roadkill!

So, we will load up again later and see if there are any other opportunities to add to the tally and will try again tomorrow morning, too, before I head back across the mountains for home.

Did I hear "gut shot" ? At 30 yards while standing ?

It wasn't exactly a gut shot -- more like he took out an entire hind shoulder. That 50 cal sure makes a massive hole.

Ouch. That smarts.

Hey - I know guys who outright clean missed at 30 yards. The job was done and that is all that matters. Meat on the table - just a little less than max available.

After all the guff I took from Ken and Lynda's friends at dinner tonight, I have to say that's the nicest thing I've heard in several hours!

I will have to say that Todd the Deer Slayer does pretty well with a fishing rod in his hand. We went over to a friend's pond this afternoon, and Todd kept pulling out nice fat bass.

Todd, at that distance, the bullet had 2370 foot pounds of energy.

If you keep shooting the little ones, you gotta start aiming for the head/neck to save the meat. That's the first bullet that been recovered from that gun, all the others were thru n thru, even on a 300# hog. Good shooting, go whack another one in the morning!

Remember, at 200 Yds, just put the top of the lower fat post (duplex reticle) where you want the bullet to hit.

Here's a different Savage Muzzleloader, 30 Yds as well.



This one was about 60 Yds away and looking at me. She actually slid back a couple of inches and then dropped. I guess getting smacked with about a ton of energy and the slippery snow did it.


Here's a couple of hogs. My buddy shot the spotted one with a .44 Mag Handgun. They're in the bed of a full sized Chevy PU. It took 4 of us to get each one of them in the truck and it was a pretty heavy lift even after they were field dressed.

I know where I'm going to be hunting the opening day of duck season.



Herding coots

What's the limit there? It's 25/day here. They don't decoy very well......

Not many resident birds here. I'm going to deer hunt tomorrow morning and maybe whack a few crows in the afternoon. Not enough ducks here to bother hunting. We need cold weather to bring some fresh blood down from the North.

Illinois opened today and my buddy got 2 woodies, and their group missed about 12 more.

Well, that energy dissipated pretty quickly when it hit the sucker! I had a bad angle to this guy and shot placement obviously was less than ideal, but we still got about 15 pounds of meat out of him. I'd love to get a chance at a big deer, but I've only had shots at the little guys so far this year. No joy on anything today - didn't even see one. I'm planning to get the gun back to you this week. I'm gonna miss it! Sure do appreciate you sending it my way for awhile, though!

20 I think. Saw probably 300-400 ducks in this one area that was full of duckweed and some other vegetation.

Not a problem Todd. I have lasered a few new spots that are just shy of 200 Yds, so I think I've got a pretty good area covered. I'll keep an eye out for it. Sorry you didn't get a chance at another one.

My nephew got one this evening, about 4:45 p.m. Central time. A good sized 12 point. We haven't recovered it yet. He got it with about 2x the energy that you did, a Ford Taurus. It broke the right side of the rack off right above the brow tine, cut the family jewels right off of it (on the headlight), and it rolled over part of the roof. Still ran off.

Hood, headlight, grill, front bumper, windshield and a ding in the roof. No airbags went off, and none of the 4 people in the car were hurt. He wasn't going very fast, he stopped about 50' past the point of impact. I searched the 1/8 mile x 300' piece of property that it ran to, with no luck. It could have run further, but the people that own that property weren't home. We'll try again tomorrow.

This is the 2nd deer that he's got with the car, the first one was a doe that ran into the right rear door. I told him that a drivers license is no substitute for a hunting license.

Chris, I'm finding out that they don't call it Duckweed for nothing!

Sounds like a nice kill if you can track it down!

My dad had a good opening day of the Virginia muzzleloader season. At 4:15 he killed the gobbler, 25 pounds, 12" beard, 1 7/8" and 2" spurs. Then at 5:45 he killed the 8 point. Both were the biggest kills of his life... He was one happy hunter!

Travis, tell him that he did real good! Those are both really good trophies, but that gobbler is a monster!

Do you guys have to use muzzle loaders/shotguns?

Last weekend was Childrens hunting weekend here. My Grandson got a doe Saturday afternoon with his new Weatherby Vanguard in .243. He was kinda pumped. I taught him how to reload and he builds his own ammo.

We didn't see much. The doe with a couple of yearlings and 2 small bucks, a 4 point and a 6 point. Our huge acorn crop is going to make for some tough hunting.

Tell your dad those are some outstanding kills, Travis! Really nice looking deer for our region of the country, by the way!

My 14yo nephew got an 8-point yesterday for the youth portion of deer season....his first. Dressed out at 70# of meat....not too shabby for a first!

Edit...I was informed he is now 14 and stands at 5'11"....oops

Wow! Congrats to him - that's a really nice deer!

2" spurs on that gobbler. I've killed many turkeys including a 28 pounder with 4 beards it only had 1 1/2" spurs. I'd like too see pics of those babies.. Last year I actually arrowed a bearded hen with a 8" beard it was kinda cool no spurs though. 2" inch spurs are a trophy maybe a record of some kind..

Just checked 2" is The illinois state record for a spur.. So you might have a record there.. Weight was 36 LBS though

Sorry read the records wrong
biggest weight was 36lbs
Biggest beard 16"
Longest spurs are 2"

All different birds

Yeah, this bird was old... When I get down to my dad's house again, I will get to see the spurs in person and see if I can get photos of them. I've never seen spurs like that either. This was one impressive bird though.

We went and shot at some ducks this morning. A small flock of mallards flew in to the decoys, and only one left. Then we scouted the ditches on the farm for Woodies, jumpshooting a few. No real sign of migratory birds yet.