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

Nice buck, especially with a bow. How far away? Details?

Absolutely beautiful deer! Congrats on the kill!

Well, there's also the consideration that I was unarmed at the time. I know. It's incredibly weak to live where I live, have a farm with a decent deer population, and go there without a weapon. Heck, it's incredibly weak to go anywhere without a weapon in the car. I know. I am now suitably ashamed.

As well you should be, even this city boy does not head up to his pond property without his Winchester 30-30 and his S&W 38 special.

I've got nuthin' for ya on that point, sir. I will go stand back in the corner now, sufficiently chastised.

Heck, I had the .45 with me when I picked up Kate. You've heard the saying "Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6."

Even more so during deer season!!

Recovered 250g T/C Shockwave bullet from a deer.

From a whitetail deer, shot broadside. Impact was at 205 Yds. MV to be checked (was 2175 fps in Oct, 60°F temps) 43g of IMR-4759, Wonder Wad, MMP Short Sabot. Ignited by a CCI 209M primer. Savage Muzzleloader. It now weighs 181g, and is .810" dia. It started out at 250g and .452" dia. The yellow piece is the yellow ballistic tip that was in the bullet.

The bullet slipped between the ribs on the near side, clipping one lung and barely exiting the diaphram to lodge under the skin on the far side. Deer was slightly quartering to when I thought it was broadside, and I allowed for more wind than there actually was.

essup, I take it you have one of the Savage ML10 muzzle loaders that shoots smokeless? How do you like it? I've been thinking I need one of those.

BZ

All I can say, having had the privilege of borrowing his ML 10, is that it is one SWEET rifle! Just amazing and deadly accurate. He'll tell ya more, I'm sure.

Nope I don't have one, I have 3. And I'm really thinking of buying one more. Savage discontinued making them for 2011. Get one while you still can! That gun is the reason why I'm shooting a muzzleloader - no mandatory daily cleaning.
I can load it down so a slight 10 year old can shoot it and kill a deer at 100 Yds or less without getting beat up by the recoil, or I can load it heavy and shove a bullet with more force than you can with a .458 Win Mag. I can see what I'm shooting at after the shot as well.

Most people buy it because you can shoot smokeless powder, but it works just as well with any of the other BP substitutes or BP itself. Guys are now buying a .45 cal barrel from Pac-Nor (you can swap the barrel yourself if you have a vise and a barrel wrench) and shooting either a saboted .40 cal 200 grain bullet, or resizing a .45 cal 275 grain bullet and shooting it with just a wool wad under it. They are shooting the .40 cal up to 3100 fps, and the .45 around 2750 or so.

My first one was a breeze to get a load dialed in. It took all of 12 shots to get it grouping right around 1" at 100 Yds. This one was a bit more fickle, but before I let Todd borrow it I shot a 3 shot 3/8" x 5/16" c-c group at 100 Yds.

The blued ones (in my opinion) tend to rust quicker than any other blued CF rifle that I own. I have both blued and stainless. Savage did some changes to the 2010 year model, (for the better) so if you can find one of those, get it.

To save you some legwork, if you do get one, use MMP short petal sabots, 250 grain .452" dia bullets (XTP's, Hornady SST's, T/C Shockwave's). I prefer using CCI 209M primers. Try IMR-4759 or Accurate 5744 powder for starters. A standard load has the 250g bullet moving right around 2200-2300 fps. While you can push it faster, and safely, they perform best right around that speed. I know guys that pushed the 250g bullet close to 3,000 fps, but they had terminal performance problems. (the bullets were pushed too fast and blew up on game, rather than penetrating thru)

Pure lead (i.e. soft) bullets don't work well if pushed over 2,000 fps.

If you're going to use smokeless, you really should weigh your powder charges before hitting the field. Volume measurements don't work for smokeless powder.

What did I miss??

Ask Todd how well it works for a person that hasn't had a lot of trigger time with one.

Flawlessly.

I am back from PA's firearms season and had a wonderful time with family and friends. My dad was at our camp for the entire 2 week season. Friends stopped in for a day here and there. My 86 year old grandfather who although he's got Parkinson's, heart problems and a bunch of other issues still wanted to get out there. I went out the first two days with my grandfather. His vision is so poor, I think short of a deer standing 25 yards away waving a white flag he'd struggle to see it, but we gave it a shot anyways. He was able to get a handicap permit from the game commission which allowed him to hunt right from a vehicle and use roads on game lands that are otherwise closed to hunters. I was his chauffeur/guide for the two days since he really can't hunt by himself anymore and I already shot a nice buck this year in VA, so missing for the first couple days wouldn't be the end of the world. Plus, my grandfather has done so much for me over the years, it was the least I could do.

Anyways, we found some good spots where we could park along the game land roads and he could look out the window. I then watched for deer and then tried to point them out to him, get him lined up and see if he could make a shot. We saw some deer, but it was a real challenge with his shaking from the Parkinson's and vision issues. In the end he never killed a deer or even shot at one, but at least he got out there and did a little hunting.

The opening day was mild in the mid 40's and sunny. The second day was even more mild, pushing 50 with rain starting before day break... It rained for the next 2 days dumping over 4". Made the hunting a bit rough and the creek behind our cabin flood!



Although I have yet to see one in person, I've gotten a few on game camera over the last few years. These wild pigs broke lose from a nearby game preserve, started breeding in the wild and began making a mess. The PA Game Commission and the USDA did a lot of trapping in the area and the many hunters in the area cleaned up the rest, but I guess there are a still a few around. Someone obviously wanted to emphasize the need for their removal and show they haven't mastered grammar yet either...




PA deer hunting has gone through a lot of changes the past decade with antler restrictions and a drastic reduction in the size of the deer herd. The hunting is harder but there are more mature bucks running around. Although I never saw a shooter buck and my buck tag went unfilled, I did take a 122 pound after being dressed doe. By far the largest doe I have ever taken. She's frozen solid in the picture as it was into the low teens the night before I took this photo with her...



My dad also shot a doe, sadly this doe had been shot earlier in the season... Goes to show just how tough deer are. It appears the deer was running right at someone, they shot hitting her in the neck near where it met her shoulder, the bullet traveled an inch or so below her skin coming out about 8" away in the middle of her shoulder. My dad said she was limping badly, but was still moving OK. Not sure she would have made it through the winter and I suspect she was in a lot of pain...




A view from one of my treestands before the snow came.


A view from another treestand after the snow had came in late in the second week.


A view of the snow covered valley below our family hunting land.



My wife has certainly put up with me being gone a lot this hunting season, but I guess she knew how it would be when she married me. I am a pretty lucky guy though!

Great pics & write-up Travis, and congrats on the doe. Be thankful you are out of the woods now. The storm that's headed your way is a good one!

Travis very nice of you to take time to go with grandfather. glad you got some meat for the freezer- very pretty.

Thanks! I had been watching this buck in the neighbor's bean field, but knew that they crossed the road to bed down on our side of the road every morning. I set up a tent blind a couple weeks before the season in a timber patch with lots of trails, thought sure the big guy would walk in the thick stuff. Right at daylight I saw that I was surrounded by does and fawns, snuck a peek a little further up the trail and saw him walking out of a shooting lane into the thick stuff. Instead of staying in the woods, he walked out to the unplanted field and walked down the fencerow. That afternoon I cleaned out an old stand along the fence row and slipped into it the next morning. Like clockwork, here he and the "entourage" come (close to 15 deer, that's a lot of eyes!) Instead of walking straight in front of the stand, he cut across the fence early, but at only 10 yards away. I drew, waited for the opening, and shot, realizing then that he was quartering to, not away, like I thought he would go. Arrow deflected slightly off the last rib, caught a piece of the liver, out the belly, and back in and out of the rear leg. He ran about 45 yards away and stopped facing directly away, so I grabbed another arrow (this time with a Lumenock), aimed for vitals, and launched again. Normally I wouldn't take this kind of shot, but he was already wounded. The arrow hit his the top of his rump, and the broadhead buried itself in his lower chest wall, slicing up just about every main artery he had. He piled up dead about 15 yards from the second shot.

185 lbs, scores about 130, 7:30 in the morning, Mathews DXT bow, Montec G5 broadheads.

shawn, I missed that deer- went back to see the pic. Congrats great buck and story. My deer do not have any pattern to them at all this year. Been on a break since having secodn child, and duck season in now but still want to get a good bowkill this year if I can find the time.

Greg, this is the first year in a long time we had a hard core pattern on anything. My oldest (5) went with me this year, on a morning hunt, no less! We were in the blind for about 30 minutes (about 5 minutes before sunrise) before the first "I'm ready to go"! But we stayed and saw lots of deer, so he had fun and is ready to go again! Good luck on finding that bow deer!

Neat story Shawn. I think I'll go hunting this afternoon and tomorrow morning. I've seen very few deer this year; too many acorns. I'm not real pumped about the whole thing.

It has been a tough year.. I went out yesterday. Didn't see a single track or deer.. There's always tomorrow. What I always tell myself is I could be just as lucky tomorrow as I could of been the first day.

With all the acorns out there the deer should be keying in on them. The trick is to find the type of acorns they are feeding on and set up there. This year more so than any other year pre-hunt scouting is the key.

It took me about 3 weeks of scouting on the new property that I'm hunting this year to get the deer patterned. I couldn't use trail cams like I normally would due to theft problems.

They don't seem to be touching acorns around me.. Only gold thing I got going right now is the deer seem to cross the road every night to eat winter wheat, usually too late though. I had a good bedding area but a late season stand move screwed that up I think.. So now I'm hunting on basically 100% luck..

If you can scout the bedding area without disturbing them and find their travel route you might be able to set up on the ground downwind. Dress warm and get there early in the a.m. while they are still out feeding. With the season winding down, it's time to go all out. By next year they'll forget that someone invaded their bedroom.

I've got to put the plow on the ATV and take it to my hunting spot. 20" of snow fell there in the past few days and I have to clear the gravel road just so I can get to it. I drove there yesterday and had snow coming up and over the hood of the car. I got out with minimal shoveling, but don't want to chance it again without clearing a turn-around. 5 days left in our Muzzleloader season, then archery ends Jan 2nd.

Well, nothing today. I spent more time plowing snow than expected so I ran out of time.

I did grab the SD cards from the trail cams. I hope I didn't make a mistake earlier in the ML season. I saw a big buck in shotgun season, and didn't have a good shot, so I passed, hoping to see him again. I've been passing every buck that I've seen hoping to see the big boy again. So far, I haven't, nor have I gotten him on any trail cam. He's as tall as this one, but a 10 pt., and his main beams go to his nose.

I had this one in my sights earlier in ML season for about 10 minutes. 200 Yds, but out in the open and not moving. It would have been an easy shot, but I passed hoping to see MR. Big. If I see this guy again, he's going down. He is about 2" wider than his ears, and the main beams come within 3" of touching each other over the bridge of his nose. Forget the date and time, pics are from the end of last week.







I also passed on him because I thought he was a younger deer.

My cousin said it all when he said "The best time to shoot a trophy buck is the first time you see him."

I hunted yesterday afternoon and this morning. I saw nothing and heard no shots. The amount of acorns on the ground is almost unbelievable.

I'm not enjoying deer season.

Esshup I like your cousins quote..