DEER SEASON 2007
page 5 of 5
Muzzleloader Season
Dec. 27, 2007

Today was the first day of Muzzleloader Season and Piff and I hunted down in Adams Co.  He was carrying an in-line Traditions 50 cal., and I toted a 50 cal. Hawkins.  We both have a doe tag left.

The morning was slow with no movement at all.  Piff hunted out of his blind and I was posted at the gate between the pasture and the hayfield.  Around 10:30 I decided to ease through a woodlot to the west to see if I could push any deer towards Piff.  As I slipped by the treestand where I shot my buck during shotgun season a doe and two yearlings took off along the fence.  They ran out of the woods and headed towards Piff.  I anticipated a hearing a shot from him but after ten minutes or so without hearing one I figured that they put the slip on him.  When I made it to his blind he told me that they jumped the fence before they got to him.

We sat there for a while in his blind and swapped a few stories and agreed that there was hardly any shooting heard around us all morning.  As he was showing me how his muzzleloader operates I commented to Piff that I thought that I heard the sound of a hoof hitting the ground to our left.  As I swung my arm in the direction where I thought the sound was coming from a doe and two yearlings turned tail and ran off down the drainage creek to our left.  Apparently they came through the cedars and stopped only 20 yards away and were doing the stomping routine when I heard them.

I then offered to walk through the woodlot behind the pond to try to bump any deer towards Piff.  When he got into position on the northeast corner of the woods I walked in on the west side hoping that the west wind would blow my sent into the woods and any deer would slowly ease out the end towards Piff.  As soon as I walked along the edge of the woods a big deer got up and took off.  When I met up with Piff he said that the deer ran out of the southeast corner of the woods.

After a lunch break I headed over to the next property to the east to try to move any deer back towards Piff.  He was positioned in the pasture overlooking the drainage where a couple of little draws merged.  As I neared the corner of the two properties I ran into a flock of turkeys.  They ran along the back fence and headed towards the corner.   I then took a few more steps and saw the tails of deer bounding down the hill on the other side of the back fence.   When I took a few more steps to gain a better view of the wooded hillside below the turkeys flew over the corner fence and headed in front of Piff.  They were all hens.  Wow, turkeys and deer everywhere!

I then crossed the fence and made my way over to Piff.  I could hear turkeys yelping on the hillside below him.  As I approached him I noticed that he was looking through his scope up on the hillside across the drainage.  I eased up to him and he stated that there were deer across the fence on the other property.  He also told me that there were 14 Tom turkeys down below along the ditch and that the hens that I had jumped flew past him and landed down by his blind. 

Suddenly we heard the sound of a four-wheeler on the other property.  Apparently the farmer was herding the cattle.  Just then we heard a shot ring out close to us near the corner property line from where I had just come from. A minute later the four-wheeler came back into view again and soon seven deer scampered down the hillside towards us and then ran up the pasture to our left.  They stopped for a short time but were just out of range, we couldn’t get a shot.  They ran off in the direction of the gate.

That was all the action for the day.
Back to Home Page
Page 4
Page 3
Page 2
Page 1
Dec. 29, 2007

We made the 4:00 trip back to Adams Co. Saturday morning to try one last time to take a doe.  In the morning I sat in the ladder stand in the north end of the woodlot that borders the west property line.  Piff hunted the hillside on the north end of the property where his blind is.

After only seeing a bunch of squirrels and a dozen or so turkeys all morning I made my way to the edge of the woodlot behind the pond.  I then signaled to Piff, who was in his blind about 300 yards away, that I was going to walk the woods to try to push any deer towards him.  I waited for Piff to move to the downwind side of the woods and set up for an ambush.  I then began to walk the upwind edge of the woods allowing my sent to filter through the trees and thick cover. 

I didn’t walk far before noticing about five deer high-tailing it towards the east side of the woods.  I was hoping that they would turn to their left and run through the woods and out the north end towards Piff.  Unfortunately I soon caught a glimpse of them running out of the south end of the woods and heading towards the road.  I then figured that was all the deer in the woodlot and I started to quickly walk through it towards Piff to meet up with him.  About half way through the woodlot 4 or 5 more deer took off running, and they too also ran out the end opposite of Piff.

When I came up to Piff he stated that he needed to shoot his in-line muzzleloader.  I was puzzled to why he wanted to do that.  When I asked him he told me that earlier in the morning as he was easing along the hillside by his blind that he slipped up on two antlerless deer and that they both spooked.  One of them then ran in a circle and came right by him and stopped offering a broadside shot of about 25 yards.  He then stated that he quickly aimed and fired only to hear the cap go off but the gun did not fire.  As it turned out he finally determined that maybe he didn’t ram the pellets and bullet into the gun far enough when he loaded it in the morning.  He then ran his ramrod down the muzzle and pushed everything down tight and put on another cap and pulled the trigger. It fired!  Murphy’s Law strike again!

That was it for the day and was probably our last hunt for the season.  We had fun the past couple of months, seen a lot of deer, and both of us took a buck.  See you around the end of April for Turkey Season.