Congratulations to everybody who managed to put a deer in the freezer. Hopefully we all made some memories with family and friends. My mom was the only other hunter in our immediate family/group to fill a tag. She shot a really nice 8 pointer on Sunday afternoon of opening weekend.
Opening weekend was pretty slow for me, with just two deer seen Saturday and a few does on Sunday. I sit a funnel area on a separate piece of ground that doesn't produce numbers of deer, but if you stay at it long enough you might see a good buck. I work nights and ran really short of sleep over the weekend due to the abrupt schedule change, so I crashed out Sunday night and didn't get up until almost noon on Monday. I knew I had to go out with the cool, rainy weather. A few minutes before closing a deer came slipping through the hardwoods at about 70 yards, almost completely silent. I didn't see him until he was almost into an area where I would have no shot. He stopped behind some trees just long enough for me to tell he was decent, but there was no shot. When he started moving again it was steady and all I could do was pick the last opening I had before he disappeared. When his shoulders entered the crosshairs I took the shot and he dropped.
When I got to the deer and picked up the rack, I realized it was a buck I had on camera a couple of times in October. I was hoping to see him during bow season, but the last picture I had was October 28th, almost a full month before. Since it had been so long I figured some other hunter must have gotten lucky and tagged him. It was a heck of a nice surprise.
With a 17 1/2" inside spread and 11 points, this buck scores 28.5.
Good luck to everybody out trying with a muzzleloader. Stay warm.
