I had grand plans for opening day morning. And then I overslept...Didn't get to the woods till 915...hunted for a couple hours then did some farm work. That was Saturday. Sunday morning, I got to the woods just as the sun was starting to lighten the sky. I sat over an improvised food plot for 2.5 hours and knew I had to get out and start doing some work...so I started grunting. I got silly with the grunts. Mature buck grunts, loud, frequent.....and a few doe bleets thrown in. I did that every 5 minutes for about 20 minutes and then I caught motion on the far side of the clearing. The clearing is 100 yds to the far side, and I was in a blind on a hill above the clearing, about 15 yds from the edge, with the sun to my face. The motion I saw was actually shadow. There was bright sun shining on a patch of tall swamp grass and something had walked between the grass and the sun. I waited a minute or so and saw nothing...so I grounted one more time. just one grunt. A minute later I saw a doe sneaking in toward the clearing. She stayed about 20 yds in the woods and worked her way around the clearing. There was another deer following about 40 yds back from her. A smaller doe. I studied the lead doe in my scope to make sure she was large enough. I placed my scope in a clearing she was walking towards and shot at about 60 yds. I reloaded quickly...only dropping two primers in the process. I had heard some running to my right after the shot. The smaller deer was still there. I watched it search around for a while before moving on. Since it was closer to me I could tell it was very young...it looked big for a fawn but it moved like one. I was going to sit for 15 minutes at least before getting up and checking for the deer. Ten minutes after the shot, I heard foot steps coming from behind me. I figured the little deer was still hanging around looking for Momma. I leaned back in the blind so I wouldn't bee seen and saw a nice large doe come walking by. She stopped about 10 yds from me, giving a slightly quartering away shot. I blasted her and she disappeared in a cloud of smoke. She had been standing just before a small hill and I was looking to see if she came out the other side. I saw a deer bounding out the other side, with the tail up......ran about 80 yds then stopped. She was running like she wasn't injured at all...I couldn't believe it. No way I could miss at that distance. As I was reloading I was doing calculations in my head. Muzzle loader zeroed for 100 yds. Scope center sits about 2 inches above barrel center. ....still no way I could imagine missing a solid shoulder shot at that distance. This time, because of the two previous shots, the round wasn't loading easily. I had to put the ramrod on a rock and push down with the rifle to get it seated properly. By the time I got reloaded, I couldn't see the deer. I sat for another 15 minutes thinking that deer had to have laid down and died.
After 15 minutes, I got out of my blind, took two steps and looked down the trail.
She hadn't taken a step...had fallen and died right there. I verified that she was dead and went looking for the other deer. I found nothing. No blood, no heavy disturbance of the trail in the direction I suspected she had run. No deer. From the shot I had taken, I had full expectation that she would be down in a very short time. I went back to my blind and sat down. I looked at where she was when I shot. Held my rifle up to make sure I was looking at the right spot....made mental note of the trees and went back out to look around. This time I saw blood about 5 feet from where she had been standing when I shot. A lot of blood. I followed it across a creek and back around....after 30 yds I found her.
She was tumbled up in a creek.
On examination I found that the first deer I shot was hit thru the top of her heart and a small piece of one lung. She still ran 30 yds. The second deer was hit in the side. Entering and hitting a rib, hitting the bottom of the spine which exploded into one lung.
I have had a lot of success with the TC shockwave 250 gr saboted round that I used. I believe I have taken an even dozen deer with that round. The longest tracking job was 60 yds on a doe that took a quartering lung shot. There are lots of great rounds out there. I am happy with this one.
Good luck out there. Be safe above everything else.
