By: Bud Alexis
It was my first muzzle loader hunt. The doe stood only fifty yards away. Just like I practiced, I drew a bead with the open sights.
I had borrowed the gun from a friend, and was warned that the gun had a hair trigger. I went out and practiced for about fifty steps. I shot it several times and sure enough it had a real light trigger. One of those kind that you would hope that there was no wind blowing on the day of the hunt, and also to be careful not to breathe on the trigger.
As I had mentioned in previous stories, my normal times in the woods was more like an adventure. I would like to say I shot the doe, she would fall, or have to track it a short distance, pick up the kill and take it home.
But, nooooo. Nothing is that simple when I go to the woods.
I took the shot, and the doe ran. I was sure that I made a good shot. I carefully reloaded the muzzle loader, and began to track the deer. About 75 yards into the woods, I came upon the doe lying down, as though resting. She didn’t look too dead to me. I looked at her and she looked at me. In my haste to get off a finishing shot, I brought the weapon from my shoulder, somehow I touched the trigger, ever so lightly, and it went off pointing up. Well, normally the doe should have spooked and ran for her life. Not when Bud is in the woods. We have to make this an adventure. That’s what the doe must have been thinking. She jumped up and charged me. What a dilemma. No loaded gun, so I did the next best thing. When she was about two steps from me I used the gun like a baseball bat and subdued the deer. Now all I had to do was convince the owner of the gun that I broke his gun in half killing the deer. I can just hear him now, “Surrrrre you did.”
