Here is one fine trophy whitetail muzzleloader hunt, as told by hunter Dan Grant:
I have been an avid hunter since the age of 16. My parents let me take one day off from school and that day I shot my first buck, an eight point 202 lb beauty by 1978 standards.
Fast forward 32 yrs later…being self employed it doesn’t leave me with much time to hunt during deer season. I managed to take 1 day off during the regular rifle season and shot a nice little 5 point opening morning 10 minutes into the hunt. As muzzle season approached, the plan was to hunt the final Saturday back at our hunt camp. I arrived Friday night looking forward to the next day’s hunt and was the first to find the feathers in bed that night, as it had been a long and busy week at work.
The next morning, those who got up out of bed headed out to their respective stands and watches. I decided I would poke my way around the perimeter of our area and see what, if any, tracks could be found in the fresh snow. The wind was in my favour and I approached the back fence line. Fifty feet from the corner I heard the crashing through the bush inside the fence row. Busted! I thought, but I pulled out my grunt call anyway, blew 4 times, made my way to the turn on the trail, crouched down and waited. The deer had stopped, turned and began to make its way out of the bush onto the trail 25-yards in front of me. My first sighting of this buck was of his head and rack stretching out of the brush, and turning to look at me. In a cloud of smoke the deer disappeared, crashing again through the brush to my left as I quickly reloaded and ran back down the trail in case he tried to cross behind me.
Did I miss this deer? I wondered
The silence was deafening, my heart pounding, as I went back to where he had crossed. No tracks in the snow on the trail, no blood at all then I saw the snow off of some branches and a track where he had landed inside the bush. One drop of blood on the snow was all I could find, so decided to look a little further.
I didn’t have to go far, 100 feet from that spot lay my first deer ever taken with a muzzle loader, and what a deer it was!
There is a sign on the wall in our camp which reads “Tailspin Hunt Camp: where the legend grows”…I can vouch for that now! (Dan Grant – March , 2011)
Thanks so much to Dan for sharing his story.
Footnote: Dan Grant’s impressive muzzleloader buck was scored recently for the Boone & Crockett Club, to the tune of 169 6/8” B&C. As one can imagine with a buck measuring so close to the benchmark 170”, the numbers were calculated and recalculated several times.
congratulations on the deer… you need a rack stretcher for the other 2/8 of a inch
Chessy, would a shoe-horn work??
Outdoorsguy
Believe me we tried to find the extra 2/8 on this great buck.
nice buck, Dan should be very proud, and thanks for sharing with us
It is too bad really for the scant 2/8″. but Dan doesn’t seem to be fazed in the slightest..it takes nothing away from a terrific buck!!
It actually looks very much like my big one from ’96..which was smaller; grossing near 160..but the shape and configuration is very close to Dan’s!
Outdoorsguy
Very,very, nice deer Dan congrats. Oh and by the way glad to see the tag on it cause god knows your damned if you don’t, as a previous story proved.
yes Paul, that whole thing was unfortunate, for which I take most of the responsibility…just goes to show what paranoia can do to you!
Outdoorsguy
no paranoia here .. just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean its not being looked into
here is just one article …
Techno wardens
Making life tougher on game and fish law violators
24Dec2008 – Houston Chronicle – by Shannon Tompkins
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/outdoors/tompkins/6181333.html
The socially interactive digital world has opened new investigative doors for Texas game wardens.
Internet chat rooms and message boards, remote-sensing cameras, and even text messaging are helping wardens make cases against violators of game and fish laws.
“It’s definitely been a tool for us,” Lt. William Skeen, a Houston-based warden with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s law enforcement division, said of the increasingly common use of interactive communication and monitoring technology.
“We use it regularly and make quite a few cases — everything from poaching to illegal sale of wildlife.”
Forwarded e-mails and threads on Internet message boards tipped Skeen and other wardens to the mid-November incident of a heavy-antlered buck killed in a vehicle collision near Northgate Country Club just outside Houston’s northwest boundary, and they helped Skeen recover the antlers of the unique animal.
“Our wardens actively monitor the Internet for wildlife violations,” Skeen said. “Most of our folks are big sportsmen and enjoy hunting and fishing, so we check those sites even when we’re not ‘working.’ ”
If wardens come across potential game law violations — photos of illegal acts or message board threads describing illegal acts — officers are duty-bound to check them out.
“If we see something that looks like a clear violation, we have to follow it up,” Skeen said. “It’s surprising what some people admit to and post on the Internet.”
And it’s not just the Internet that gets violators in trouble; other digital technology leads to their downfall.
“We make a lot of trespassing cases off photos taken by game (remote-sensing) cameras,” Skeen said.
TPWD wardens recently made cases on a suspect who advertised on the Internet that he was selling deer meat and on suspects who bought the illegal venison.
Another warden cited a suspected poacher based in Liberty County based on photos taken by the suspect’s own game camera. The digital photos in the camera’s memory provided evidence that the person had taken a deer after legal shooting time.
Recently, wardens checking a deer camp in Marion County used text messaging to get a suspect to admit to several violations.
The incident resulted in wardens filing 20 cases against three people involving the illegal taking of six deer, two of which had been illegally transported across state lines.
Wow Chessy, these Natural Resources Law Enforcement people have moved right into modern technology!
“and they helped Skeen recover the antlers of the unique animal.”
This quote I know for a fact to be true…as a column of mine some years ago(most of you will recall the story) came back to bite me big time! (and I wonder where my paranoia comes from)
Outdoorsguy
Hell I would say about 50% of the deer I put in the freezer comes off fresh road kills … no tags involved … just a quick call to the mnr
Rob, that is an awesome way to stock up!
Just wondering, though and this may be dumb question, how do you come across so many fresh road kills?
Second question (because Im really nosey) those winter roadkills – when deer are feeding exclusively on browse species – is there a different taste to the meat? I always wondered that.
Outdoorsguy
Outdoorsguy
beatiful buck and great story to go with it ,thank you.
I don’t think we have to worry too much about the RangerBob’s around here beating criminals with technology, they don’t even have gas for their trucks.
And this quote
““Most of our folks are big sportsmen and enjoy hunting and fishing, so we check those sites even when we’re not ‘working.’ ”
Doesn’t apply much to the new breed of MNR staff
the old guy yes but not the new ones
Seriously though Iggy, I wonder if ‘online’ investigation is really part of the MNR’s mandate?
Does anyone know whether they actually do that on a regular basis…I do know for a fact they’re reading my material..but I don’t know if they monitor the Web as a whole?
Outdoorsguy
Barry Scollan
Congratulations DAN on the nice buck. Great Rack
Hey Barry, good to hear from you…I figured you might be in Hollywood by now!
Outdoorsguy
Well even the real police use online stuff … but its all used to correlate what they already know … to fill in the blanks
like:
they know you were in the bush because of a trespassing complaint, someone had complained about poaching in the area … and you post pics of your monster untagged buck …
a+b=c
Yes Rob, but that would be the dumbist poacher that ever lived!
Outdoorsguy
First off, nice buck. Second – you sound like a bunch of women, never happy with what you got. Always wanting that extra inch.
Ok Tom, that was just hurtful and mean..think I need a tissue, my mascara is running….hehe
Outdoorsguy
lol i have seen stuff posted that would scare you all… first off the ofah published a image in their mag about a a group of hunters they showed the deer and the tag hanging in the tree. thats where things went crazy, the picture was so clear that you could see the months on the tag They were not cut out, or marked . also i am a new mod on a board that i visit … there was a guy there bragging about using the hood of his truck for a rest and shooting at animals. my above post just goes to show you that people dont think about what they post and IF/WHEN the mnr looks at these sites, whos fault is it, is it the moderators fault for not censering it or the owner who posted the activity , With people running to social networks trying to be the first to up load the first deer or duck or turkey of the season they sometimes forget about their actions
iggy says:
“I don’t think we have to worry too much about the rangerbob’s around here beating criminals with technology,
they don’t even have gas for their trucks”
maybe that is a reason to worry! you can play only so much solitaire while cooped up in your office.
point well taken
Oh and missed this one … I drive 160 some odd km a day going to and fro work, not to mention trips to the feed store etc … and I tend to do the driving around the glory hrs which is the great time to dent up your truck
Rob, that is a lot of travelling! Bet you have seen a few animals on the road!
Outdoorsguy
Great rack! Looks almost as good as mine!!! Congrats bro!
ah Deb don’t do that to us cm’on
Deb, did you get a nice deer this year?
Outdoorsguy
How are you guys finding the ML powder in the wet weather (humidity wise)? Do the cylinders stay together well?
Its my first rifle tag for deer in four years and Im looking to put meat in the freezer for the first time in the last four years.