Thompson Center Hawken Whitetail Deer Hunt

[Music] do [Music] do [Music] well good morning folks today is november the 7th and it's the opening of the muzzleloader season here in tennessee the sun's not up yet it's just starting to break daylight here and um i'm heading to a stand that i hunted once this year and pretty much left it alone but anyway i've seen quite a bit of running activity in the last week or so and my other stand there is where i encountered a couple of good sized bucks but i wanted to hunt this stand this morning i just saw some some deer in my backyard there were some does and a few little ones and so deer are definitely on the move this morning so anyway this is getting close to that sign that i found earlier last week so let's get on up in the stand and get settled in see what comes along um well folks i slept in here pretty early this morning before the sun came up and i've been sitting here for right at three hours and haven't seen hide no hair of a deer seen lots of squirrel activity and a good morning to bring a 22 rifle in here that squirrel's all around me but no deer and this is the rut now i have heard several distant gunshots and you know how it is during the rut i mean you could be sitting there one moment and then the next they're right on top of you so i may sit here just a little bit longer and see what happens there's a gunshot just heard another one well good morning today's november the 8th second day of muzzleloader season and i just sat down here and there was a buck chasing a doe right through here i couldn't tell what it was still too dark couldn't tell what size the deer was the sun's not up yet here's a view to the east i still hear some movement back there in the brush but anyway the wind is just perfect see here yeah it's going that way so i'm just gonna sit here and watch the morning unfold [Music] that's just that same little spike book that i've been seeing for the last week or two he's chasing that little bitty doe i just heard a deer behind me here so got this little doe right under my stand here there's a buck right there i hear him grunting folks here he comes not sure what size he is he's chasing big time looks like he's gonna come right back through here there's another bug right there [Music] [Music] there's another little bug right there do well that one buck that just came through was a good mature buck but one side of his rack was a little bit messed up he chased that dole that just came through here that's three bucks so far four four bucks the chase phase is definitely on that buck chased that doe right down through that hauler right there see if they come back i may go ahead decide to take him this morning see what happens here so we'll let him go you gotta let deer like that walk a year from now that'll be a dandy buck i think i see a mature buck there there's three bucks that's a good deer right there folks you well that deer where i shot right there just ran off and there's another one standing right there 10 yards i think i heard him crash right over here but i'm gonna give him some time this thing about hunting with a muzzleloader especially when you're using traditional black powder there's so much smoke you can't really see the reaction of that deer right after you shoot but it looks like it went right over there and i thought i heard him crash we'll give him about 10 15 minutes and then we'll get down and look been a lot of activity here this morning saw that one buck came in from behind me there and then he walked right here i decided to let him go and then earlier i saw that other big mature buck come in and chase that other doe and i saw that buck and another one come in and confront this one that came in from behind me here and when that one stepped out right there i took the shot so we'll wait just a second we'll get down see what we can find folks i think i see that deer looks like he's down i went ahead and run some cleaning patches through my muzzle loader and i'm going to reload it once i get down i believe he's down there's another deer over there with get down here and take a look at him here in just a second okay here's some tips for all you beginning muzzleloader hunters before you go after that deer make sure that you load your rifle i just ran some a wet patch and some dry patches through the barrel and recharged the gun you know you don't know for sure what kind of a hit you made before you go after that deer even before you go to where you hit that deer you need to make sure that you're ready because that deer could still be alive somewhere sitting there watching you and he'll get up and run and you need to make a another shot to be able to take that animal down so before you do that though before you go after him and before you load your rifle make sure that there is no percussion cap on this percussion nipple just like i mentioned in the video where i featured this whole rifle or any muzzle loader there doesn't need to be any source of ignition when you recharge this gun safety first you know you you're kind of nervous you just shot a deer you're ready to go after it sometimes you don't make the best decisions right away you know so give yourself some time calm down clean your gun that'll give you a little bit of time and then before you go to that spot make sure that your gun is loaded so i'm gonna go ahead and put a cap on this rifle here i got my percussion cap dispenser here hammer's on half [ __ ] that's your safety now you're ready to go track that deer so i've got him marked here i'm gonna leave my day pack and stuff here i got him marked right over here where i took the shot a lot of times with a muzzleloader especially these old traditional rifles you don't always get a blood trail right away but i think i made a pretty good hit on that deer look there there's a scrape right there i've got that deer on video where he made that scrape that was a mature old buck that had one side broken off and i believe that was him that came up behind this deer he came up right through here and then that other deer came back around and i took him right there so anyway i remember this little crooked tree right here standing right about there actually he took one step forward i waited for him to step forward a little bit before i took the shot he was just slightly quartered away he was standing right here actually he was moving in this direction when i shot there's blood right there blood and hair on the ground i'll take you through this blood trail just like i did last year with that first video book there's blood on the ground right blood there take you back through the recovery of this deer see now i thought he went up that way but he didn't came right down through here so that's what happens here a little bit excited looks like he's leaking on both sides there folks there's blood here and there's blood there i believe that bullet actually went through just the kind of blood trail you want it's easier you always want to look ahead see if your deer is just ahead there he is see where he [Music] and he's really went out right there [Music] right here [Music] [Music] that's what a mortally hit deer trail looks like and there is folks you can see here stumbled a little bit there's some lung tissue right there that big lead bullet knocked a hole in pretty good on the other side i believe you always want to approach these deer from behind make sure he's dead this is the kind of rack he's got here another eight point pretty heavy deer there good brow times nice brow tints okay well we know we've taken this deer go ahead and unload this rifle save that cap for another day and there you have it folks that's a successful deer hunt with my 50 caliber thompson center hawking rifle been a long time since i've killed a deer with this gun but that right there makes it all worth it it looks good and heavy right here on the outer parts of the beam there now he's got a little bit of character to that rack that's a good mature whitetail there so anyway i'm going to get him out of here get him cleaned up field dressed and get him cooled off so that we have good quality meat and that's the reason we do this folks that's the reason i do this i'm all out of deer meat and now i can stock my freezer with roasts and steaks so i'm going to go haul him out of here and i'll be with you shortly with some closing thoughts okay folks before i get ready to move this animal tennessee has a new regulation this year it's called tag before you drag so you want to go ahead and check it in use your license and you can either use a tag that you've printed out or you can use your phone you can download the app that's the app that you want to download okay you want to wait for it to come up so that you can enter your information here you have report you harvest so i'll go ahead and click on that okay now i've got all my information entered the date of the harvest the species the sex of the deer how many points are on his right side and left side the length of each point they want to know if it's more than let's see more than one inch and all of these are more than one inch so make sure you enter this correctly and then at the bottom says save and submit okay now once you submit the information it gives you a confirmation number it says your harvest record is complete and tags are no longer required for this harvest okay and it gives me my confirmation number so i'm good to go well here's the buck that i harvested this morning and i wanted to get him out here in the open where you get a better look at him pretty decent eight pointer got good brow time length i can see here where he's been rubbing there's a tree bark pieces of cedar bark and other saplings where he's been rubbing his horns so a lot of the deer sign that i've been seeing lately was probably made by this buck although i saw several other deer now here's a rub right here behind me that could very well have been made by this deer here you know i saw six different bucks this morning and three of them were good mature whitetails this being one of them the point i was trying to make also when you see these little bucks walking around you know if they come past your stand little fork horns and six pointers and spikes and everything you need to let those guys go you know if you want to harvest a mature whitetail i had several deer come right by my stand and a lot of them have great potential they just got to have time to grow now i've harvested bigger deer than this in the past but you know i'm really thankful to be able to take this deer and i thank the lord for giving me the opportunity to do so because i really wanted to get my old traditional muzzleloader out this is my old thompson center hawking rifle that i started muzzle loader hunting with many many years ago and i wanted to get it out today and do some hunting with it and i featured this old gun where i did some target shooting a few weeks ago and if you haven't seen that video go check out my channel you'll see just how well this old rifle can shoot i was using patch round balls on targets and i also sighted it in using the hornady 385 grain uh great plains bullet and that's what i used to harvest this deer and i always have in the past those bullets perform very well so you know when you can get an old gun like this out that you haven't used in a long time and and get have good success in harvesting a deer that just makes it that much more rewarding so anyway i noticed that where i hit this deer he was slightly quartering away from me if you look at the video he was kind of headed a little bit away so i put the sights about that far behind the shoulder on the other side and that's when i squeezed it off when he stepped forward he was he was walking real slowly away from me and i waited till he moved that leg forward just a little bit so let me get this deer field dressed get him cooled off and cleaned and i'll be back with y'all in just a few minutes well let me apologize for that little delay in between but i had to get that deer on ice and get it hung up skinned and quartered up pretty quickly because it got really warm today it got up to 80 degrees and here it is november you know but that's the way it goes you know if you don't like the weather here in tennessee stick around because it's gonna change and i've said it before but it's definitely true but anyway i was really glad to be able to get this whole rifle out i haven't hunted with this whole gun in some 15 odd years i think that's about how long it's been since i've killed the last deer with it but i was real thankful that i was able to use this gun successfully again the old hawking came through again you know and shot very true when the moment of truth arrived so if you own an old rifle like that and you want to get out and hunt with it make sure it's sighted in good i don't think you'll have any problems the bullet that i was using once again is the hornady 385 grain hollow point that's a big chunk of lead folks and that bullet has done the job for me in the past many times harvested a lot of deer with that bullet right there and the load that i had in there after i shot the deer i went ahead and reloaded the gun i needed to unload it so now i can go and clean it that's a shot at 50 yards so it's it's pretty well dead on still so you know if you have one of these old guns and you haven't used it in a while because you've gotten an inline like i have you know it's every now and then it's it's kind of a a nostalgic thing to get the old gun out and actually be able to successfully harvest a deer with it they're more than capable of doing that as you can see from the video well with that thought let me close out here and tell you i really appreciate you watching i hope that you enjoyed the video lots of deer action in this video and lots of interaction between the deer there's still quite a few deer in the area because when i left there there were lots of deer that were running off so you know that that particular section of woods still is a prime place to go back to so i'm going to let it rest for a while and then hunt that again hopefully i'll get a big doe next time and that's pretty much what i'm after so if you enjoyed the video please consider subscribing and hit the like button and smash the bell icon that way you'll know when more videos like this will be coming your way so until next time this is a cumberland outdoorsman wishing you well and if you like to get out and go hunting fishing hiking shooting camping whatever it is you like i hope you enjoy it as much as i do y'all stay safe out there and enjoy the great outdoors [Music] so [Music] my [Music] my [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Cumberland Outdoorsman

Views: 6,738

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Id: EZJkcWhqMIo

Length: 34min 43sec (2083 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 09 2020