Quote Originally Posted by Big Paul
Fresh Venison for Christmas!!! Yum!
I wish! Read now my tale of woe....

The 1st Sunday morning of regular gun season, I was sitting on a ridgeline in thick hardwoods when at about 8:30 a fat 6-point ambled up to my left rear. He never saw me as I eased around, cocked my flintlock smoothbore, and put a .73 cal. ball into his chest cavity from a range of about 15 yards.

He got up and ran; I stayed put, reloaded, and gave him time to lay down and die. After a few minutes I went over to where I'd hit him, and picked up a very heavy blood trail. Thinking he couldn't have gone far with that big musket ball through his chest and all that blood, I began tracking. And tracking. And tracking! There was no snow, but that blood trail was easy to follow - for awhile. Down the hill, across a creek, up the other side, over the top of the next ridge, after about half-a-mile the blood began to peter out until I finally lost the track in all the heavy leaves.

I spent the next hours searching those woods in vain for that deer, and never did find where he finally went down, even after enlisting the help of my brother-in-law and nephew. It's been nearly two weeks, and I'm still broken-hearted over it... and haven't seen anything since!

Humbug....