The thread debating shot placement on whitetail deer got me thinking of the time I killed 2 deer with 1 shot with my first muzzleloader.
My wife and I used to go on a 3 day hunt every year in Gillespie County west of Fredericksburg Texas.I had bought a CVA mountain rifle with 32” barrel,45 cal. and I wanted badly to kill a deer with it.
First morning we didn’t see much so that afternoon the landowner told me to go hunt his personal blind on edge of oat field and he gave my wife a doe tag.It was cold as hell so I told her to wait and shoot a doe in the morning,I put her in a different stand.
I go get in his stand and I wasn’t there long and I hear my wife shoot.After about 30 minutes I hear her shoot again,I was cussing because I knew she had shot a doe.
6 does and a spike came to and started eating at a feeder about 75 yards away.I was at 6 o’clock and the does and spike were at about 1-2 o’clock and light started fading.All of a sudden a 7 point came walking fast from my right up to the fence.He was at the center of a clock when the hands attach.He stopped to jump the fence and I aimed behind the shoulder and shot.Fire shot out end of barrel and big cloud of smoke obscured my vision but I could see a white belly on the ground at the feeder.I was cussing like a sailor as to how I could have missed that badly.Then I noticed the 7 point was in the field walking at a angle looking at the stand I was in.Suddenly he started wobbling and fell over. I was really puzzled then but upset because I was sure I had a doe on the ground and I didn’t have a doe tag and I was sure my wife had used hers.I didn’t know how I was going to explain this to the old man.
I walked up to the feeder and I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the spike and I had 2 buck tags.
I go get my truck and load the 2 deer,I didn’t see a bullet hole in the spike but I figured I would find it later.I went to pick up my wife,she had killed a pretty 8pt and of course a doe.
We get back and I told the old man I had killed 2 with 1 shot,we looked for a bullet hole but couldn’t find one which was puzzling.
It was.really cold so I asked him if I could just drop the guts and skin them in the morning.He tells me no,better clean them now.What was a pain was he insisted they be skinned so there was absolutely no meat on the hide because he would sell the hides for a dollar apiece at the store nearby..To his credit he helped me but I takes a while to skin a deer like that.
We skinned the spike first,what I found was a bruise mark and blood clot on the neck bone close to the head,obviously it paralyzed him when the ball grazed his neck and he suffocated .A little hair was missing but the skin wasn’t broken.just bruised looking on the inside.The 7 point had a rib that had been grazed on the exit side so the ball obviously went sailing off and hit the spike.in the neck.I have the horns mounted on a plaque side by side.
I was about frozen by the time we finished cleaning all 4 deer but it is quite a memory.