trophy-hunting: illinois 2010 muzzleload report #1

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Illinois Muzzleload Hunt
Dec. 2nd thru 5th , 2010

Wednesday morning Capt. Rick and I met at the Daytona Beach airport to catch the first flight out headed for Illinois, 6:40am. We always fly Delta but it is quite a journey these days as now it’s a three leg flight and no less than four airports! Delta has eliminated the flight from Atlanta to Peoria and we now have to go thru Detroit or Minneapolis. Most all of our gear was left up their from the Bow hunt so we just needed o get our guns there and that went pretty smooth. The check in persons did not even ask to look inside the case.

We finally made it to Peoria about 4:00pm. And we grabbed our shooters and headed for the truck. The Peoria airport has free parking and we leave the truck there between hunts so its right there when we get back. it’s a 45 minute ride to the farm to pick up our gear trailer and then its to the house to spend the rest of the evening unpacking everything and getting ready for the mornings hunt. After 10 years we’ve pretty much got it down to a science and it only takes a couple of hours.

Thursday December 2nd
Temp: Max Temperature 31 °F, Min Temperature 22 °F
Wind: 3 mph (West) gust to 14
Snow: 0
Overcast to partly cloudy
Pressure: 30.20

Thursday December 2nd was the opener of the 2nd firearms season and after a light breakfast we loaded up and headed for the farm. The temp. was 27 deg. But the wind was light and out of the west at 3-5 so it was not to bad.

I decided I’d spend the first morning at the “Sanctuary” stand. It was a little slow getting started but I managed to see a total of (12) from the stand but only one of those had horns and he was small. The real excitement did not happen until I climbed down. I thought I’d slip out to the corn field and glass the field before I headed to meet Rick at the truck. I crossed the bottom, scaled the barb wire fence and came up to the corner of the little 8 acre corn field. Before I tried to cross the field I thought I had better give everything the once over. At the south end of this field is a tree line with a fence. Beyond this is a steep grass hill that rises up about 75-100’ with a small knob on top that is planted in corn also. As soon as my glasses settled on the hill top the first thing I saw was a big shooter buck looking down into the field I was in! My brain screamed S H O O T ! I dropped down on the ground for the shot but immediately realized he was a good 250yds and there were too many limbs from the tree tops at the fence to even attempt it.

About this time I see the buck wheel around and lope off about 30yds. Wondering what that was all about, I glassed back to the right to see an even larger buck that had just charged him! A big white horned 8pt with 14” G2’s that leaned way in at the top and were just a few inched from touching at the tips. From that reaction I immediately knew there was a hot doe involved with this and they had her hemmed up on this little knob.

The little wheels started spinning and before I knew it I had dumped all my gear and was across the fence and headed up the bottom as fast as possible without making to much racket. This bottom ties in with the toe of the hill where the deer were and as I got closer I slowed down a bit trying to be as stealthy as possible. Just then a coyote goes streaking across the bottom from the back of the 8 acre field and the gun was half way to my shoulder before I realized what it was. The coyote comes back into the story in a little.

The grass was still frozen on the open hill and had a few large oak leaves in it but I did the best I could. As I neared the edge of the corn field on the knob I went into a crouch until I was far enough up slope that I could see over the crest in the field. With hammer cocked I rose up but there were no deer on the field? I quickly scanned everything, nothing. I took a couple slow steps up and immediately, head a deer blow. I went into auto mode and the rifle was shouldered and I was swinging on the running buck. It was the big white horned 8. He had been standing behind some rose bushes along the west fence. It was about 125yds. and he was haulin’ the mail! The buck came into view in the scope and as I got to the front of the deer I touched her off! Unfortunately, a split second before and with my brain already committed to firing, the buck made a 90 and jumped the fence. It felt like I had missed him by a deer’s length when I felt the report of the shot. “damn it! I just missed that deer!” was my first thought. Little did I then know that this would pretty much be the hallmark of the rest of the hunt. I never saw the other buck but the doe came into view as I lowered the rifle and she shot straight ahead down the planted fence line.
The though came to me to try to salvage the situation somehow. The doe was obviously hot to go and there may have been a slight chance after things settled down that one of those bucks may have circled around to try to cut her track but I let it go and headed back to grab my gear and get back to the truck.

It just so happens that to get back to the truck I was headed the same way the coyote had gone and as I passed thru the gate into the nubbin buck corn field I saw him break from the high grass down the edge from me about a hundred yards. I dropped to one knee, swung on him and fired. I looked like I just caught him in the right front shoulder but he was able to make it off the corn field.

Rick hunted the “Well” stand and saw (13) does and no bucks.

PM. Hunt:

This afternoon I made for the stand at the “Green Tree”. Actually, it’s a stand located on the fence in the bottom, behind the green tree that the farmer cut down a few years ago but we still refer to is as the green tree for lack of a better name. Actually, I should say I started for the Kill Zone stand but ended up at the Green Tree.

As I drove in thru the west corn field that fronts the gravel I saw (3) doe type deer running off the big corn field. I parked the truck in the ditch separating the big field from the west field, grabbed my gear and headed for the “Kill Zone” Stand.

When I got to the back end of the corn field I slipped up to the edge of the timber and glassed down to the CRP below. No deer. Just as I turned around something caught my eye some 300yds down the field along the east edge, right about the gap area. It was a deer and as it came into view of my glasses I could see it was pretty nice buck that warranted further scrutiny. I could see his mouth was hanging open and I glassed ahead to see (3) more bucks all ganged around one doe at the golden oaks. All the other bucks were just year and a half old things with not much for horns. I glassed back to the big deer and could see he was an 8 that looked to be in the 120-130 class and not quite what I was looking to shoot.

This did however, change my destination and I decided to go to the green tree which would put me close to the action if they looped back or another buck came along on the deal later.

I ended up seeing a total of (11) deer including the half rack in the CRP at dark and a small buck in the bottom from the stand. The rest of the deer were all does and yearlings.

Rick hunted the “Barn stand” at the top of the pines. He only saw (5) does and no bucks.

That was pretty much it for the first day. I was glad to see there is still a little rutting activity going on.

Here are just a few of the trail camera photo's I collected during the hunt: