# The Flintlock Chronicles: Mission Impossible?



## NCHillbilly (Oct 1, 2019)

This will be a long, rambling, perhaps very boring to many, monotonous post about several days of my (probably unsuccessful) attempt to kill a deer with a flintlock rifle on public land in a county where only 4 deer total were killed in muzzleloader season last year, probably all or mostly on private land. I am guessing that it will end in failure. But, sometimes it doesn’t. If you have read any of my posts in the fly fishing forum when I get in a write-y mood, you know what you're in for and you might want to quit now. 

This week is muzzleloader season in my neck of the woods. I have the rest of the week off.

My county covers 555 square miles, a little over half of which is public land. The Pisgah National Forest makes up most of this, followed by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC game lands (our version of the WMA,) and the Blue Ridge Parkway corridor. It is rugged terrain, with 19 peaks over 6,000’ elevation. My county has the highest average elevation of any county in the eastern US.



With all that public land, only a total of 42 deer were killed on public land in this county last year, most of which were killed in our three-week rifle season. A combination of low deer densities and the ruggedness of the terrain make successful hunting very difficult. Besides the steepness, most of our public land is covered with 100+ year-old forests, which offer little in the way of deer habitat. A large portion of these forests have understories composed of nearly impenetrable thickets of rhododendron and mountain laurel, with sheer rock cliffs and deep gorges and chasms scattered throughout.



Once, several years ago, I killed the only deer checked in in muzzleloader season in my county. The next year, I didn’t kill the only muzzleloader deer, but I helped drag it out of the woods, and it was checked in on my phone.



Oh, did I mention that deer have to be bucks with visible antlers to be legal game, except for the one either-sex day this Saturday? The NCWRC estimates that my county has a population of 0.53 antlered bucks per square mile. That means 294.15 bucks scattered across 555 square miles, with most of the deer living on private land in good habitat, not the National Forest where I'll be hunting. Shouldn't be hard to arrange a meeting with one?



On top of that, we just went through the hottest September on record. Temps are in the 80s during the day and 60s at night, when normal temps for this week would be more like 50s-60s in the day and 30s40s at night. Many times, I have seen hard frosts or even snow flurries during muzzleloader season. Not this year.

It’s hard for me to get enthused about hunting in these temperatures. I have already decided that I won’t hunt afternoons, only mornings this week. I just don’t want to risk blood-trailing a deer in the dark back in the mountains in temps that will cause a deer to spoil quickly. So, it’s mornings only.

On top of that, I’m not even using a really good flintlock. My weapon is an old .54 caliber CVA Big Bore Mountain Rifle made in 1979.



The good side: This rifle was made when CVA made only traditional rifles, during the peak of the blackpowder/mountain man craze. This was when they were still made in America instead of Spain. This rifle has an excellent 32” barrel, 1” across the flats, 1 in 66” twist, possibly manufactured by Douglas as near as I can find from my research. If I do my part, ignoring the pan-blast of smoke and flame a few inches in front of my right eye and hold it steady for the fraction of a second it takes the main charge to ignite, it will put the ball where I am pointing it in a very consistent manner. It also has good sights, a German silver front blade, and a dovetail rear. The rifle has a browned barrel with German silver and pewter hardware.



The bad part: This rifle has a CVA flintlock on it. These are decent, but definitely not a Siler or L&R. It is fairly fast, has adjustable set triggers, but the frizzen is small and not too tight, and when you turn the rifle upside down or sideways for awhile, the priming powder tends to leak out grain by grain. It is hard to get a flint secured tightly in the cock, and it eats flints pretty fast.

Sooner or later, given the excellent barrel and poor lock, I will probably convert this rifle to percussion with a high-quality drop-in L&R lock. But, for now, I am sticking with the flintlock. Why? Magic. Earth magic.



Flintlock rifles were designed in the early 1600s. In short, a piece of flint is held in the cock, and when the trigger is pulled, it strikes and opens the frizzen, meanwhile shearing off small pieces of metal in the form of sparks, which drop into the priming powder in the frizzen pan. The priming powder ignites, and the little explosion goes through the touchhole, igniting the main powder charge, which sends the projectile out the barrel in the direction of your deer.

So basically, my rifle is fired by a chunk of rock striking a chunk of metal formed from natural iron ore (another rock,) which has been impregnated with carbon, the element which all known earthly life is based on. This ignites the black powder, which in its original form, is a substance made by combining Sulphur (another rock, and a substance which is an essential element for all known life and is often formed deep in the earth by volcanic action,) charcoal from burned wood (formerly-living trees,) and saltpeter, which was originally derived from bat crap. This propels my projectile, a ball of solid lead (another rock,) which is encased in cotton, and lubed with bear grease (from a bear, who was likely an unwilling donor.)



Rocks, volcanos, carbon (the basic element of all life,) trees, bears, cotton plants, friction, fire, and bats working together to poke a hole in my deer, accompanied by a satisfying explosion, a cloud of thick smoke, and the smell of brimstone (so maybe the old Boogerman is in the mix working for me, too.)



Earth magic.



Somehow, pulling the trigger on my AR-15 or bolt-action rifle just doesn’t seem as fascinating and lacks a lot of the mystique. If I were a deer, I would rather be shot with a flintlock if I had to be shot. But that’s just me. It could also be considered as an insult, I guess.



So, to recap, we have four or five mornings to kill an almost non-existent deer in almost un-huntable terrain using an inefficient weapon designed with 1600s technology, manufactured of mediocre quality, and fueled by rocks, trees, bears, and bat crap. In some of the worst weather conditions for hunting we have had for years.

Oh, and to make it even easier, I am only hunting from the ground, the way people originally hunted with flintlocks here in these mountains. No stands, no Thermocell even. 



Sounds encouraging, huh? Are you with me? I wouldn’t bet on the results. But I guarantee you we will have some fun.



Have your eyes glazed over yet?


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## Para Bellum (Oct 1, 2019)

Watching.


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## northgeorgiasportsman (Oct 1, 2019)

I'm with you, man!


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## ol bob (Oct 1, 2019)

I'm in if anyone can do it its you. Good Luck


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## Nicodemus (Oct 1, 2019)

I understand. Any and every rifle I deer hunt with has to be thumbcocked before it will shoot. 

Best of luck to you.


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## fishfryer (Oct 1, 2019)

NCHillbilly said:


> This will be a long, rambling, perhaps very boring to many, monotonous post about several days of my (probably unsuccessful) attempt to kill a deer with a flintlock rifle on public land in a county where only 4 deer total were killed in muzzleloader season last year, probably all or mostly on private land. I am guessing that it will end in failure. But, sometimes it doesn’t. If you have read any of my posts in the fly fishing forum when I get in a write-y mood, you know what you're in for and you might want to quit now.
> 
> This week is muzzleloader season in my neck of the woods. I have the rest of the week off.
> 
> ...



Can't wait to see the results of your hunt. I'm going to predict you beat the odds and get one.


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## Hillbilly stalker (Oct 1, 2019)

Its all about the hunt. That's something alot of people don't understand. Sic em !


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## PopPop (Oct 1, 2019)

Prolly outa go to Office Depot an git one a them Easy Buttons. Now you don’t need an Easy Button, but it helps.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 1, 2019)

*Day One:*​
            This area has a long history of hunting. From the Cherokee and those who came long before them to the present day, hunting has been a way of life for most people who have been born and lived here in these mountains. Including me.



            And I sometimes feel like I was born into the wrong century. Often, I want to go back in time.

To the Pleistocene, perhaps, when now-extinct megafauna roamed a wild, vast land in which man was still only a minor player. It is a time that has always fascinated me. Mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, American lions, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, huge short-faced bears, cheetahs, steppe bison, armadillos the size of Volkswagens, giant Teratornis birds of prey with 12-foot wingspans, and many other wondrous creatures. They would be something to see.

            Another period that holds my intense interest as a history buff is the span of time from the first European colonization of America until the settlement and eventual taming of our country. These mountains were the epicenter of a lot of that history. From the days when De Soto led his ill-fated expedition through the southern Appalachians to the French and Indian Wars when the Cherokee slaughtered a fort full of British soldiers on the outskirts of the Smokies, to the days of the Revolution when Sevier and his company of mountaineers and long hunters passed through on the way to King’s Mountain. And when William Bartram and many of his kind came through, looking not for battle and plunder, but for new plants and knowledge.



The days when Dragging Canoe, Doublehead, and Bob Benge led a reign of terror throughout the region against those who had stolen their lands. The days of the ridgerunners and longhunters who came into these mountains and eventually on through them, living off the land and hunting deer, elk, and bison for their hides and meat. All of them depending for their lives and livelihoods on their flintlock rifles. Daniel Boone and many other notable longhunters tramped through this area, eventually heading further and further west, into the wilderness that they craved, but, ironically, were also causing to disappear by their very presence and actions.


            I can’t go back, unfortunately. I am stuck here. But I can take myself back temporarily from time to time. If not physically, I can go there mentally, for a little while. I’m headed there this morning, as a matter of fact. You can come with me if you want.

…​
            Semi trucks. The Cherokee, Boone, and the rest didn’t have to deal with them. As I hurtle between two concrete walls at 60 mph, dodging these lumbering present-day megafauna in the pre-dawn darkness on one of the curviest and statistically most dangerous stretches of interstate in the US, it strikes me that the asphalt and concrete ribbon I am on is following the same route through the river gorge that Pleistocene hunter-gatherers followed up into the mountains in the summer, that Shawnee warriors followed to attack the towns of the Cherokee, and according to some, that De Soto followed through the mountains to arrive in what would some day be eastern Tennessee. In this kind of terrain, you don’t blaze your own trail. You follow in the footsteps of others.



I am glad when I finally pull off the highway onto an almost-indistinguishable gravel Forest Service Jeep road. I shift my truck into low, and turn the radio off. As I curve around a ridge, leaving the roar of engines and jake brakes and the smell of diesel fumes behind, I roll down the window and let the woods in. That’s better.

I pull up to the end of a long-unused gated logging road. I get my stuff together and wait until gray light is forming. I have learned from decades of hunting it that the spot I am headed to is not an early morning spot. I have never seen a deer there at first light, only at mid-morning.



As I wait, I load my rifle. 75 grains of ffg go down the barrel, followed by a pillow ticking patch greased with bear grease nestling a .526 lead ball. This rifle has a tight bore for a .54, and doesn’t like .530s. It was a source of frustration until I tried a smaller ball and thicker patch instead of the standard ball and thin patch. This combo shoots like a charm. The same bear grease that lubes my bullets is also present in a thin film on the rifle barrel. Oil, Crisco, whatever will functionally work as well, but the store-bought stuff lacks the juju. Earth magic is all about juju. I need all the juju I can get.

When the gray becomes brighter, colors begin to appear, and I can see without a light, I walk around the gate and up the old roadbed. I am travelling light. I have only my rifle, and my shooting bag that I designed, cut, stitched, and finished myself from heavy bark-tanned leather. Inside the inner pocket of it are three pre-patched and lubed balls in a curly maple loading block, with an antler-handled short starter attached to it with a leather thong. Three pre-measured charges of powder rest beside it, in glass vials. With this set-up, I can have another load down the barrel just about as fast as I can load a cartridge into a single-shot breechloading rifle. Also inside are a few cleaning patches, some extra balls and a small priming horn of charging powder, a ball puller, and cleaning jag. Attached to the woven hemp strap is a small tool kit with a brass pan primer, touchhole pick, wrench for the cock, and a pan brush. It’s enough.





The logging road is getting grown up. Knee-high broomsedge and little bluestem grow down the center in the more open stretches, and along the edges are blackberry briars, pokeweed, still-blooming asters and goldenrods. Winged sumac glows crimson red on the banks, even in the pale gray misty half-light. Alongside the track, I spot a brown and withered thistle, with a couple pods of fluffy seeds still clinging to the tops. I pick off a seedpod and stick it in my shirt pocket. It will come in handy later.

For the first half-mile, I walk with long strides, making distance. The logging road gradually works into deeper woods, and the grasses in the center are gradually replaced by hay-scented ferns and wood asters. I stop and take a few deep breaths, willing myself to slow down. After another quarter-mile, I stop again, and reset myself to predator mode. From here on, it’s silent stalking, watching every step.

61 degrees. Not what one wants on a morning in muzzleloader season, but it’s what I have. A thick bank of fog is swirling overhead, like most mornings in the mountains. It condenses in the treetops, and droplets of water fall from the leaves like a fine misting drizzle of rain. It is enough to quiet the leaves that will be crunchy as corn flakes by mid-day. I can hear crows cawing above me, but cannot see them. I walk slowly and deliberately now, placing every step before committing to it, stopping often to look and listen. It is almost time to leave the logging road.

I go around another bend, and the road is intersected by a sharp spur ridge. I ease down the bank, and begin to follow the ridgetop. After a while, I am overlooking a saddle in the ridgeline at about 3,000’ elevation; a deep gun-sight notch seemingly chopped into the topography by the stroke of a giant axe. A deep hollow heads up at each side of the saddle, dropping off steeply on each side. A deer trail comes through the saddle, winding up from an old grown-up clearcut from back in the early 80s when the Forest Service still cut timber. The trees in it now are mostly thigh-thick at waist height, but the deer still like it. It still has browse growing thicker than in the surrounding woods with their giant, old trees.

Just to the right of the saddle is a grove of white oaks, laden with acorns. Across the saddle, the ridgeline turns sharply up, and enters a thick growth of hemlocks, and then, a dense thicket of mountain laurel and rhododendron. The deer like to bed there, the does bedding in the thick stuff; and the bucks bed on the clear point of ridge that juts out, overlooking the hollow where they can see everything below them, with a dense thicket to their backs. They usually come through the saddle at mid morning, stopping at the white oaks to eat a few more bites before bedding down for the day. If they come.

If they come. Deer travel here, more than anywhere else I have hunted. They seem to require a larger home range to eke a living from the deep woods. You can sit in one spot for days and see nothing, then maybe the next day see half a dozen. I have seen a lot of deer crossing this saddle over the last couple of decades, and killed a few. Just a couple years ago, I shot a fat young buck here this same week of the year. But, that was then-and today is today, and it will bring what it brings.

It is still in the woods, no air seemingly stirring. I pull the thistle pod from my pocket and free a couple of fluffy seeds. What breeze is present is blowing directly from the saddle to me, as it usually is this time of year unless a front is coming through. I pick a familiar spot behind a big poplar. I normally would sit leaned up against it, breaking up my outline. But, with a flintlock, I like to have a tree trunk to brace the barrel on. With that fraction of a second between the priming charge and the main charge, a good rest can mean the difference between a clean kill and a missed shot, or worse, a crippling shot. The smell of fresh woods dirt is cloying in my nostrils as I gently rake back the leaves and dead twigs where I will sit. I can only see 50 yards at the most, but that's about as far as I am comfortable shooting at a deer with a flintlock rifle anyway. If I see it, it's in range. I get me a dip of snuff, and settle in to wait.


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## trad bow (Oct 1, 2019)

Thanks for taking us along. The smell of the fauna, the smell of the rotting logs and of course the spruce. Smells of my childhood and the anticipation of a hunt high on a ridge top saddle waiting quite and me listening for the sound of the hounds and believing every sound was a bear or deer. My family for generations lived in that country up above the Murphy area in Hanging Dog And Uneka.  I am walking with you enjoying the hunt and the smells and the memories. Once again, Thank you for taking us along.


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## Darkhorse (Oct 1, 2019)

My Brother killed a small 6 pointer at Rich Mountain 30 or more years ago. He was sitting on a saddle much like you described. I heard the shot an hour or so before dark and we started the drag right away. Downhill a little, straight up a lot. We got to the checking station long after dark.
That's the good stuff. The thing memories are made of.


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## Deernut3 (Oct 1, 2019)

Nice looking ambush spot, good luck.


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## whitetailfreak (Oct 1, 2019)

Good looking set-up right there. Before you pull the trigger, be sure to take a pic and post it here on GON so we can tell you whether or not he's a shooter?


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 2, 2019)

whitetailfreak said:


> Good looking set-up right there. Before you pull the trigger, be sure to take a pic and post it here on GON so we can tell you whether or not he's a shooter?




If he has two-inch spikes, he's a shooter here this week.


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## Lightnrod (Oct 2, 2019)

You sir have a gift, what it is I'm not sure but I feel compelled for some unknown reason to say that.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 2, 2019)

Lightnrod said:


> You sir have a gift, what it is I'm not sure but I feel compelled for some unknown reason to say that.


Is that a nice way of saying that I'm not quite right in the head?


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## Darkhorse (Oct 2, 2019)

Even if you don't get one, rest assured that you are walking in the tracks of many great men who carried a flintlock because his life depended on it.
You may not get one but the more you shoot that flintlock the better you get at it. I don't get one every year, mostly because I let most doe's walk, but I've missed my share too.
 A quiet morning in the woods with a flintlock is always a good morning.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 2, 2019)

Darkhorse said:


> Even if you don't get one, rest assured that you are walking in the tracks of many great men who carried a flintlock because his life depended on it.
> You may not get one but the more you shoot that flintlock the better you get at it. I don't get one every year, mostly because I let most doe's walk, but I've missed my share too.
> A quiet morning in the woods with a flintlock is always a good morning.


True words.  And I have killed deer with a flintlock, just not here in the mountains this year.  I would say that the great majority of deer I have killed in my life have fell to traditional muzzleloaders, because it's my favorite way of hunting. I hunt with blackpowder during rifle season quite often. Mostly sidelock percussion guns, but that old  flintlock has drawn blood a few times, too. I've also missed several with it.


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## Lightnrod (Oct 2, 2019)

NCHillbilly said:


> Is that a nice way of saying that I'm not quite right in the head?


No, my feeble attempt of humor. Your writing skills are spot on! Waiting for the story to continue.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 2, 2019)

*Day One, Part 2:*
​
​
            These woods are full of a diversity of life. From where I sit, I can count over twenty different species of trees and woody shrubs. A spring heads up in the holler on my right, and from some things I’ve found down where the spring drain drops into the dense laurels further down the holler, its water was once long ago put to good use; producing another substance that many in these mountains have long considered necessary for life. There is a fairly thick herbaceous understory here on this north-facing slope. Blue-stemmed goldenrod and blue and white wood asters are still in full bloom.  False Solomon’s seal is turning yellow and withering now. Christmas and New York and maidenhair ferns are scattered in clumps, and from where I am sitting, I can see a three-pronged ginseng plant decked out in fall gold with a couple of scarlet berries still clinging to the stem.



            Hickory nuts are falling like an artillery barrage all around me. Big ones, mockernuts and red pignut hickory. It is hard to keep myself from jumping when one of those big nuts breaks loose from the treetop, bounces loudly off a couple limbs on the way down, and splats into the ground with a heavy thud a couple feet away. Squirrels are busy collecting them. There is a constant sound of gnawing teeth in the trees overhead, and squirrels run along the fallen logs and over the ground with nuts in their mouths. The ones they don’t eat at the moment, they are busily burying, unknowingly fulfilling their job while storing up food for the winter. Even discounting bad memory, some of these squirrels will be taken by a hawk, a fox, a bobcat, a rattlesnake. Their unused stash of buried nuts will sprout next year into the next generation of hickory and oak trees that will sustain the future generations of squirrels. Things tend to move in circles around here.

            The gray squirrels aren’t the only creatures taking advantage of the abundant mast crop. Chipmunks scurry along fallen logs, their cheeks stuffed with food and their tails held stiffly straight up as they run. Their chips and squeaks echo through the woods. I see a deer mouse stretching up on its hind legs, harvesting the last of the dried berries from a withered false Solomon’s seal plant. In a big hemlock nearby, a northern red squirrel, AKA pine squirrel, is cutting on a white pine cone that is nearly as big as itself.

            These little squirrels are fascinating critters. Midway in size between a chipmunk and a gray squirrel, they sport a coat of lustrous rusty red fur with a white belly and a black stripe down their sides. They range throughout Canada, the northern states and mountain west of the US, and reach their furthest southern range in the east in the highlands of the southern Appalachians. Like a myriad of other creatures, they moved south with the Pleistocene ice sheets, and retreated to the high peaks of Appalachia when the glaciers retreated and the climate warmed. There they found an island of suitable habitat surrounded by the muggy southern flatlands where they could not thrive. There are many creatures, plants, and trees here in these mountains that essentially became trapped here in the same way. Brook trout, northern flying squirrels, a plethora of salamanders, trees, shrubs, mammals and herbaceous plants cling to life here in a high-elevation climate that resembles Canada, but is in the south. Even snowshoe hares and Canadian lynx once ranged the higher peaks of the Smokies before the era of commercial logging drove them to extirpation. The lynx is the cat that was once known here as the catamount, short for "cat of the mountains," because it was never seen except in the highest boreal reaches of spruce-fir forest on the crest of the mountains.

Red squirrels, known locally here in my area as mountain boomers, are fast as lightening, almost tame in their behavior, and are seldom seen outside the higher ridges that are covered with spruce, fir, hemlock, and pine. They make a chattering noise that sounds like something wound up with a spring and then released. They will steal a wampum biscuit out of the frying pan on your campfire, and be 50 feet back up a pine tree before you even notice your biscuit is gone.

            Blue jays screech unseen in the fog, and small birds stir among the bushes and leaves. A pair of Carolina wrens forage close around me, examining the crevices in the bark of the trees around me for insects and insect eggs. The whole time, they keep up a constant, griping chatter. On the ridge behind me, a pileated woodpecker, looking more like a reptile than a bird, hammers on a dead snag; sending palm-sized chunks of wood falling to the forest floor.



            The leaves are changing colors late this year. The unusually warm weather has them fighting with their photoperiodic instincts. The sourwoods and dogwoods are already turning red, and the striped maples, sweet birches, and Fraser magnolias are mostly yellow, but most of the trees are still predominately green. Nevertheless, when a mild gust of breeze comes up from the saddle, the droplets of water falling from the treetops are joined by sheaves of leaves that twist and turn as they fall. They make a quiet, hissing sound as they spin through the air and brush against tree branches as they waft downward.



            As the first mosquito whines in my ear, then lands and stabs deep, I find myself wishing I had brought my Thermacell. But then, I remind myself that I am here for the experience of hunting with the basics, not for comfort and ease. I am time-traveling. Doublehead, Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone didn’t have any stinking Thermacells, and they did just fine.

            As the hours go by and the skeeters swarm around me in a cloud, I find myself hating Doublehead, Simon Kenton, and Daniel Boone more and more with each passing minute.



            Also, sitting on the ground reminds me of my age and impending mortality. In my teens, twenties, and thirties, I could sit motionless for hours on the hard ground with no problems. Now, in my 50s, that is no longer the case. Every twenty minutes or so, I have to carefully and slowly change my position as This goes numb, That cramps, and Something Else hurts like the dickens. Getting older sucks, but it sure beats the alternative.

            Time passes. The fog begins to burn away. I contain considerably less blood than the original model of me did. A little after ten, I see movement in the hemlocks and laurels across the saddle from me. Not a squirrel or bird, this is something big. I can hear dry twigs snap as it makes its way out of the thicket. The numb limbs, skeeters, aches and pains are instantly forgotten as I snap into high alert.

Soon, a bear has worked its way into the open and materialized like magic in the saddle. It stretches, and stands up on its hind legs, scratching its back against a small oak tree. I slowly ease my phone out of my pocket, and shoot a short video as it starts walking along a fallen log, headed straight for me.








As it gets closer, I put the phone down. It comes within twenty yards, then begins to root around on the ground, crunching on the fallen hickory nuts and acorns. For the next good while, it feeds back and forth around me, more than once coming within twenty feet of me. It never knows that I am there, so I am doing something right. A bear has a nose that is hard to fool. I carefully and slowly snap a couple more pics.





Why don’t I shoot it, you ask?

Well, the answer is simple. I would love to. Killing a bear with a flintlock rifle would be great. I would love to take one of the hundred perfect broadside shots that it presents me with as it wanders and feeds.

But: bear season won’t be open here for two more weeks. The NCWRC, in its great wisdom and submitting to lobbying pressure from the NC Bear Hunters Association, has apparently reached a decision that no bears should be killed on public land in western NC unless they are treed by a pack of hounds. Let me preach on it.

First of all, let me make it clear, I have absolutely nothing at all against hunting bears with hounds. It is a great, time-honored sport and tradition, and it runs deep in my genetic and personal heritage. I come from a multi-generational family of houndsmen, born here in the county where Plott hounds originated. I spent most of the early decades of my life following my own coon, bear, and rabbit hounds day and night through these mountains. I love it. I do not want it restricted in any way.

But, like most people, as demands of family and job grew, I found that I no longer had the time or money to maintain and do justice to a pack of hounds. Raising and hunting hounds is a 365-day-a-year commitment, and it requires a continuous large financial outlay, to boot. I do not want to take anything away from the houndsmen, but I do want one thing. I want NC to open deer bow and muzzleloader seasons to dog-free bear hunting, like most of the surrounding states have already done. It’s not going to take anything away from the houndsmen, but it will give some folks who don’t own dogs a chance to kill a bear occasionally, and will give folks a chance to spot and stalk or stand hunt them on public land.

            With steadily increasing bear populations, NC has loosened bear hunting regulations considerably, even allowing hunting over non-processed bait on private lands. But, the moratorium on any bear harvest in bow and muzzleloader seasons without dogs has effectively eliminated bear hunting without dogs on public land, which comprises a very, very large portion of western NC. Every year in bow and muzzleloader seasons, I see bears feeding in the daytime. And could kill one most years.

            But, as soon as legal light breaks on opening day of bear season, you can stand on a mountaintop and hear several packs of hounds running in all directions. In effect, from the first hour of bear season until the last hour, you are going to be very, very fortunate to ever see a bear in daylight again. When they know the dogs are running, they spend the daylight hours holed up in inaccessible thickets and roughs until the season is over. Meanwhile, bear populations keep expanding and increasing, to the point that they are a major nuisance in many areas, and also have a heavy impact on deer and re-introduced elk populations by feeding on fawns and calves. But, hunting bears without dogs on public land in western NC remains a big, taboo no-no; and likely will for the foreseeable future.



            But, enough of that. I’ll come off my soapbox.



            I enjoyed watching this bear feed for a good while. It finally wandered over the ridge and out of sight. I relaxed and settled back in to wait. After another hour and a half, the deer have not shown. It is getting hot. Eventually, I call it a day and rise from my cramped position. I walk down to the saddle. The fresh deer sign that was abundant here a week ago when I scouted is now absent, replaced by several days’ worth of bear tracks and scat. I guess since the bear has appropriated their bedding thicket and feeding grove, the deer have decided to find somewhere else to hang out for a while. It’s all part of the game, and there will be more mornings. I head back out the ridge, and back down the logging road toward my truck.


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## Gbr5pb (Oct 2, 2019)

I was going to say you a gluten for punishment hillbilly! Haha have fun


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## Bullochcountyhunter (Oct 2, 2019)

I'm in like Flynn. Local wma muzzleloader hunt this Friday then at least 5 hunts the week of muzzleloader. I recently picked this up very cheap. Thompson Center renegade. Fired it off for the first time last Saturday. Shoots like a dream. It's my first traditional muzzleloader.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 2, 2019)

Bullochcountyhunter said:


> I'm in like Flynn. Local wma muzzleloader hunt this Friday then at least 5 hunts the week of muzzleloader. I recently picked this up very cheap. Thompson Center renegade. Fired it off for the first time last Saturday. Shoots like a dream. It's my first traditional muzzleloader.


Those were good, solid rifles. A couple of my friends used to hunt with them back in the day, and really liked them. Killed a pile of deer with them. With the twist rate, they seem to like a solid lead conical like a 350-grain T/C Maxi-hunter better than a round ball.


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## Bullochcountyhunter (Oct 2, 2019)

NCHillbilly said:


> Those were good, solid rifles. A couple of my friends used to hunt with them back in the day, and really liked them. Killed a pile of deer with them. With the twist rate, they seem to like a solid lead conical like a 350-grain T/C Maxi-hunter better than a round ball.


Man, I'm in love with it. I've always wanted a hawken style rifle and finally found one local I could afford. All I had on hand are some t/c 250 copper plated sabots and running 70 grains of powder. It really did like them, cloverleaf's at 50 yards.  I am gonna pick up some maxi hunters as well as some round balls and.patches just to plink with. I really enjoy shooting it, far more than I ever expected.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 2, 2019)

Bullochcountyhunter said:


> Man, I'm in love with it. I've always wanted a hawken style rifle and finally found one local I could afford. All I had on hand are some t/c 250 copper plated sabots and running 70 grains of powder. It really did like them, cloverleaf's at 50 yards.  I am gonna pick up some maxi hunters as well as some round balls and.patches just to plink with. I really enjoy shooting it, far more than I ever expected.


Black powder is addictive.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 2, 2019)

*Day 2:*​
​
            I’m gonna have to slow down on this yakking and wordiness, or it’ll take me a month to write up a couple days of hunting. 







            Another record-setting day of heat yesterday. Another foggy morning this morning. As I head out along the backroad from my house, critters are moving. Every couple hundred yards seems like has a rabbit hopping in the road, with waddling skunks and scurrying possums aplenty to go with them. I hope this means that deer are moving, too. I keep a sharp eye out for those guys, too. My wife crunched the whole front end of her new car on a deer on this same road a few months ago headed out to work before daylight. Of those 0.53 bucks per square mile I mentioned earlier, about 0. 49 of them seem to be standing in the middle of a road somewhere most times. I don’t want to explore the irony of punching out my truck on a deer while I am driving to hunt them with a flintlock.



            As I pull off the road into the weeds and park, A huge great horned owl glides over my truck, headed back to roost. I don’t know if that’s a good omen or a bad one.



            I am going to a different spot today. Since the bear has apparently taken over the ridge saddle I hunted yesterday, I don’t have a lot of confidence in seeing deer there. This spot I’m heading for has been good to me over the years. It’s a lot shorter hike in, too. I found this spot about twenty years ago, by accident. One day, after I was done hunting, I was driving out a forest service road when a herd of about six or seven deer ran across the road in front of me. I pulled over, and noticed a heavily-worn deer trail cutting up through a massive, almost impenetrable rhododendron thicket. I didn’t think much about it, until the next year, I had a similar encounter in the exact same place. My curiosity was stoked, so I found a place to pull out of the jeep track and started following the trail up the sheer mountainside. I went about a mile and a half through thick rhododendron and laurel, crawling on my hands and knees at times. When the trail crested the ridge, it crossed an old overgrown skidder trail in a small hardwood opening between the vast dog-hair thicket I had just crawled through and another deep, rhododendron-choked gulf on the other side of the ridge. After it crossed the skidder track, it descended sidehill into that vast, dark chasm, skirting rock cliffs that plunged into the depths below. The trail was still heavily worn and full of fresh deer tracks. I followed the skidder trail up the ridge, and soon found that a short hike up from another forest service road in the next valley over would bring me to this spot.

            The first time I hunted this spot, I saw several deer and shot a buck. A few years ago, I killed a pretty-nice -for-public-mountain-land buck here. The only problem: the hardwood opening crossing the steep hogback ridge is very narrow, maybe twenty feet of visibility between the walls of rhododendron and laurel. It is a place for intense, in-your-face hunting. Many, many times, deer have scurried through this tiny opening before I could get a shot off. This is not a destination for deer, but a highway to get from one place to another. Like the interstate I travel to reach these little rutted dirt roads every morning. But, sometimes they stop in the old skidder trail for a few seconds. And when they do, it is good. Sometimes is all you can hope for here.

            This place is nowhere near anywhere that anyone would think to stop and hunt. The thick rhododendron on the sheer mountainside above the road is enough to deter most. Even so, I usually drive a few curves past the little ridge I use to access the hogback ridge, and park in the weeds on the opposite side of the road at the foot of a more open hollow; just to avoid arousing curiosity. If you hunt public land long enough, you learn that curiosity often leads to losing your favorite spots. Like Boone hiding his trail from the Indians, I hide my trail to my hunting spots.

            After a steep but short climb, I am atop the hogback ridge. I follow it down, hitting the old skidder trail that follows the ridgeline just to the left of the crest. The trail is overgrown with saplings and bushes. A couple hundred yards, and I leave the trail at a familiar big white pine tree and grade back to the top of the ridge. Just as the light becomes strong enough to see the front sight of my rifle, I am settling in behind a stump. I am perched on a sharp, rocky knob on the ridgeline. The skidder trail skirts the left side of the knob and circles back in front of it as the grade grows less steep. From where I sit, the ridge pitches steeply off in front of me. I can see only about twenty yards down the old skidder trail to where the deer trail crosses. About every other year, I bring a pair of pruners and a small folding saw up here and judiciously remove a few selected limbs and small saplings, cutting them off at ground level and covering them with duff, and dragging the cut offs deep into the rhododendron thicket out of sight of the skidder trail. Curiosity again. We don’t want to encourage it.



            The vegetation here is vastly different from the place I was sitting yesterday, even though it is only a mile or two away across the valley as the crow flies.  This ridge drops off steeply with a southern exposure. Big, sharp fins of broken rock stick out of the thin soil like bones extruding from a compound fracture.  It is dry as a popcorn poot. The big trees here are mostly white pines and scarlet oaks, with sourwoods, red maple, sassafras, striped maple, and black gum scattered amongst them. The understory is mostly ericaceous shrubs-mountain laurel, box huckleberry, and flame azalea. There is almost no herbaceous layer. It mostly consists of scrubby greenbrier, poison ivy, wintergreen, partridgeberry, and a couple of pink lady’s slippers, the blooms long since faded and withered. Almost before I have settled in, I unconsciously reach out and pluck a leaf of wintergreen, roll it between my fingers, and hold it up to my nose. The pungent wintergreen odor hangs in the air as I attempt to get comfortable for a long sit.

             Even though it is 64 degrees, I pull gloves on, to muffle any small movements of my hands. As I said, this is in-your-face distance.  Eyeball to eyeball. Nothing in the woods is quite the color of Caucasian human skin, but there are multitudes of movements by small gray and brown critters.  Every small advantage counts. I check the priming charge in my pan. I take my touchhole pick and work it into the barrel, into the main powder charge. I circle it until I have worked out a small hole in the charge, then I work a few grains of ffffg priming powder from the pan into the vacancy I have created, stirring and mixing them in with the ffg main load.  If it cuts another small fraction of a second off the ignition delay, it’s worth it. Every fraction of a second counts in this game.



            As I sit there for a while, I notice another big difference between this spot and the one I hunted yesterday. Animal life. There isn’t much here. No birds, no squirrels, no chipmunks. None. I hear blue jays screeching down the ridge, and once, I hear the hoarse croak of a raven as it circles overhead, but otherwise all is quiet and still.

            Except for that durn interstate. I am a couple miles away from it, but high above it on a ridge facing in that direction. I am far enough away that I can hear nothing but a faint roar of traffic, occasionally punctuated by a blast of jake brake or air horn. I consciously tune it out. Let those folks down there worry about 2019, I am a fool up here in a thicket on the ridgetop, trying really hard to be in the 1700s. They can have it. I don’t want it.

…​


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## Darkhorse (Oct 2, 2019)

Bullochcountyhunter said:


> I'm in like Flynn. Local wma muzzleloader hunt this Friday then at least 5 hunts the week of muzzleloader. I recently picked this up very cheap. Thompson Center renegade. Fired it off for the first time last Saturday. Shoots like a dream. It's my first traditional muzzleloader.


A renegade .54 was my first ml also. I shot matches with it offhand, it would put 5 shots into tiny groups off the bench with patched round balls.
I took a lot of deer and hogs with that old rifle. Wish I hadn't of sold it.


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## trad bow (Oct 3, 2019)

I bought a .54 renegade back in the late eighties. Very solid gun. Still killing hogs and deer with it. No need to change to something else but I admit I would like a southern mountain flintlock Po boy style


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 3, 2019)

I will get caught up tomorrow. I came in about 1:30 this afternoon, ate a big bacon sammich and a bowl of ice cream, sat down on the couch with the dog to watch a few minutes of tv, and woke up about 5:00 when my wife came in from work.


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## trad bow (Oct 3, 2019)

It happens. Probably the best sleep


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## 35 Whelen (Oct 4, 2019)

I had a 54 Renegade and traded it away probably 20 plus years ago, still regret doing that.


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## Thunder Head (Oct 4, 2019)

You do have a gift for writing,
 Cant wait for the rest.

My Grandparents lived in Murphy while I was growing up. I used to spend spring break and a month during the summer up there. We fished, hiked, picnicked and camped all around murphy. Ive caught many a fish out of Hanging dog creek.


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## Bullochcountyhunter (Oct 6, 2019)

Any updates NC? My plans didn't go as I intended Friday. Was covered up with other hunters. Found one slice of heaven, watched a family of coons do their thing. Nothing else moving, except the other hunters??


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 7, 2019)

Bullochcountyhunter said:


> Any updates NC? My plans didn't go as I intended Friday. Was covered up with other hunters. Found one slice of heaven, watched a family of coons do their thing. Nothing else moving, except the other hunters??


I'll get to it soon as I can, just haven't had a chance to sit down and write the last few days. Always something going on.


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## LONGTOM (Oct 7, 2019)

I was afraid you found out I drive a Chevy and decided not to share anymore. lol


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## Big7 (Oct 7, 2019)

HOLY LONG POST' HILLBILLY !

We were warned tho.. ?

Why don't you ride down to my house a few days? We have enough room to garrison a small army. (no joke)

Anyhooo.. I got a few spots you can get as many as you want.

IDK- But I've heard it's hard to find any game in numbers there. I'm sure there are plenty, they just seem to take advantage of the terrain and turn into ghosts'

Anyhooo.. I can fix you up if you want to ride down here.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 7, 2019)

LONGTOM said:


> I was afraid you found out I drive a Chevy and decided not to share anymore. lol


I have driven Chevys myself. I loved them when they were running.  



Big7 said:


> HOLY LONG POST' HILLBILLY !
> 
> We were warned tho.. ?
> 
> ...


I have places to hunt with plenty of deer. I will be headed that way in a couple weeks. Right here, right now, it's all about hunting where the very few deer take advantage of the terrain and turn into ghosts.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 7, 2019)

*Day Two, part 2:            *​

Waiting. It is hard on your body and your mind. Sitting in a cramped position, staring intently at a 10-foot-wide tunnel between thickets. Knowing that a few seconds’ inattention can undo hours of waiting in this situation. The lack of life doesn’t help. Nothing to keep me occupied. Staring at the same spot. I think if I dozed off and someone came and moved a single stick in front of me just two feet, I would notice it.

            Suddenly, the woods are alive with twitters and cheeps. A large flock of mixed warblers comes filtering through; lighting on limbs, flitting from one to another. These colorful little birds, not much bigger than my thumb, are multitude in these woods through the summer, but are seldom seen. They stay up in the canopy, existing only as songs and occasional furtive flickers of movement. Now that the seasons are changing and it is almost time for the bugs and caterpillars to disappear; they are very visible, gathered in the hundreds to start their long migration. Many of them, I can’t recognize or hang a name on, but the hooded warbler males are distinctive. Brilliant yellow with a black hood, these tiny fragile-looking birds fly from here every year to Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, and all parts of Gulf-coast Central America all the way down to Colombia. It is an amazing journey for such a small creature, and they get there without the help of Google Maps or GPS. And have for thousands of years. And we think that we are smart?



            As the birds filter through, a small, slate blue hawk comes, weaving swiftly amongst the tree trunks, following the flock of warblers. I wish him good hunting.



            After the warblers move down the mountainside, more time passes, uninterrupted by any other activity. A couple more hours, and my legs and knees are starting to ache. About 11:00, I hear a small noise to my right. I turn my eyes that way, followed by my head. I stare intently at the thick brush for a couple of minutes. Nothing.

            I turn and look back down the ridge, and a doe is standing in the skidder trail, only about 15 yards away. A gray ghost, manifested magically from the dark woods. Her head is erect, and she looks around. She twitches her tail, lowers her head, and takes another slow step. Two seconds later, she is swallowed by the laurel, and vanishes as though as though she was never there. I find myself wondering if she actually was. If she had been a legal deer, could I have gotten a shot off? Maybe. I honestly don’t know.

            This time of year, I often see deer still in mixed small groups of does and bucks, especially younger bucks. The kind that I would welcome to fill the void in my freezer. I am now on high alert. I adjust my rifle so that it is pointing directly to where the doe just was, and wait expectantly in case she is followed. And wait. And wait. An hour and a half later, it is obvious that nothing else is coming. My knees scream silently. I rise slowly, let the circulation return, and head back up the ridge. Two mornings have passed with no meat. But, I am strangely happy and content. Tomorrow is a new day, with unlimited possibilities.



*…*​


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## Big7 (Oct 7, 2019)

NCHillbilly said:


> I have driven Chevys myself. I loved them when they were running.
> 
> 
> I have places to hunt with plenty of deer. I will be headed that way in a couple weeks. Right here, right now, it's all about hunting where the very few deer take advantage of the terrain and turn into ghosts.



I hear you.. If there is anyone in the hills that can handle the particular situation, I'm positive it would be you. ?

Just thought I'd extend you an invite if the situation up there changes.. ?


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## Buck70 (Oct 9, 2019)

Some people just don't get it. I would love to be able to what NCHB is doing. I am truly jealous of the experiences he enjoys. But I am happy he does. Thank you, NCHB.


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## deermaster13 (Oct 14, 2019)

Lord you can type! Cool story and good luck ?. The experience is worth it I think though. Beautiful country and fine rifle to tote  as well. I agree these old school muzzleloader are addictive for sure.


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## LONGTOM (Oct 29, 2019)

NCHILLBILLY, did you ever get a deer with your flintlock? I sure was enjoying your hunt. I was right there beside you.


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## NCHillbilly (Oct 29, 2019)

LONGTOM said:


> NCHILLBILLY, did you ever get a deer with your flintlock? I sure was enjoying your hunt. I was right there beside you.


Nope, didn't get one this year with the flintolock. Bears. Could have killed three if the season had been open; They were running the deer off the acorns.  Moved on to rifle and got meat in the freezer. There will be next year.


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