Here it is, Dec. 24 - no grand kids to spank, no relatives to argue with . . . and a relatively "dead" phone . . . been squirtin' cores all day . . . about three O'clock PM, the wind had died off to under 15 MPH, with a nice overcast and the thermometer almost hitting 30 Deg.! :) For lack of a better plan, I decided to step out back and try to pick off the 160 ++ buck which I've seen lurking about . . . and I thought I had him! But - the ground shrinkage gods struck again - obviously, my judgement was impaired! ;) It turned out that, on this buck, which I mistook for his larger kin, both brow-tines were broken off - which I entirely missed observing - and, upon seeing the stronger (left) side, I was too hasty in believing this one was the 160+ ten-point I'd seen three weeks ago. Still, I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to have an opportunity to take another nice IA white-tail using the White muzzle-loader which I got from [the late] Dan Hackett four years ago - surely, Dan is smiling from heaven on this Christmas eve. :)
The 50 yard shot was executed with a 420 Gr. White sabot HP, driven by a pair 50 Gr. Pyrodex pellets, which were ignited by a Rem. 209 M-L primer. The steeply angled away shot dropped the buck in his tracks, but he slid down a slope several yards before stopping against a handy Osage Orange tree. This pic was snapped prior touching or moving the deer. RG