I’ll have to admit, Lily’s late season muzzleloader hunting in 2021/2022 has been great. We’ve been on deer on every hunt, but something always seemed to go wrong. Maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it, but with all the bucks we’ve been seeing, it was a surprise to me that she didn’t have one down yet. Nothing on her…we’ve been bumbled by cows on two hunts. And on others it seems like deer were coming in but always just too late. And, it’s been mostly warmer keeping deer spread out feeding on green food, corn, soybeans, remaining acorns. Bottom line, they have been really hard to pattern.

New Year’s brought extremely colder conditions with some snow and strong winds out of the north. We’ve been seeing great deer movement even in the warmer temps…but this cold and snow would get the deer concentrated on grains. At least that was our thought process. In the spring of 2020, Lily and her boyfriend Mason helped me put in a few acres of soybeans and corn on what we call our cabin farm. These grain plots don’t always draw deer in great numbers, but when it gets cold and snowy those standing grains draw the deer and offer some pretty great hunting. It was those standing grains that we headed to on New Year’s Day.

Temps today were about 5 degrees with wind chills pushing 20 below zero as we headed to the cabin farm. The drive took an hour when normally we get there in a half hour. There were no cars on the roads. Drifts covered the back roads and made it difficult even for the 4×4 to make it through. I doubt many other hunters were out. But, we made it into our home made blind around 2:30. It was cold, but manageable as we settled in to our evening hunt.

The blind shook with the high winds. The snow came and went but the wind was relentless howling through the blind and making vision limited. If deer were hungry, they would be hitting these grains I thought. The deer moved early. We saw two 2 year old’s around 4:00. They fed heavy in the standing beans then left the field for cover. Then some does…they did the same gorging themselves on the beans then heading back into cover. Then more does and fawns…then a group of 4 bucks—all small. Every group did the same….gorging themselves on the corn or beans, then leaving for cover. By 5:00 we had seen maybe 12-15 does and fawns, and 7 or 8 bucks all do this same routine. With all the fields cleared, Lily saw several bucks heading our way from a farther plot we call The V. Two of the bucks were dandy 3 year olds…but nothing I wanted her to shoot on that farm. They made their way toward us and into the corn within shooting range. It was now late into the hunt. Only 10 minutes or so remained.

The windows in the blind were frozen over. It was difficult to see through the frosty plastic homemade windows and the blowing snow. But, Lily saw another buck come out facing straight at us from a plot we call The Boot. Where the deer came out it was too far and too dark already. She said “ok, there’s a really big buck coming out facing us. If he’s not a shooter I really don’t know what is at this point” I looked up with my binoculars and immediately saw that it was indeed a shooter. It was a buck we call Buster. He’s a massive 10 point with a drop tine. I hadn’t seen this buck on this farm since earlier this fall. No doubt…big mature buck and I let Lily know it.

By now, we having literally minutes left until legal shooting time is over. Lily adjusted her position in the blind to get a shot if Buster makes it to the corn. The corn would be a 150 yard shot. He was at about 200 right now. I looked at my phone…”Lily, we have about 4 minutes until quitting”. Buster made his way through the standing beans and into the corn. I had knocked down a bunch of the corn a few weeks ago so that we could shoot into it. I was now the spotter….”Lily, he’s now broadside…ok no shot…ok your good…not now there’s another small buck right behind him… ok your good again”. Lily was breathing so hard she kept fogging her scope and had to clean it several times. “Dad, I can see him barely through the blowing snow. And it’s getting dark”. Then the buck comes into an open spot in the corn. “Ok Lily…if you can’t get a good shot, don’t shoot….take your time….ok he’s broadside….ok he’s quartering away…CAPOWWWW

Normally when a muzzleloader goes off there’s total smoke out. You can’t see anything. But, not today. The 30mph winds cleared the smoke immediately. I saw the mule kick! The buck bolted back to where he came from but never made it to the timber. Buster was down!