Made myself a bit of a resolution this year,to do the majority of my hunting with my muzzleloader guns. I've hunted my entire life with bows and modern cartridge firearms,but I've so far only really played with muzzleloaders.
So yesterday I decided to muck around with my (possibly) 170 year old grundmann sxs 12g caplock. I wanted to pattern a load of AAA shot for shooting foxes. 1.5oz over 72gn of 2f with 6mm leather wads seemed to pattern as well as I expected at 20m,and more than well enough to take a fox.
So,this morning,after staying the night at my sisters place with my son,I went out fox calling. Tried and tried and tried again. Used my tenterfield my button whistle,and lip squeaking. In all my favourite spots that have produced in the past. Nothing. So I just decided to stalk around the one small patch of scrub on the place. Straight away I flushed a rabbit which I THOUGHT stopped just at the entrance of a hole in the blackberry. BOOM ! Then another one hops out so BOOM again. Got that one !
Unfortunately a load of triple A at 10m makes not for good eating so gun empty I decided to head home,only to have a fox trot across my path while my gun was empty ! A quick kneeling reload in the middle of the paddock still was too slow,and no amount of calling would bring him in,so home again it was.
Halfway up the paddock,right next to a swampy area covered in 3 foot tall ti trees,I jumped a hare out of some bracken at my feet. I quickly thumbed back the hammer,and when he cleared the bracken at 20m,let him have it ! I thought I missed,because he kept going into the ti tree,but I saw one shake like he'd ran into it,which is unusual for a healthy hare,and I thought I'd seen him carrying a rear leg. I went in to have a look at where I'd seen the tree shake,nothing. Walked around a little looking for blood,nothing. Went back out of the patch and replayed the events in my head,and decided to walk circles in the patch as the more I thought about it the more I reckoned I'd hit him. Sure enough,about 10m from where I'd seen the tree shake but in the opposite direction as to where I thought he was travelling I found him piled up. With a broken leg . So I took a photo and cut him up ready for my tea. Gotta love this old shotgun,and just goes to show it pays to have a proper look sometimes !