We had hunted hard all of the early muzzleloader season. We were down to the last day and still did not have Wanda on video taking a buck with her smoke pole. It was not the fact that we were not seeing deer, because we were. We had seen lots of deer, but had not found a buck that she wanted to shoot. The shooters that we had seen were always out of muzzleloader range, or at least out of Wanda's comfort zone.
I had gone to a stand on a morning when we were not filming and just after daylight I met up with a buck that suited me just fine, so I let him have it. Now the sun was sinking behind the western horizon, leaving only a few minutes of legal shooting left in the season.
"Wanda, there's a buck running a doe in the south end of the field," I said as I focused my binoculars on the distant deer. "There's a bigger buck coming out on the west side, too. He's got some does with him," she whispered. "They are a long ways out of muzzleloader range, though." "Well, the wind is out of the south, what do you think they are going to do?" I asked. "They will work their way down here like the normally do," she replied 
"but they will have to hurry if they are going to get here before dark."
"Here he comes," I whispered as I watched the buck head down wind across the hay field. "You better get ready. He most likely will work that scrape under the sycamore tree by the fence." The buck came to about one hundred yards before turning to the right towards the scrape under the sycamore. With the camera running, Wanda moved into position where I could video over her shoulder. As the buck worked the overhead licking branch, Wanda squeezed the trigger. I lost sight of the buck when the cloud of gray smoke erupted from Wanda's gun. I quickly picked the buck up as he lost steam and collapsed in the hay field.
With daylight almost gone, we walked across the field to the fallen buck under the full harvest moon. Wanda has taken many bucks with her muzzleloader, some bigger than the eight pointer that she posed for pictures with in the hay field, but there have been few that she had to work so hard for.
Like it normally is during the early muzzleloader season, the weather had been pleasant, 
the colors were at or near their peak making the multi-colored landscape more beautiful than it was already. The bucks were chasing does, but the full-blown rut would not peak for several more days. The hunter pressure had been light, so the deer were following their normal movement patterns which would be disrupted as soon as the modern gun season opened. All in all, it had been a pleasant time in the woods with my wife in pursuit of our favorite game animal, the incredible whitetail.
I firmly believe that the early muzzleloader season is a great time to be in the field chasing whitetails, and though they have a longer range than bows, hunting with a muzzleloader is still a one shot challenge. If you haven't tried hunting deer with a smoke pole, now would be a good time to get started. Good Hunting! tommy@tommyandwanda.com
reprinted by permission: Paxton Media Group
Under a Full Harvest Moon