“You missed,” said Dale Yonkin, owner of Central Montana Outfitters. But I knew I’d seen the puff of smoke right at the base of the big mule deer’s shoulder. “I can’t believe that,” I whispered. “I held dead-on, I squeezed the trigger, I didn’t jerk it – well, I can’t believe I missed that deer.” “Forget it,” Yonkin explained. “Reload, and take a second shot.” The mule deer hadn’t budged. Because he was on one side of a canyon, and we were on the other, he didn’t know from where the report of my CVA muzzleloader had come. Using a CVA speed loader, I quickly reloaded with Pyrodex pellets and a PowerBelt bullet, rammed the charge home, put-on another primer and readied for the shot again. “Aim about 3-inches above the deer’s back, right on top of the shoulder,” Yonkin suggested. “The deer’s at 150 yards, the gun’s sighted-in for 150 yards. I’m sure you’ll get him this time.” I took my time, I had a steady rest, and I was sure of where I was aiming. I squeezed the trigger, but the big mule deer never moved.
“Reload,” Yonkin told me and asked, “How many speed loaders did you bring?” This time he was frowning more than smiling. Once again, I quickly used another speed loader, rammed the charge home and readied for the shot. “Aim about 6-inches over his back this time,” Yonkin coached. I thought to myself, “6-inches over the deer’s back is Never Never Land. How do you know what 6-inches really is at distance of 150 yards?” But I sighted-in on the deer’s shoulder, moved my reticule 6-inches above his back and fired again. The deer went down. “You’ve got him,” Yonkin announced. “But, go ahead, reload, give me your gun, and start walking out. When you reach the truck, the keys are behind the back front wheel. Drive to camp, get your gear packed-up, and be ready to go to the airport. Once you’ve got your gear and the other hunters’ gear loaded in the truck, come pick me up. I’ll have your deer out of the mountains and waiting beside the road.” Embarrassed at missing the deer twice, I simply answered, “Okay,” and followed Yonkin’s instructions.
I couldn’t understand how I’d missed so badly. The first thing you think about is hunter error, but I knew I hadn’t made any mistakes. The second thing you think about is, “I’ll just blame it on the 
gun.” But I couldn’t do that either, because this was Chad Schearer’s personal CVA rifle that he’d loaned me for the hunt. Schearer had sighted it in, and I had shot it and knew that it would drive tacks out to 200 yards. Schearer is the host of “Shoot Straight with Chad Schearer”. I was embarrassed and frustrated over my poor shooting demonstration. However, a week later, I got a call from Schearer, who said “Well, we figured-out why you missed that mule deer twice. The gun was 12 inches low at 150 yards. Apparently, the scope got jostled, either when y’all were riding around in the truck looking for a mule deer to hunt, or when you were walking and climbing. But we re-sighted the rifle in, and it’s shooting just as good as it did before you took it hunting.”
This time wasn’t the first time I’d missed a deer due to the scope’s moving from the time I sighted it in until the time I took the shot. On another hunt, several years earlier, I had had two back-to-back hunts. On the first hunt, I dropped a deer within 10 yards of where he stood with my CVA muzzleloader. After the hunt, I cleaned the gun, put it in my case, drove home, took the gun out of the case and put it in my gun safe. That weekend, I packed-up and went on a second hunt. The gun had been dead-on during the first hunt. So, on the second hunt, I didn’t bother to sight it in but concentrated on arriving at camp, since I was a little late for the afternoon hunt. My guide said, “If your gun was on last week, it should be okay now. We’ll sight it in tomorrow to make sure. We’ve got to get you in a stand quickly.” I climbed into the stand immediately, but I missed the white-tailed buck of a lifetime. The moral of the story is, regardless of how accurately your blackpowder gun has shot in the past, sight it in before every hunt. And one tip I’ve learned that’s critically important, almost as critically important as sighting-in before the hunt, is to sight your rifle in after the hunt. Many times, your scope can be off after you’ve made the shot, because you’ve climbed down a tree or come out of a ground blind, gone to your downed deer, loaded the deer up, put your gun in the vehicle and ridden back to camp.
From these lessons, I’ve learned to never assume that my gun will be as accurate as it can be, until I sight it in just before the hunt and just after the hunt. Even then, maybe it’s on, or perhaps it’s not. But at least you’ve done everything you know to do to make sure that you can shoot as accurately as possible with your muzzleloader. If you hunt long enough, sooner or later you will miss, either from operator error, equipment failure or the deer doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do when he’s supposed to do it. Misses happen – they’re part of hunting. Our job as ethical hunters is to try to keep those misses to a minimum. For more information on hunting mule deer in Montana, visit www.centralmontanaoutfitters.com, or contact Dale Yonkin at 406-781-9061 or info@centralmontanaoutfitters.com.