This 9-point survived 6 weeks of archery and 2 weeks of regular rifle season in a 4-points-per-side antler restriction zone in PA.

His 10-weeks of luck ran out on the third day of PA’s flintlock muzzleloader season, which runs for 2 weeks starting the day after Christmas. That’s when he crossed my path at 63 yards, along with two smaller bucks that did not meet antler restrictions. The 370-grain, .50-caliber Maxi-Ball bullet (that I cast myself), sitting atop 80 grains of FFFg powder, was flawlessly launched as the T/C premium agate flint struck the cold-steel frizzen on a cloudy, snowy 18° day – exactly as it was designed to do. The Maxi-Ball found its mark precisely and lethally. The deer dropped in his tracks.

He’s not a giant buck, but he is a special one, as he represents my first-ever opportunity at harvesting a legal buck in PA’s flintlock season.

He is my 7th flintlock whitetail in the past 10 years, all of them taken with the same T/C Hawken Flintlock rifle and load.