Frye: Flintlock Hunt Tough But Fun

By Bob Frye

There are different ways of keeping score in the outdoors.

Not all are good. If you get hooked up with a guy who's loud about how many more trout he has caught or pheasants he has shot, who crows about his successes and revels in your defeats, that can ruin an otherwise good time in a hurry.

But there are fun ways.

A group of flintlock hunters I spent time with back in the day used to count clicks, bangs and hits.

We'd split up, put on drives, move some deer around, then take a tally. Clicks were the times someone had pulled a trigger without getting their gun to fire, either because their powder was wet or the pan powder had fallen out or something else had gone wrong. Bangs were when the rifle fired without doing damage to the local deer population. Hits were when someone killed a deer.

It was an awful lot of fun, even if there were a lot more clicks and bangs than hits.

Some of that should have been expected. There may not be a tougher game than trying to tag a deer in the post-Christmas flintlock hunt. It started Dec. 26 and runs through Jan. 10.

Deer populations are at their lowest point of the year, the weather — always an issue when you're shooting blackpowder — is often dicey, and there are few hunters in the woods to move game.

The result is a small harvest.

That's despite a rule that, in theory, makes things easier. Hunters with a flintlock license can shoot a buck with an unused back tag, provided it has the right number of points, or a doe with a doe tag, of course. But they can shoot a doe with an unused back tag, too.

Still, according to information from Pennsylvania Game Commission spokesman Travis Lau, hunters took just 1,800 bucks and 8,000 does last flintlock season. That was up over the previous year but still represented less than 3 percent of the total deer harvest for 2012-13.

Bucks are especially tough to come by.

Wildlife management unit 2D gave up 140 antlered deer to flintlock hunters last year — and still led the state by a wide margin. Only one other unit even gave up as many as 100.

Units 1A and 2C gave up 70 each, unit 1B 50, units 2A and 2F 40 each, unit 2E 30 and units 2B and 2G each. A couple of units, including 2H, gave up as few as 10.

That's likely a bit misleading. Hunters sometimes shoot a deer with a bald head, only to find out that it's indeed a buck but one that's dropped its antlers.

Jeannine Fleegle, a biologist with the commission, said biologists every year check bucks that lost their antlers by the regular rifle season. They continue dropping them thereafter.

“Natural variation and general health (which relates to nutrition) of a buck contribute to the timing of antler drop which occurs any time from December through March,” Fleegle said.

But maybe that's another way to keep score.

Finding a buck sporting legal antlers is one thing. Getting a shot at it is another. Actually bagging it something else altogether.

The odds aren't in your favor. But what fun it will be playing the game.

Bob Frye is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors.

Flintlock Season Presents Greatest Challenge For Hunters

By Bob Frye Pittsburgh Tribune Review

Hunters this week get the chance to tackle what is perhaps the biggest challenge on Pennsylvania‘s sporting scene — Taking an antler-wearing buck with a flintlock.

If history holds, about 125,000 people will take part in the three-week, post-Christmas flintlock deer hunting season.

Combined, they‘ll spend about 450,000 days in the woods. And, if all goes well, only a little more than 1 percent will kill a deer sporting antlers. 

Last year, hunters managed to kill an estimated 127,540 bucks over the course of all the hunting seasons. Just 1,440 of them were taken with a flintlock. 

In unit 2A, for example, Pennsylvania Game Commission estimates show archers took 1,950 bucks last year, rifle hunters 5,100.

Flintlock hunters, by comparison, took 50. In unit 2C, archers took 2,450 bucks while rifle hunters got 5,700; flintlock hunters took 50. In only two units did flintlock hunters even manage to reach triple digits in buck harvest. They got 150 in 5C and 100 in 2D.

“It‘s not easy, there‘s no doubt about that,” said Eugene Nagel, owner of Cooperstown Trading Post, a muzzleloading shop in Valencia. “The late season can be tough.”

There are a number of reasons for that.

One is that the pool of bucks is smaller in flintlock season — the last deer season on the calendar — than at any other time. Chris Rosenberry, chief deer biologist for the Game Commission, said just 60 percent of the bucks that were roaming the landscape at the start of fall still remain.

A portion of those bucks would not be legal for harvest, either, given that they wouldn‘t meet minimum antler restrictions.

It‘s also true that the later into the season, the greater the number of bucks that will have lost their racks. Rosenberry said most will drop their antlers in January and February, but some lose them earlier, even during the rifle season.

“I know in the rifle season I saw a couple of half-racks already. And I heard from quite a few guys who experienced the same thing,” said Glenn Fisher, owner of Mountain Main Sports Shop near Somerset.

Flintlock hunters can legally shoot bucks without antlers, said commission spokesman Jerry Feaser. But when they do, it‘s technically recorded as an “antlerless” deer.

“We don‘t expect guys to be able to tell if a deer without antlers is male or female. That‘s why 
the general backtag becomes an either-sex tag in flintlock season,” Feaser said.

Of course, the fact that flintlock muzzleloaders are such primitive firearms makes taking any deer, let alone a buck, a challenge.

“They‘re capable of killing a deer out to 100 yards, but the thing is, you‘re shooting with open sights,” Nagel said.

“You can shoot at that distance, but that‘s all you‘re doing, shooting. You‘re not shooting at the heart or anything specific.

“Myself, I like to keep things under 75 yards, and 50 is better.”

The weather can also be a factor, Fisher said. Flintlock hunters spend a lot of time trying to keep their powder dry in snow, sleet and freezing temperatures.

The later into the season it gets, the less willing some hunters are to brave those conditions, he said.

But the season is also a time of family, fun and tradition, Nagel said. Muzzleloader licenses sales aren‘t at the peak they were in 2004 and 2005, Rosenberry said, but they‘re still double what they were throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

“It‘s a sport that seems to be going pretty strong,” Nagel said. “I think it‘s because of the timing. Kids are off school, parents have some time, and they all go into the woods. It‘s a bonding time.”

That‘s whether anyone shoots a deer with antlers or not.

Pennsylvania‘s flintlock deer season runs from Dec. 26 to Jan. 12 statewide.

Hunters can take a buck with their unfilled backtag — antler restrictions apply — or an antlerless deer with that backtag, a doe license, or deer management assistance program permit.

Hunters need not wear fluorescent orange, but Game Commission officials urge them to do so for safety‘s sake, especially if hunting in places like management unit 2B, which has a concurrent doe season for shotguns.