Question: Tony, tell us about a buck that you found with your trail-camera surveys in June and then took when muzzleloader season arrived.

Smotherman: I found a deer in Illinois that we called the Big Seven before bow season with our trail cameras. We lost him during bow season and didn’t see him for several weeks. Later, we found him again. He was coming to our food plots during the second muzzleloader season, probably to meet his does, because these same does stayed in this food plot for most of the year. We took that buck during that second muzzleloader season. Now don’t get me wrong. I will shoot a doe as quickly as anyone, since I love to eat venison, and does produce some of the best-tasting and tender venison. However, when I’m going to take does, I prefer to take them during the early season. As the time gets closer to the rut, I don’t take any does, because I want those does to attract the bucks I do want to take. If your area has only a short doe season, and you have to take those does over green fields, stop taking does at least 2 weeks before the rut begins. I’ll also take does at the end of the season, if the landowner wants more does removed off his property. The place I’m hunting and the management system of the landowner usually dictates when and if I take does.

Question: What tips can you give our readers that will help them take a buck this season?

Smotherman: You need to:

• · Be extremely gentle with your hunting in the early season, and don’t put a lot of hunting pressure on the big bucks you want to take.
• · Try to get as close as possible, even though you can make a shot out to 100 to 200 yards. Be extremely quiet and cautious as you move-in and set-up to take that buck. Never go into the area where you have your tree stand set-up, if the wind’s not right to hunt that region. If that big buck you’re hoping to take ever smells you, he may move to a new zip code.
• · Get to know your blackpowder rifle and how far you accurately can shoot before you go hunting. I feel confident to take a deer up to 200-yards plus away with my CVA Apex. You also need to know how your gun performs out to 100, 150 or even 200 yards, because deer don’t always appear where you think they will. If your tree stand is set-up to take a deer over a green field at 40 to 50 yards, that buck comes-out at 150 yards, and you decide, “I think I can make that shot,” then more then likely you’ll miss your buck. However, if you’ve been shooting your CVA rifle and know for certain where that bullet will impact the deer, then you can honestly say to yourself, “I’ve made that 150-yard shot before, and I know where to aim. I can take that buck.” You’ll have a much-better chance of taking instead of spooking the buck you’ve been photographing with your trail camera since June.

With my CVA Apex, I know for certain I can put three PowerBelt bullets inside the bottom of a coke can at 200 yards. I spend time on the rifle range with my gun, testing different types of bullets and setting-up the mill dots inside my Nikon scope to make that shot. Putting-in the time out on the range is what will tell you whether or not to take those shots. The reason Charlie Daniels is a far-better fiddle player then I am is because he’s spent a much-more time playing his fiddle then I have mine. The person who spends the most time on the range getting to know what his or her CVA rifle will do at different distances will be able to shoot far-more accurately at longer ranges than the hunter who goes to a rifle range the week before the season and shoots three rounds at 50 yards and says, “I’m ready to go hunting.”

Question: Tony, BPI (Black Powder Products, Inc.), which owns CVA, sells interchangeable Bergara barrels for the CVA Apex. What barrels besides the .50-caliber barrel do you use and why?

Smotherman: Bergara makes many different barrels for the Apex and the Thompson/Center Encore rifles. There are several reasons why a hunter may want to purchase an interchangeable barrel of a different caliber. One reason is the ability to easily change a muzzleloader from a muzzleloader rifle to a centerfire rifle. My first choice for a second barrel is a .243-caliber Bergara barrel. When my two young sons, 13-year-old Alex and 10-year-old Andrew, go with me to the range, I’ll have a rifle set-up with the .243-caliber barrel for them to shoot. I can train them to shoot a rifle with the .243, because it has little recoil, yet is still a deer-caliber rifle. The boys can get accustomed to learning to squeeze the trigger, rather than pulling the trigger, and they can get used to recoil, without becoming fearful of the kick. They can shoot that .243 all-day long without getting a shoulder bruise, and it helps them to shoot a rifle without flinching in anticipation of the recoil. The .243 has plenty of knock-down power to take-down a deer in any hunting situation. A friend of mine actually hunts mule deer with a .243. With the .243, my sons can practice with me on the range, and then when we go hunting, they have a rifle they’re comfortable shooting that they can shoot accurately and use to harvest deer.

In less than 30 seconds after I shoot my .50-caliber rifle, I can remove the .50-caliber barrel and replace it with the .243-caliber Bergara barrel. Then Daddy’s gun becomes their gun. Their scope is mounted to that .243 barrel, so they don’t have to wait a long time to begin shooting after I’ve finished shooting. Each Bergara barrel I have has a new scope mounted on it, and that scope stays on that barrel. So, when I change-out barrels, I also change-out sighting systems. One advantage of the CVA Apex is that the barrel and the Apex’s platform is pieced together so tightly that once I have a particular caliber sighted-in, even when I change barrels, I don’t have to re-sight-in the scope, because the scope on each barrel is dead-on when it’s put on the Apex. Also, with the .243, I can take my boys hunting with me. Whether we’re in a ground blind or a shooting house, if a big buck I want to take doesn’t show-up, but one of the boys wants to take a doe, I easily can change-out barrels. Then my boys can take does. The interchangeable barrel system makes hunting more fun for me and my family.

Every year we spot different deer that have unusual appearances. We tend to give them a nickname.  This year while guiding outdoor writer Luke Hartle of North America Hunter for a mule deer in Montana we spotted a buck that we named Mr. Freak.  Luke wanted to take him but he gave us the slip in the fog on 2 different occasions. After Luke’s hunt ending in success but Mr. Freak still roaming with 2 days left in the season it was my turn to hunt. OF course I didn’t have good conditions with temperatures reading -35F with the wind-chill and thigh deep snow. My wife Marsha was hunting with me and actually spotted him, Mr. Freak that is. The reason this buck earned this name is because his antlers grew back to within an inch and a half on top.  Having my cameraman, Lanell with me we decided to make a stalk.  Marsha agreed to watch him from a distance covering his escape route in case he tried to give us a slip again.  Lanell and I made a long stalk through the deep snow to get to him.  The closest we could get to him we found after using my Bushnell rangefinder was 350 yards. (www.Bushnell.com) The wind blowing 20 m.p.h. in our faces but across the valley it was blowing left to right.  I miscalculated the wind and shot right behind him. I knew it was my miscalculation because my CVA Apex in .300 Winmag was dead on.(www.CVA.com)   I corrected my windage looking through my Konus Pro 3X9 scope (www.Konus.com)after the buck had moved out an additional 38 yards I took my shot.  This time the bullet blew the top of his heart off 388 yards the CVA Apex in .300 does it again.  

Chad Schearer

 Host of Shoot Straight T.V.

Editor’s Note:  Dudley McGarity is the CEO of Blackpowder Products, Inc., owner of the CVA brand.  He is an avid muzzleloader hunter and has taken game all over the world with various CVA muzzleloaders.

I have been lucky enough to hunt hogs in a lot of different places and they are for sure one of my favorite big game animals.  However, when my friend O’Neill Williams called and invited me on this particular hunt, I knew that it would be different from any swamp rooter chase I’d ever done before. 

We were headed to the Georgia coastal marshes, near Savannah, Georgia.  The folks we were hunting with run the famous Dorchester Shooting Preserve, one of the finer quail plantations in all the piney woods of southern Georgia.  Of course, the game we were after was not quite so dignified as “Gentleman Bob.”  And we would not be hunting on the manicured confines of the plantation either.  Rather, we’d be accessing thousands of acres of tidal marsh that adjoins some of Dorchester’s deer hunting leases, which are composed of several high ground peninsulas and islands – known as “heads” – surrounded by the sometimes wet and sometimes wetter tidal marshes. 

When the tide is out, these hogs will move out into the marsh grass to feed on all of the tasty morsels that the sea has left behind — not really any different than the way the black bears feed in the tidal areas off the coast of Alaska.  Such was the case when my guide, De French, pointed the shooting sticks toward the horizon where, even at about 1000 yards distant, a good size serving of fresh pork stood out like a bump in a bog.  And when we got the Konus binos on him, there was no doubt that he was a good one. 

By the time we got to within 200 yards and I came up on the shooting sticks we were wet to waist and more than a bit chilled from the rapidly dropping temperature.  However, I was shaking so much from the cold and the excitement (okay, mostly the excitement) that I could not hold steady enough to feel good about the shot.  I told De that we needed to get closer.  As the boar put his head down to feed we crept and crawled until the distance was cut to about 96 yards.  This was close enough.  As the boar moved across a high spot, I leveled my .50 caliber CVA APEX muzzleloader and aimed the shot at top of his back.   The 250 grain PowerBelt AeroLite took him hard in the spine and he dropped in his tracks.

So many hunters associate the rut as being the best time to be in the timber looking for big deer, but I really prefer late season as a time to pattern a big whitetail. I know this does not sound normal, but when the weather gets nasty the big boys will get back to an early season pattern by coming to the food sources. This is for one reason…they are simply run down from the chasing they were doing during the rut. They are very predictable this time of year since they’re movement is determined by their belly. The need to feed in late season has put a tag on many a big deer’s antlers!
This last week I spent some time with the CVA .50 caliber APEX at my favorite Illinois hot spot which is in the heart of the Golden Triangle in Brown County. Illinois Connection is a place that I have been visiting for over ten years to take part in the late gun and muzzleloader season that the state has to offer and the hunt below is the exact reason why.
We all know that Illinois is covered with food sources that deer are drawn to. The most prevalent is corn and soybeans..both are hot when it’s cold outside. On this hunt I targeted a farm that I had been on many times before because of the history of big deer there plus I had several trail cam pics off my Moultrie Game Spy camera of a big 7 point that I really wanted to introduce my APEX to.
The first morning, not wanting to blow the field out, I eased into to cut cornfield just at daybreak to prepare for an all-day sit. This kind of hunting can be mentally tough, but you never know when those old bucks might get the urge to feed especially when the mercury is falling.
The activity, surprisingly to me, was very slow in the morning, but deer seemed to trickle in throughout mid-morning. As lunch time approached, I knew this as my stomach was starting to let me know it was sandwich time, a big doe and two yearlings eased into the field at straight up 12 noon and begin to feed the whole time looking back over their shoulders. Noticing this, I lost track of what they were doing and kept my eyes pinned on the trail they walked in on. At 12:08 I noticed another deer heading up the hardwood ridge and could see the white flash of head gear. I pulled up my APEX, adjust the scope power, and waited for the buck to step in the field, but as big deer often do, he stood 20 yards inside the timber and watched the does. As he watched them I watched him and truthfully, I don’t think he even blinked an eye for ten minutes. This was starting to freak me out because I didn’t have a clear shot and the does were feeding their way back into the timber. In another 3 minutes the standoff was over and my shooter 7 was easing back down the ridge that he walked in on with his girls. No Shot!
The next morning I was back in the same field but this time I was on the timber edge that the big 7 was standing on the day before. I did this for two reasons, because of a late night wind change and it would also let me get a shot into timber if he came in to watch his does feed again.
At 11 am, my cameraman tapped me on the shoulder and said he thought the same three does from yesterday were heading through the timber straight towards us with the big 7 following 40 yards behind them. I grabbed my APEX and eased myself into position before they got to close.
 As the does walked by at 20 yards they did not have my wind but they knew something was not right so they started to hot foot it into the cornfield. Seeing the does uneasiness, the big 7 skirted me just outside gun range and entered the field 80 yards further down than they did..fatal mistake on his part. Still feeling uneasy about what was up in the the fence row, the does fed and walked simultaneously across the field which, if the big 7 followed, would lead him into an area that was only 100 yards from my muzzleloader.
Just like I had hoped it was written out somewhere in story book land, he cleared the brush and stopped at 104 yards quartering away. With his mind now occupied on his does, I eased back the APEX’s hammer and settled the crosshairs behind his left shoulder. When the smoke cleared, my quest of the big 7 was over at a few minutes after 11 am on the second morning of my Illinois muzzleloader hunt. 
This hunt will air on Moultrie’s The Hit List next fall on The Outdoor Channel.