Stan I'm glad your story of most memorable misses involved a muzzleloader, because shooting them adds a whole different dimension to shooting and hunting. Early on, I had great success with my scoped centerfire deer rifles. In fact, it seemed too easy. I'd wait all year for the first day. I'd prepare by brewing up the most accurate handloads with good components. I'd sight in my rifle to be sure of zero, and practice on groundhogs. I'd do my pre-season scouting to improve my odds of having a buck near my chosen stand. Then, all too often, I'd have that buck walk by within the first hour of first light on the first day. I'd line up the crosshairs on the heart, squeeze the trigger, and it was all over. It seemed more like assassination than hunting. Back then, we could only kill one deer in my state, so for me, the season I waited for, like you count down the minutes to dove season, was totally over... except for the gutting and dragging.

I decided to buy a flintlock rifle to take advantage of our new flintlock deer season, and knew I would be intentionally handicapping myself. I quickly learned that the learning curve was even steeper than I imagined. As you know, you have only one shot. Reloading is much slower than just chambering another loaded round. The lock time is a bit slower, and it is a lot slower if you don't get everything just right. The flint you choose and the way you set it matters. The amount of the correct pan powder matters. Forgetting to prime your pan matters. One drop of rain or wet snow between the frizzen and barrel, and you will find you are carrying a dead rifle. And we are limited to open sights only... couldn't even use an aperture sight to help with precise shooting. I took it a step further and decided to stop using my scoped centerfire rifles entirely, and used the flintlock even in the regular season. I still managed to kill plenty of deer, but what used to be so easy suddenly became much more challenging, and much more fun. Killing a buck with a flintlock on a rainy day is a real accomplishment that makes you forget about being cold and wet.

I missed out on some shots simply because some deer just didn't hang around long enough to give me the additional seconds I might need to identify a legal buck using binoculars instead of a scope. I had some misfires, or flashes in the pan, and watched deer walk or run away before I could reload. The biggest thing I learned is that there really is no such thing as a brush rifle. I have had several misses that I just knew were impossible. I'd shoot from a steady sitting position at a standing deer at modest range, knowing my sights were dead on the heart. A veritable chip shot. The gun fires perfectly, and the deer simply runs off. Like you with that turkey, I'd be confident it would drop any second, but nothing. I'd reload and go to where it was when I shot and look for hair or blood, and find nothing. If there was snow, I'd follow the tracks for long enough to realize there wasn't going to be a blood trail. And in the several times that same thing happened, when I went back and replayed the shot from where I had fired, and carefully walked the path of the round ball, I would find a relatively small branch, twig, or sapling with a fresh .50 caliber notch in it. It was something I didn't see at all when I sighted on the deer, but that was all it took to deflect my ball enough to cause a miss.

One I'll never forget was when I followed the advice of the noted flintlock gunsmith John Bivens, on picking the perfect flint. I spent time at the black powder shop digging through a large fish bowl of English flints, and bought a dozen of the best in the bowl. Of those, I picked the best of the best, and set it perfectly in the jaws of the cock. I decided to not even dry snap it once, because I wanted to keep that perfect razor sharp edge until I was lined up on a deer. That season, I didn't get a chance for a killing shot until almost 5:00 PM on the very last day of flintlock season. I was still hunting in snow, and came up on three nice does feeding. I silently knelt behind a deadfall, lined up on big mama, cocked, set the trigger, and squeezed. The flint fell with virtually no spark, and the deer all looked right at me. I froze, and waited motionless until they resumed feeding. I tried again with the same result, and this time I really had their full attention. Not 40 yards away, they stared, cocked their ears, and pawed the snow, ready to bolt at any second. There was only one thing to try. I slowly put my hand in my pocket and grabbed my keys which had a Craftsman keychain screwdriver. With those three deer intently staring at me, I slowly removed my flint and turned it to the opposite bevel, aligned it with the frizzen, and tightened it back down. Again I raised the rifle, cocked, and pulled the trigger on an easy heart shot. And CLICK... a third misfire with no spark from my perfect flint. That was all those deer needed to finally run off snorting. All that was left was a mile walk back to camp in the dark, thinking about how many miles I had carried a gun that wouldn't fire that year. Three more tries into the brush pile behind the camp, and that damn perfect flint finally made some sparks and fired the gun.

And I was always cool with those misses and missed opportunities, because unlike those centerfire rifle seasons that ended in the first half hour, I could keep right on hunting.