Most blackpowder hunters are concerned about the maximum effective ranges of their CVA rifles, and maximum range is important. However, you’ll find that you’ll take more big bucks if you hunt close like longbow hunters do than if you hunt open spaces where long shots are required. While a blackpowder rifle that’s effective to 200 yards and more is essential for western hunters, who often have to take long shots at whitetails, mule deer, elk and antelope, eastern hunters very rarely will need to make shots at more than 100 yards.

Some of the most efficient hunters are bowhunters, especially longbow hunters who are limited to a maximum range of 20 to 30 yards. If you think and hunt like a longbow hunter when hunting with your CVA muzzleloader, you’ll consistently take more and bigger bucks each season. Whitetails are creatures of shadow and shade, except during the rut. They prefer to stay in thick cover, hold in isolated cover and only will move into open places after dark. The more mature bucks have learned that the greatest danger occurs when they cross open ground. Therefore, if you’ll learn to hunt with your CVA muzzleloader in thick cover, hunt the places no one else wants to hunt, look for bucks at distances less than 100 yards and spend more time scouting and less time sitting on a stand, you consistently will take more and bigger bucks than if you try to set up 100- to 200-yards away from where you expect the deer to appear.

Use trail cameras can scout for you. Once you identify the trails the deer are using, you can set-up cameras on different trails to determine the size and the number of bucks using those trails and the times of day or night when the better bucks are moving through the region. Then, by setting up a tree stand or a ground blind 50- to 60-yards downwind of that trail, you may have the best opportunity to take a nice buck on the day you hunt. Also, the closer you get to the buck you want to take, the fewer problems you’ll have with wind drift and having obstacles between you and the buck that may deflect your bullets. This season, instead of trying to set-up as far away from a place where you expect bucks to appear and depending on the accuracy of your shot at 100 to 200 yards to take that buck, consider hunting the opposite way. Get in close, try not to take a shot at more than 60 yards, spend more time scouting than you do hunting, and rely on your woodsmanship to identify the trails to and from feeding and bedding sites and scrape lines. See how close you can get to the place where you expect bucks to appear. That is how the best hunters, which certainly includes those who hunt with longbow, hunt.

When green-field hunting where you can make a shot of 100 yards or more, leave your shooting house in the middle of the day to pinpoint the trails the deer are using to enter and leave the green field. Follow these trails 100- to 400-yards back into the woods, and search sites where major trails intersect other trails. After checking the wind direction, set-up a ground blind or a tree stand at the intersection. Clear the brush between your tree stand or ground blind and the intersection of the two trails. Then when the buck appears, you’ll have a better chance of taking him.

The further you’re hunting away from a green field or an agricultural field the deer are using to feed, the better your opportunities are of seeing a big buck during daylight hours. Older-age-class bucks generally begin to move toward their feeding sites just before dark and begin to return there right before daylight. The closer you are to the bedding area, and the further you are from the feeding area, the better your odds are for taking an older-age-class buck at close range with your CVA muzzleloader. If you’re hunting a section of land with a lot of bow- and gun-hunting pressure, consider using a ground blind. In heavily-hunted places, deer will look for hunters in tree stands, often before they search for hunters in ground blinds. Too, in a ground blind, you can get much closer to the spot where you expect the deer to appear, while you remain unseen. You also can move more in a ground blind without a buck spotting you than you can when you’re in a tree stand. Instead of hunting at the maximum range of your CVA muzzleloader this season, you’ll take more blackpowder bucks, if you’ll hunt at ranges less than 100 yards.

by: John E. Phillips, longtime blackpowder hunter