Ed Muse takes a giant on bow opener. How about you?
The early archery season isn’t the best time to kill a monster whitetail, but it happens.
And it happened Saturday to Ed Muse. I started hearing rumblings about this buck yesterday morning, and I was able to catch up with Ed (who lives in Goode) this morning.
Muse was hunting a 200-acre farm in Amherst County on Saturday evening when this bruiser showed up. He had a picture of the buck from a trailcam back in August.
“I knew the deer was big,” Muse said. “I just didn’t realize how big.”
Muse has been so beside himself since he shot the deer that he admits he didn’t do a very good job of counting points. He’s relying on a friend who told him it had 21 points of at least an inch. According to a couple of folks who ran a tape to the antlers, the gross rough score under the Boone and Crockett system was somewhere in the 184-194 range.
I oftentimes lead my Tuesday column after a Saturday opener with a quick hunter anecdote before getting into a general report. I’ll have to touch on Ed’s deer for the column I’m writing today for tomorrow’s Roanoke Times. But it’s too good a story for a brief, so I’m going to save details and do a longer story about it for a feature for my Outdoors page in Friday’s paper.
Those of you who read my column in yesterday’s Roanoke Times got my opening day report. In short, I saw three yearling bucks, any of which I could have shot with my crossbow. I let them pass.
I was hunting with my crossbow because I wasn’t feeling good about how I was shooting with my compound bow. I was shooting fine with field tips but when I put broadheads on (Thunderhead 100s) I couldn’t get it to group well at all. I had switched to Thunderheads a few years ago because I was worried that I wasn’t getting the energy needed out of my fairly slow bow (old, with a draw weight of only 53 pounds) to ensure good penetration with a mechanical.
Thunderheads have done fine for me, and have shoot reasonably well. Not sure why that’s changed. For what it’s worth I tried shooting a Spitfire and it was awful. But maybe it was the arrow.
Anyway, I knew the crossbow was shooting fine (I use mechanicals with it) so decided to not take any chances.
As for hunter success on Saturday, I know at least one buddy killed a nice buck because he texted me a couple hero shots. How did the rest of you do?
Did anyone get out this morning?
Let’s hear some reports.
Also, let’s hear some plans. If this rain doesn’t get too heavy I just might go this evening. I will probably go to that spot where I saw those bucks on Saturday. Rather than the crossbow I think I’ll take my recurve. I’ve never killed a deer with a recurve, so I won’t be picky.
October 8, 2012 - 11:51 AM
WOW! That is a true monster no matter where it is from, but to come out of Virginia! that’s amazing. Congrats Ed! That is one heck of a buck.
Holy cow what a buck! Congrats Ed!
Thats a monster thank god something big came out of virginia.
Nice buck! Was out Saturday, saw a couple of does, only one within shooting range but not within shooting light. I should have called in today, the weather will have deer moving for sure!
Hey Mark,
If you want to stay w/ fixed blade broadheads, i would recommend trying some Slick Tricks. I use to shoot Thunderheads and they are a good broadhead but Slick Tricks are better in my opinion. They truely fly like your fieldpoints and are relatively inexpensive. Do some google research and see what you think.
Great buck! Mark, have you tried slightly adjusting your rest? Broadheads will err in the direction they’re pointed; for example, if they shoot low, tweak that rest up a hair. That usually always gets my Thunderheads shooting where I want ‘em.
NICE BUCK,BUT YOU COULD HAVE WAITED TILL THE LATE SEASON TO MAKE SURE BE PAST ON THE GOOD GENES….HA HA ..CONGRATES
a heartattack buck for sure!
Mark,
Not a bow tech myself but echoing what Pete Acker said above, the solution to dialing in broad heads and field points is to adjust your arrow rest to bring them to the same POI. Then move your sight to match that point sort of like bore-sighting a rifle. And if your bow is that old head to Ebay and buy “The Hottest Bow Of The Year!!!” …… from 2005
I have always said that once a bow is setup correctly, unless your bang your bow or change sites or rests, there is absolutely no reason to touch the rest and sites FIRST. They didn’t just change. And a properly set up bow shoots field tips exactly the same as fixed broad heads. Mechanical BH’s are good at masking poor arrow flight. If “something” changes b/t years, and arrows spin and you aren’t torquing, it is in your string 99% of the time. Strings and cables stretch. If they do, you lose draw weight and your knocking point/peep also moves proportionally. It is a step by step process to put the points together, but never touch the sites or rest first. Also, WHEN strings stretch non proportionately, then your timing is off. You can check this at full draw. On a two cam bow, your cables should hit your draw stops at the same time. So, here is what I would do in addition to checking tiller, axle to axle length, and brace height which are all marked on my bow.
1. Spin arrows
2. Make sure you are not torquing
3. Check timing and if off
4. Make necessary twists and check draw weight
5. And if draw weight is off, adjust
6. Paper shoot and hope are shooting bullet holes b/c remember, the bow should have been set up properly to start, so it should shoot bullet holes at this point. If it doesn’t, it wasn’t set up right from the beginning or something got whacked.
7. Then shoot fixed broad against field tips and they should shoot the same.
8. Left right should be good, but make micro adjustment on knock if up/down off. NEVER touch rest.
9. If Fixed BH’s are shooting the same as Field tips but slightly off center, then you can adjust sites after a couple days of shooting to make sure it is not form.
10. Start shooting in June every year, because inevitably, this will happen every year and this process takes a while to work “itself” out.
11. Finally, do the straight line walk back test.
My bow man loves to work on my bow because he knows I wont touch a thing when things are “off.” Most times, it is the timing that changes b/t seasons. Remember, your bow is under 50+ lbs of pressure all winter/spring….it will stretch and I don’t buy into that pre-stretched string thing!!! Two cam bows are hard to keep in timing!!
Good luck!!!
Congratulations Ed!! That is an absolute World=Class monster Whitetail!!!Man, it thrills me to see this caliber of deer being harvested in Virginia!!! If I shot that deer I believe I’d do a Full Body Mount and put it slab-dab in the middle of the living room!!!!
Saturday I hunted a mountain-top Ridge and the wind was AWFUL! At around 10:00 AM had one of the big bucks I knew was in the area approach, (saw him on game cam!). Instead of taking the trail on upwind side of my stand he went behind me to the downwind side…… you know the rest of the story! But it gets better….. 15 minutes later another of my game-cam friends shows up….. a Beautiful Black Bear! He takes the same trail as the buck, hits by scent stream abd bolts out of there like he was on fire!
Mark – as far as bow problems go it’s all about Preparation! you need to “paper tune” to get your arrow flight corrected. With your older bow that is not shooting at blistering speeds you should have no problem with broadhead flight if you adjust per the paper tear. EASTON has a great document called the “arrow tuning and maintenance guide” that you can print at thier website. I’ve had a copy in my bowcase for years! It explains all about paper tuning and is a great resource for the bowhunter. I actually paper tune with the broadheads on the arrow and though it took some tweaking on my new bow the broadheads shoot fine. I’m shooting 3 fixed-blade head, 70 lb. draw, 300 fps
Awesome buck. Mark as said above try the slick tricks. I shoot the magnum 100 grains. Fly like a field point and perform extremely well on deer.
Well as the “bow expert” comments roll in on broadheads of all things debated I will just congratulate you on a smokin deer! Thats a beast man. Got all them experts jealous. We all dream of those when we close our eyes in the stand.
To get close enough to ANY buck this time of year to get an archery shot worth taking is great, and is not an easy thing to do at least in my experience. To get close enough to this ol’ Wiley guy to take him with archery equipment is exceptional. What a buck! Talk about starting the season with a bang!
What a monster, Ed and with a bow nonetheless. Congratulations on a remarkable and once in a lifetime bruiser! Your buck and Mark’s story about your successful hunt are making the rounds on the World Wide Web, as they should.
How old was he?