Comanche 6
AH member
Here’s a story from a hunt I went on last year. As I write, I’m on a gawd awful flight to India and thought this might pass the time. The punchline is if you have a ton of elk preference points in Colorado, consider burning them on Area 76 and reach out to Ash Tulley at Rio Grande Outfitters. He’s a hard man, he’ll push you, but he’s a terrific hunter and if you can hang with him it’s worth it.
I didn’t have enough points to draw one of the “premium” Colorado units for rifle season so I elected to try my hand with a unit considered “good but not great” and do my first ever hunt with a muzzleloader. It was a true back country experience into the wilderness that is only manageable to reach by horseback.
We hunted hard for 4 days of a 5 day hunt and had some reasonably close calls but hadn’t sealed the deal. For our final morning we planned to sit on a spring in a high meadow. As we approached the meadow we heard a bugle exactly where we were planning to hunt. We redirected our approach to maximize using the wind and as we neared the meadow we immediately noticed several cows. We set up right at the tree line and saw the bull. Ash ranged him at 140 yards as I set up using shooting sticks. That’s a decent shot for a muzzleloader but I was locked in so I squeezed off the shot - the bull immediately dropped and cows went everywhere.
We reloaded the muzzleloader and eased up to about 25 yards but out of his view. We could see the bull rolling on his back, legs kicking in the air and struggling to get up. We waited about 10 minutes and then decided to move slightly to get to a position for a finishing shot. As we moved he saw us and jumped up like he had just been taking a nap! The next few minutes are a blur. He took off at a run and I dropped to a seated position and shot again as he was quartering away. I hit him again. The bull slowed to a walk but kept going. A “rapid reload” ensued and I then ran to get to another shooting position. As I was moving I could hear a “dinking” noise and noticed the ramrod was not seated in the rod holder. I tried to seat it, while running and looking for a shooting spot, and noticed it was in backwards so it couldn’t lock in. I found a shooting spot, dropped to a seated position, set up on sticks and fired again from about 70 yards. When I squeezed the shot it felt pure but the recoil felt different and Ash heard a “pi chow” noise while seeing dust hit several yards to the right of the bull. The bull continued to walk away and so the “rapid reload” effort was on again, but there was no ramrod to be found. Anywhere. There was nothing to do but watch the bull as he walked away so I did the strangest thing, I took out my phone to take a picture of what I thought would be a lost bull. It was honestly the sickest feeling in the world. The bull walked into the tree line and laid down where we could just see the top of his horns. We waited for what seemed an eternity and then slowly walked up and found him expired. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized just how big he was. He’s a 5x7 that scored 347 gross. That’s a “great, not just good” bull for me.
I still can’t piece what happened together with that ramrod in those frantic few minutes. Did it come out of the holder as I was running? Possible, but I’m sure the rifle was pointed up as I ran. Did it come out when I set up to shoot? We searched everywhere. Did I set up for the shot in some way on the shooting sticks that led to the ramrod slightly elevated into the bullet travel path out of the bullet, catching it and sending it down range? This doesn’t seem possible. The most likely scenario (and definitely one I don’t want to admit) is the ramrod was still in the barrel and I sent that baby down range. This was my first muzzleloader hunt and I hadn’t trained enough on “rapid reloads.” It serves as a reminder to train as you’re going to hunt.
I can’t believe I’m going to post a story as a newbie to this site about shooting the ramrod out of my barrel.. but hell, sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself. Go ahead, have a laugh too
I didn’t have enough points to draw one of the “premium” Colorado units for rifle season so I elected to try my hand with a unit considered “good but not great” and do my first ever hunt with a muzzleloader. It was a true back country experience into the wilderness that is only manageable to reach by horseback.
We hunted hard for 4 days of a 5 day hunt and had some reasonably close calls but hadn’t sealed the deal. For our final morning we planned to sit on a spring in a high meadow. As we approached the meadow we heard a bugle exactly where we were planning to hunt. We redirected our approach to maximize using the wind and as we neared the meadow we immediately noticed several cows. We set up right at the tree line and saw the bull. Ash ranged him at 140 yards as I set up using shooting sticks. That’s a decent shot for a muzzleloader but I was locked in so I squeezed off the shot - the bull immediately dropped and cows went everywhere.
We reloaded the muzzleloader and eased up to about 25 yards but out of his view. We could see the bull rolling on his back, legs kicking in the air and struggling to get up. We waited about 10 minutes and then decided to move slightly to get to a position for a finishing shot. As we moved he saw us and jumped up like he had just been taking a nap! The next few minutes are a blur. He took off at a run and I dropped to a seated position and shot again as he was quartering away. I hit him again. The bull slowed to a walk but kept going. A “rapid reload” ensued and I then ran to get to another shooting position. As I was moving I could hear a “dinking” noise and noticed the ramrod was not seated in the rod holder. I tried to seat it, while running and looking for a shooting spot, and noticed it was in backwards so it couldn’t lock in. I found a shooting spot, dropped to a seated position, set up on sticks and fired again from about 70 yards. When I squeezed the shot it felt pure but the recoil felt different and Ash heard a “pi chow” noise while seeing dust hit several yards to the right of the bull. The bull continued to walk away and so the “rapid reload” effort was on again, but there was no ramrod to be found. Anywhere. There was nothing to do but watch the bull as he walked away so I did the strangest thing, I took out my phone to take a picture of what I thought would be a lost bull. It was honestly the sickest feeling in the world. The bull walked into the tree line and laid down where we could just see the top of his horns. We waited for what seemed an eternity and then slowly walked up and found him expired. It wasn’t until this moment that I realized just how big he was. He’s a 5x7 that scored 347 gross. That’s a “great, not just good” bull for me.
I still can’t piece what happened together with that ramrod in those frantic few minutes. Did it come out of the holder as I was running? Possible, but I’m sure the rifle was pointed up as I ran. Did it come out when I set up to shoot? We searched everywhere. Did I set up for the shot in some way on the shooting sticks that led to the ramrod slightly elevated into the bullet travel path out of the bullet, catching it and sending it down range? This doesn’t seem possible. The most likely scenario (and definitely one I don’t want to admit) is the ramrod was still in the barrel and I sent that baby down range. This was my first muzzleloader hunt and I hadn’t trained enough on “rapid reloads.” It serves as a reminder to train as you’re going to hunt.
I can’t believe I’m going to post a story as a newbie to this site about shooting the ramrod out of my barrel.. but hell, sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself. Go ahead, have a laugh too
