Muzzleloaders inspire history-minded shooters

By Bob Frye
TRIBUNE-REVIEW OUTDOORS EDITOR
Sunday, October 16, 2005

Mark Pushkis is going to drive less than 200 miles this weekend, but he's going to travel across at least 165 years.
He and several friends drove to New Florence on Friday to camp out, pre-1840s style.

Lean-tos covered with tarps are serving as their homes for the next few days. They're eating over open fires started with flint and steel. They're dressed in garments made of leather, linen and wool.

They're carrying flintlock rifles modeled after those from the Colonial era, too. Pushkis' firearm is a .62 caliber French fusil smoothbore, designed to look and shoot like a gun from the late 1600s.

 The reason? The state's early muzzleloader season is in full swing -- it began yesterday and runs through Saturday -- and history-minded sportsmen like Pushkis and his friends are filling the woods.

"We kind of really like this early season," said Pushkis, who lives in Scottdale. "We use it to do a primitive deer hunt. It's not too cold. The weather's really perfect for what we're doing.

"And it's a lot of fun. It makes doe season a little more exciting for us."

Not all muzzleloader hunters go to the extremes that Pushkis and his companions do. But there's no denying that the early muzzleloader season is an increasingly popular one.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission sold just 83,208 muzzleloader licenses in 1997, when the only season set aside specifically for blackpowder shooters was the one held during the two weeks immediately after Christmas.

Since the commission created an October muzzleloader season, though, license sales have steadily increased. Last year, the agency sold 200,193 muzzleloader licenses.

Those hunters killed only about 18,000 deer, according to commission statistics. But the difficulty of taking a deer with a muzzleloader is actually what makes the sport so much fun, said Ed Kavulic, a Greentree resident and president of the Independent Mountain Men of Pennsylvania.

"The big thing is the challenge," Kavulic said. "It's very different than hunting with a high-powered rifle with a scope. You're got to outthink the deer. You're not just lucking out.

"When you get a deer with blackpowder, you're really done something. That's the tops for me."

A muzzleloader is capable of killing a deer at more than 100 yards under the right conditions, agreed Larry Smail, who lives in West Kittanning and has been hunting exclusively with a flintlock for about a dozen years. But shots of half that distance are more reasonable to take.

Even then, you have to make sure that shot is a good one, Smail said, since the process of reloading after firing your one ball is relatively slow.

"You have to know your limitations. You can't shoot hastily, which means that you see a lot of deer that you don't get to shoot at like you would if you have a modern rifle with a scope," Smail said.

"You have to go into this with the mind-set that you don't have to get a deer. You go out just to enjoy the day. If you get a deer, that's something extra."

Hunters can use in-line muzzleloaders -- a sort of hybrid gun that combines blackpowder with more modern technology -- in Pennsylvania during the early season. That's undoubtedly played a role in the growing popularity of the October season.

But, across the country, it's not uncommon for hunters who start out with inlines to switch to flintlocks eventually, said Terry Trowbridge, spokeswoman for the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association.

"What we a lot of times see is that those guys then fall in love with the older-style rifles and want to progress backward, I guess you would say," Trowbridge said.

Pushkis has been a flintlock guy from the time he started hunting with blackpowder 20 years or so ago. He loves it as much now as he ever has.

"To me, the challenge, making it as hard as you can to get a deer, is what it's all about," he said.

He's got some kindred spirits in Smail, Kavulic and other muzzleloaders who love hunting much as their forefathers once did.

"My wife always says I was born about 200 years too late," Kavulic said. "But that's OK. You put on your buckins and grab your flintlock and you're back in time."

Blackpowder shooters won't be the only deer hunters in the woods later this week. From Thursday through Saturday, junior hunters ages 16 and younger and seniors ages 65 and older can hunt antlerless deer with a modern rifle, provided they have a general hunting license and a doe tag.

Also eligible to participate in the three-day season are hunters whose disabled person permits allow them to use a vehicle as a blind and state residents who are on active duty in the military.

Combined, all of those kinds of hunters killed about 11,000 deer in last year's three-day October season.