The Blunderbuss

The weather was great, so I grabbed my .58 cal Jaeger flintlock and my blunderbuss and went to the mountains looking for a bear. It was more a scouting run, since it was still early in the season to find bear. Still, a hunter is a hunter and I had to take a look.

I checked soft mud for tracks. I saw coyote, deer, and moose tracks. I saw three beautiful mule deer. That is always a treat. There were no signs of bear scat on the dirt mountain road. I kept looking.

Half way up the mountain, I saw something about 75 meters ahead, on the left of the road. It was nothing more than a black object, as big as a bucket. It could have been a log. I have been fooled before and stalked up on an imaginary bear, which turned out to be a log. But this black object had two bumps exactly where ears ought to be.

As usual, my hunting pack was on the floor next to me. It had all kinds of helpful gadgets. I had binoculars, a range finder, knives, compass, etc.. Sometimes I even open the pack and set the binoculars and range finder on the seat close by, so I could get them when I needed them. Then there are times that I am so eager to get out there, that I forget those tools. This was one of those times. So, I eased the transmission to neutral, and let the truck quietly roll backwards into the shade of some towering fir trees. I watched the black thing…and then it moved!

I quietly opened the truck door. The bear was still there. I grabbed the two flintlock guns and made a stalk towards it. The body of the bear was obscured by a little hill. I had to get up to that hill so I could get a shot. I almost made it to the hill and the wind changed for an instant. The bear got my scent and I heard it crashing through the woods making its get away.

“Oh well, that was exciting,” I thought. I could feel the effects of the adrenaline and the excitement. The bear was gone, so I quietly walked back to the truck, started the engine, and slowly began to move forward. I had hardly moved and I saw movement, black movement, but this time on the right side of the road, on the embankment. Some small trees were obscuring my vision, but that meant that they would screen my movement, too. I turned off the engine, grabbed the guns and primed the pan for the .58 cal rifle.

Crouching, I crept forward, staying in the shadows, and only moving when the bear dropped its guard. I don’t think the earlier dose of adrenaline had completely gone, and now I was felt like I was pushing 30% adrenaline. I made myself move slowly and breath deeply to help manage the excitement.

I don’t usually get so excited on a bear hunt. If I am carrying my .45-70 or my .375 H&H, I am only slightly excited. What made this so much different was I was carrying two flintlock guns I had made myself. Flintlock guns are finicky. They have to be loaded and managed with great care, or they may not fire. That thought, suppressed as I tried to make it, kept the adrenaline pumping.

I crept within, oh…50-60 meters. If I had my range finder, I would have known for certain; but no, it was still in my pack in the truck. Anyway, there was some brush between me and the bear. I didn’t want to take the chance of trying to plough a bullet through the brush because if the bullet hit a branch, it could be deflected on its course, and make a poor hit.

The bear knew something was up. It kept stopping, and sniffing the air. I think it must have picked up a trace scent from the truck, because I was now down-wind from it. The bear moved a little closer to a small opening, and I eased to the right to gain a shot. The bear took another step and I raised the rifle and aimed.

The front sight settled on the image of the broadside heart-lung area of the bear. I went through the mental checklist: set trigger-good, hammer back-good, sights-good. I touched the trigger and was greeted by a cloud of grey smoke from the muzzle. The bear was hit hard but wasn’t down. It was actually coming down the embankment, and in my direction.

I tend to fancy myself as a reasonable man, and the thought of just standing there with a wounded bear coming in my direction didn’t seem prudent. So, I moved away a couple of meters, and shifted my attention to the blunderbuss. I had to prime the pan before it could shoot. I was using a priming horn from a buffalo that my great grandfather had picked up in South Dakota, in the 1800’s.

I primed the pan, and closed the frizzen. The bear was just arriving at the gully next to the road, about 12 meters away. I cocked the hammer and raised the heavy barrel to aim.

The blunderbuss has a flared muzzle and no sights, so one doesn’t aim it, one points it and shoots. I had it loaded with 150 grains for black powder and nine .44 cal round balls. In the 1600 and 1700’s, the blunderbuss was the weapon of choice for close quarter combat. I hoped I had loaded it right, because I rather needed it to work just then.

I pointed the big muzzle at the bear, and it raised up on its front feet, looking directly at me. I pulled the trigger and sent nine heavy balls in his direction.

After leaving the muzzle, the lead balls begin to spread out making a lethal kill zone of about two feet in diameter at that range. Four of the bullets scored in the chest, and it slumped to the ground, dead.

When I was little boy of 8 years old, my grandfather Joe Pishion, told me that he trapped a wolf in Wisconsin and killed it with a blunderbuss. I don’t really know if he was telling the truth, or just giving me some country humour and spinning a yarn. I never forgot that story, and it gave me the idea to try to hunt with the blunderbuss one day. April 23, 2010 was the day that I fulfilled a dream that I held since childhood. There was something very satisfying in that hunt. I hadn’t felt that much excitement in a long while.