Good luck to you!  I didn't put in for a ML tag this year, cause it is the last 2 weeks of December, during my wife's 2 weeks off.  She doesn't like me going out into the woods every day during the holiday time.

Well, we finished our muzzleloader season on Christmas day.  We both filled our tags on Christmas.  What a wonderful day.  Now I have the 2 does to cut down bone and process before our extended antelope season starts on Saturday.

That's really great news!

I'm sure that everyone would like to hear the stories of both deer.

Hunting with a muzzleloader is really spcial.

Even with the modern inline rifles, the substitute propellants and the saboted, copper-jacketed bullets (Davey Crockett, eat your heart out) - there' just something special about stuffing that stuff down the barrel and seeing that plume of smoke come out the front.

It's cool!

Thanks for the report - we'll be looking forward to some detailed accounts.

Well, we went out on Christmas day to do a little muzleloading.  I had been going out on my own and the deer were running away from me.  So we had the strategy that Scruffy D Wolf would drive to a spot(close to where I shot my 8 point buck in November), walk over the hill and park himself to ambush any that ran away from me.  He called me when he got to the area where he would start his hike.  I then left the house and walkedaround the landlord's property to the access to the Black Hills National Forest(1/10th of a mile from our house).  As soon as I walked in I jumped a doe and fawn and naturally they ran.  They ran straight over to where Scruffy was waiting, but he couldn't get a shot because of the trees and the doe knew just how to use the trees to guard her vitals.  I continued up and over the 1st hill toward one of my stands and then along the logging road then up another hill and around the thickets where deer hide.  I made a circle getting me back to the logging road and went toward 2 of our stands(really just rocks to sit in) and had deer running everywhere.  I counted 14 and that's not to bad within 1/2 mile.  I continued along the logging road going around the bend toward where he was sitting.  As I was getting ready to round another bend, I looked to my right and there was a deer standing there watching me.  I stepped back, waved my arms to get it to run, but it just stood there.  Well that was a "gimme", I shot and she went straight down.  When he heard the shot, Scruffy waited a bit to see if any were running to him, but nothing.  Had the deer(it was a small one) dressed and ready to drag out of the woods when he walked up to me.  He just had to tease me about "ruining" his hunt, but had a big grin on his face.  We dragged the deer to the vehicle and then we went to check out some more forestry land northwest of town.  We saw plenty of deer and he even got to put a stalk on a few, but never got a shot.  It was getting close to the end of the day and I had suggested that we go back to where we knew we could get close to some deer, but as we were leaving the woods, we saw 3 a little ways ahead.  He started the stalk and got the shot.  The doe he shot ran down the hill away from him and as he was contemplating a long track, she came right back up the hill and ran into a  fallen tree that she had tried to jump.  She backed up and did it again before plowing to a stop under a fallen log.  He had to drag her out from under it, but he got his Christmas deer.  We went home and had 2 to skin before nightfall.  It was a very Merry Christmas for us.  hunting on Christmas is the best present.