Tennessee hunters trade one long gun for another Saturday.

Muzzleloader season closes Friday and rifle season opens Saturday. Of course, during the rifle season, hunters may use bow, muzzleloader or rifle. Just be sure and wear the required hunter orange. The bag limit is still three does a day and a total of three bucks for season here in Unit L.

Naturally, as is usually the case, the perfect weather we had the last few days of bow season turned warm again for the opening of muzzleloader.

However, the temperature Saturday morning was a chilly 34 with clear skies and calm winds, perfect weather for deer hunting.

I seem to be bitten by some sort of bug. I was doe hunting. I was not going to kill a buck unless I thought he was the largest one I was likely to see all season.

So, all I saw was small bucks. I had a four point and a six point adopt me for over 10-minutes. At 10 o’clock opening morning of muzzleloader season, I went home. My plan was to wait for the good weather days. After all, with five deer already in the books, I did not really need to kill any more.

I did not hear a lot of shooting. In fact, I only counted four shots. Hunters around the state seemed to have a good opening day. A total of 14,872 deer were  checked in statewide.

Here in Wilson County, hunters checked in approximately 216. Of that total, 136 were bucks. Figures for the entire muzzleloader season will be coming later.

I decided to try an after noon hunt Tuesday, Nov.6, the second day and a morning hunt on the seventh. Still, unless it was a bruiser, I was doe hunting. Yep, small bucks and no chance for a shot at the doe I did see.

That is how it went for a week. If I saw a doe, she was running, in thick stuff or two far away to shoot. But I had plenty of little bucks including a half rack eight that wanted to adopt me.

I finally told him to leave or I would shoot the other half of his rack off. I was bemoaning how bad my season was going until something occurred to me. I had the opportunity to kill a deer every time I went hunting. Hard to ask for a better week than that.

With temps warming, I figured I would give it a shot Saturday, Nov. 10. But when I woke up at four, I just did not feel like going.

One of the great things about being my age, no longer guiding for a living and having plenty deer meat in the freezer is that I can just go back to sleep if I want to. So, I did.

And that is how my first week of muzzleloader hunting went.

As far as I can tell, around the state, hunters did well. Approximately 27,000 deer were killed the first week. That is not bad when you consider the first year we had a muzzleloader season, 1982, only 400 deer were killed.

Contact JOHN L. SLOAN / This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it