Knight Muzzleloaders:
A Gun That Every Hunter
Should Have By Cassie Dean

Hello my name is Cassie and every year starting in October of 2000 I would go hunting with my dad, Craig Dean. He would take me to go hunting for white-tailed deer with him. We would go hunting on our land in New London, Iowa. He would take his bow with him and get in a stand and then I would find a tree to climb and I would watch.

“Make sure that you don’t move very much, because the deer will see you,” he would say to me.

Then when December would come I would go shotgun hunting with him too. It was a lot colder, but it was still so much fun. I would get within twenty feet of the yearlings and they would have no idea that we were even there.

It wasn’t until September of 2001, that I was able to go hunting and be able to shoot my own gun. My dad would go out and sit with me during youth season. My first year I didn’t get anything during youth, but when shotgun season came, I ended up getting a yearling and a doe and my dad got a young buck. We were sitting up in the cedar trees and my dad tapped me on the shoulder and pointed on the top of another hill. There was a young buck working his scrape. It seemed like forever waiting for the deer to walk down the hill and back up to our hill. When it started to come up the hill we noticed that we were sitting on the trail it was walking on. I pulled up my gun and was holding it above my dad’s legs and I couldn’t see it very well. My legs started to shake so much, and then it turned and started to walk away from us. I told my dad that I didn’t have a shot, and so I told him to go ahead and shoot. It took off in a dead sprint and fell over at the top of the hill. We waited for awhile and then went to look at it. He put his tag on it and we headed back to go get the four-wheeler.

On the way back we noticed six deer. I couldn’t believe it; I was going to get another chance. It was crazy how much I was shaking when we spotted the deer on the other side of the creek. We had to crawl across an open field and when we got in range I pulled up and shot. It just dropped in its tracks. I had spine shot it. So I had to pull up and shoot again. When we got over to look at it, it was a really big doe.

When we got back, I was so excited to tell everyone that I shot a deer. We were hunting with two other people and they helped us load the deer on to the four-wheeler to take home.

In September 2002 I ended up shooting my first buck. It wasn’t very big, it was only an eight-point basket rack, but it was so cool to finally get a nice buck. My dad and I also tagged four more deer during shotgun season, but nothing special.

When August of 2004 came around, one of my dad’s friends talked him into getting a muzzleloader. So we looked into it and decided that we could hunt muzzleloader season also. So we decided to try and went out and bought two Wolverine muzzleloaders and a couple of scopes.
When we were target practicing, we couldn’t believe the power and accuracy of the guns. We were shooting water jugs, and it was crazy how far we could shoot and how accurate it was for such a far shot. It just made it even more exciting for us to hunt during muzzleloader season.

The first year that we took our Wolverines out to hunt, we shot a doe and a yearling. The excitement of waiting for the smoke to clear and see the deer dead in its tracks was awesome. We were able to shoot a longer and more accurate shot.

When youth season of 2005 came around I was too old to hunt, but my younger sister Breanne just got out of her hunter’s safety course and was able to hunt the youth season. My dad ended up buying her the Disc Extreme muzzleloader.

It was the last weekend of youth and I had to go to a volleyball tournament, so I couldn’t go with her. I was starting to get ready when my phone rang and it was my dad.
“She shot a big buck. Can you come get us?” Sadly, I couldn’t go since I was getting ready to leave. So Breanne got on the phone and said “it was so cool, we were watching them in the field and there were three of them. They were shoving each other around with their antlers. I waited and waited till the deer started to close in. It seemed like it was taking forever. So I pulled up my muzzleloader and was watching it through the scope. Then it turned broadside and I shot. When the smoke cleared, all I saw was the tail of the other deer running around. The one I shot was just standing there. It didn’t even move and then all of the sudden it started to stumble and fell over.” She was talking so fast it was hard to understand her. “I got my first buck, on my first shot, and it is a big eleven point buck. After we waited for a little bit, the young buck came back and was trying to coax it to move. It was like it was telling it to get up or something.”

I was so excited for her and I wanted to be there so bad. When I saw it for the first time, I couldn’t believe how nice it was. It had a lot of mass and it also had an acorn tip, which is very rare. Breanne was so excited that her first deer and first shot was a “wall mounter.”

We could not believe the accuracy on the muzzleloader and the take down power.

When muzzleloader season came around, my dad shot a really nice eleven-point buck. It was taller and an older deer than Breanne’s was.

During shotgun season we decided to hunt in Denmark, Iowa on a friend’s farm. We went there early that morning and we didn’t come home with anything, but my dad’s friend got a yearling. It wasn’t until the evening when the fun started to begin. I finally talked my dad into going to back up to Denmark to hunt. So we were all sitting within fifty yards of everyone. My dad was over the hill from me and I couldn’t see him. My sister was on the other side in a stand.

It wasn’t an hour into the hunt, when I heard a gunshot go off. So I waited a few minutes, then got out my phone and called my dad.

“Did you get anything?” I asked

“Yeah, I got a doe. She ran and lied down in the creek. I am going to move her onto the field. So just sit tight and I might scare some deer to you.” So I waited and a couple of doe came over the hill, but I couldn’t get a shot. They were in a lot of brush. It was only twenty minutes from when my dad shot and another shot came from his direction. I waited and he called me. “I got a old eight point. He isn’t very big, but is in bad shape. He went and laid down in the creek right where the other doe did.

After we hung up, it was less then a half an hour until hunting hours were over. Another gunshot went off. It had only been ten minutes since the last one. So I called him and he said, “I got a small buck. Go get your sister and we will go get the truck and drive it over to the corner of the field.”

By the time we got the truck to the corner there was about three or four inches of snow on the ground. We could barely see the doe that was lying on the field. We went and dragged the older buck that laid in the creek first. When we went to go get what he called a “small buck,” we couldn’t believe it, it was a huge twelve point, and it was a 7x5. It was so big. Breanne and I were so excited and were hugging our dad so much. We couldn’t believe it; it only took around a half an hour to take down all three deer. Two of the deer ran about ten yards, and the monster dropped in its tracks.

That year didn’t go too great for me. I didn’t get any deer during muzzleloader or shotgun; I didn’t even have a chance to shoot.

My dad and I decided to get a new muzzleloader. We ended up getting the Revolution, which was an easier gun to load for me. My sister didn’t get anything during youth season of 2006. During muzzleloader season it was finally my turn to get a deer. I was sitting on the edge of a field in Trenton, Iowa. I had been sitting for about an hour and it was the last day of the season. We had two tags to fill. I looked over to my left and noticed some movement about sixty yards away. I was in an awkward position and I had trouble getting my gun over the tree next to me. By the time that I got the gun situated and pulled up, the deer was about forty yards away. It was going to come down the trail right in front of me. I was watching it through the scope when it stopped and was faced right towards me. It had spotted me. The deer started to get jumpy, so I decided that I needed to shoot. When the smoke cleared the deer was in a dead sprint. I was starting to get nervous. “Did I miss, what went wrong?” I got up and walked over to where I had shot and it had made it about forty yards before it fell. So I quickly went back and sat down.

I started to hear something behind me, when I looked there were two yearlings. They ended up walking right in front of me, only ten feet away. It was so cool to watch them that close. It was getting close to the end of shooting hours when a doe and her two yearlings snuck in behind me. I was watching them for a little bit, then it was time for shot two. I pulled up and shot. She ran back towards me and dropped. I couldn’t believe it. That was my second deer in two years. I was so excited to tell my dad and sister that I finally got a deer. It was so exciting.

The rest of shotgun season didn’t go too well for us. The deer were scared and jumpy and we couldn’t get in our timber. We only shot one more deer and our dad shot it. It was a young buck that had a huge body.

I am very thankful for having our Knight muzzleloaders. They are great to have and the accuracy and power is something that every hunter is going to want to have when they step into their hunting territory.