Cut and pasted this from a muzzle loading forum, an interesting approach to hunting.

I've been trying to put together a re-enactment of sorts with an exotic hunt, black buck antelope.


I started today on an 800-acres piece of property where there has been a few smaller groups of 5 to 15 Blackbuck. I am trying a blend of old and new. I have a HECS suit under my buckskin jacket and pants, with moccasins and brown hat. I have a set of black goat horns attached to my hat. I am hoping to walk within a hundred yards or so of some blackbuck and then crawl right in among them like I am another animal. Anything inside 100-yards makes them fair game for my .54 caliber flintlock sporting rifle The closer the better.

Several questions:

What is a HECS suit?

Did wearing horns on your hat work? What kind of animal were you trying to imitate?

HECS has carbon fabric woven into the fabric. It is the Faraday Cage principle (like the mesh on your microwave door). Your natural electrical field is contained so the animals think you are an inanimate object. I put two black goat horns on a brown Stetson to look like an immature antelope of some kind. It seemed to work. They did not look in my direction....

You are a brave man.

This is private property, the people know I'm out here. I have a safety yellow "tail", a blaze orange belt around outside waist, an orange sleeve cuff on both biceps and an orange hat band.

Not sure I would try this is in mating season.

Maybe you should see a doctor?

All I have to add to this... I muzzleloader hunted with my 54 cal. Hawkin cap lock for a week after a really nice mature 8 point on my place. At the close of the last hunt I fired... I attempted to fire the load into the dirt, but when the hammer fell the cap didnt pop. Re-cocked it and fired again and it shot. Even if I had seen the buck I was after, the likely hood of killing him was slim to none.

I've been strongly tempted to buy a semi-custom flintlock from Tennessee Valley Muzzleloading, but it looks like it will take the better part of $2k to do things right. I think they offer good value, but I'd like to be sure that it's something I want to do regularly before dropping that kind of coin.

Before I would consider TVM, I would look at Jim Kibler. He offers a much better product.

Thanks for the tip!

I think it's cool that this guy is challenging himself to hunting a blackbuck in this manner. Not my cup of tea, but kudos to him for doing it, that's more "hunting" to me than the latest long distance trends.

That said, he must be targeting these blackbuck on very open land; if you use the wind and terrain properly, you can get pretty close to animals without needing high-tech garments or horns on your hat. See below, this was pretty close to a nice blackbuck while hunting hogs in Kimble Co. last year!