MUZZLELOADING NEVER SAY NEVER

"Krahn, we’re going to kill two bucks today.” Best buddy Bart Landsverk is one of the most optimistic people I know, but I knew even he didn’t really believe it. It was the first day of our Iowa muzzleloader hunt — December 27 — the truck thermometer read 54 degrees and it had been raining cats and dogs for the better part of two days. I gave him the look, “Right.”

Hey, I always try to stay positive, too, but it seemed to me that those deer that weren’t hunkered down tight would be moving well after dark. The only hope we had was that a cold front was supposed to move in that evening, and that it might be enough to get deer up on their feet early.

Bart and I have been going down to hunt with our friend Matt Harper for several years. Matt was born