Taste and texture is a matter of age, diet, and what happens after you take the shot (speed of death, dressing, butchering). The best tasting venison I've had came from a small doe shot on the edge of a cornfield.
The zone I'm in is "hunter's choice." You're allowed one deer of any sex and that's it. I'm a meat hunter and I don't care about antlers. If it will fill my freezer, I'm blasting away.
I am not normally a deer guy (I'd prefer to watch and feed rather than shoot and eat them), but I am still a hunter... Warning: sad animal story below: Spoiler Late last night/early this morning, I was out hog hunting, maybe 150 yards away from the latest house on our property to fall victim to the destructive assholes that are feral pigs. Unfortunately, I watched through my scope as what appeared to be a large buck tripped in one of the trenches those fuckers rooted in the yard, rolled, and suffered what appeared to be a broken left front leg. It got up and hobbled away. By the time I reached the area where it happened, there wasn't much in the way of tracking to be had, and after searching the area for a bit listening, I called it a night. Woke up this morning, went back to roughly the same area where I last saw the animal, and about a half hour later I found the poor thing in a thicket. Both its front legs were shattered at the knees, and it couldn't support itself. At that point, the only humane thing to do was put it down, as there was no way I was going to save it. My .40 cal bullet entered its heart and it was dead before it fell over. Second shot gave it a definitive end. Well that may not have been my target game of choice, nor did I receive any substantial satisfaction in disposing of the same animal which would frequently visit my feeder. But, I know a pretty rack when I see one, and I am not going to turn down good venison. So I pulled out my hunting license with tags I never intended to use, and took it to the processor for gutting, cutting, and a European mount. (Sorry, don't know how/too lazy to turn the picture around.)
Anyone know any decent ways to clean a deer skull for a European mount? A lot of stuff Ive see all has you boiling it. I don't have anything to do it outside though and wondered if there was an easy non boiling way? Id strap it to a tree and let nature take it's coarse but I'd rather like to do it quickly and not lose any pieces of it.
Yeah, those are neither cheap or easy to keep and maintain and come with the added bonus of giving you fucking nightmares of living with flesh eating bugs. Pass. I was really hoping for a simple method along the youtube method I found for skinning the deer (the golf ball deer skinning worked like a fucking charm).
Place it on top of an ant pile. Stake it to the ground and cover it with a bucket/tub. That ants will get most of it cleaned off, the rest comes off with a water hose.
They hibernate underground. Yeahhh I don't think that's gonna work so well. My cousin euro-mounts his deer and he boils them. I think they look awesome. What is this golf ball skinning method you speak of? Caping a deer carcass is not my favorite part of butchering.
Ha... I didn't think about that. It is usually warm enough, down here, to do that during the winter. katokoch is right, boil them. Get a fish cooker and a pot big enough to get the skull in, minus the antlers. And isn't the golf ball method simply cutting around the legs/butt, wrapping a golf ball into the hide, tying it off and then hooking it to a four wheeler or something?
I started at the neck but yeah, you wrap the golf ball, in my case a rock, in skin, tie a rope around it and hook it to a vehicle. Took the skin off in 10 seconds. Be sure to tie it in an even spot with the symmetry of the body. I tied it to one side and it pulled some of the meat apart on the other side, but it didn't ruin anything.
Sweeeeet. Bottom line it sounds like it's fun to watch too... like one of those ideas that started with "Hey man hold my beer!" that doesn't end with someone dying. Was the carcass warm or cold/stiff when you did it?
It had been hanging for a day. Though with the force of the vehicle I don't know if it would have mattered. Pretty industrias:
Really, PETA? <a class="postlink" href="http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/286047/71/PETA-wants-Turkey-Texas-to-change-its-name" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/286047 ... e-its-name</a> If I shoot a deer this weekend, I'm dedicating it to those dingbats.
This is my latest creation. Actually, two of my latest creations. It's amazing what you can do with some old wood scraps, a dado blade, some old crank baits and plastics, some 80 lb Sufix, and a little creativity. And if you think that's impressive, you should have seen what I used to make the mobile! I figured I might as well put the fishing bug in his head early.
Mama made me take the hooks off. I said that it's never too early for a safety lesson. She disagreed.
Deer are stupid and suck. Spoiler It got cold and snowy this weekend and the lowest it got was 4 degrees F. However we hunted Saturday and Sunday morning and evening and my buddy shot a spike on Saturday while I only saw two shootable does that were obscured by brush on Saturday evening. Son of a bitch. It was cold but I got some nice shots with the camera in my phone. There were maybe only 15-20 shots heard all weekend. This was the third fucking trip deer hunting I've been on that I haven't taken a shot at a deer. I still enjoy it but I'm going to do what I can to shoot a bunch next year. Food plots are in the works. What sucks is the rising wolf population. Once again I was hunting in a place that had a bunch of them. Some spots had as many wolf tracks as deer tracks. My buddy had a wolf walk down a deer trail that was at closest 10 yards away from him and apparently the wolf was relaxed and brazen. Those bastards have to get a season soon. I shot one grouse. That's it. But some people manage to shoot some big ones. Spoiler We visited a friend of my buddy's family at their house a couple miles from the fields we hunt over the weekend. On Saturday we left their house at about noon, then he got a text photo of his friends' wife with the buck. Turns out she was cleaning up with their daughter in the living room, the daughter saw the buck in their 80 acre backyard, and the mom shot the buck standing on their back porch. 11 shots later, it was dead. Perfect 10 point, just over 200 lbs. At a meat locker near St. Cloud. Another big 10 pt. buck, maybe 225.
Just took a look at the extended forcast for Maryland and it's going to be really warm while I'm down there hunting--low 60s during the day and it might get down to the upper 30s at night. Looks like we'll have to use that walk-in cooler to hang deer this year. On another note--Black Cloud for birds...are they worth it?
Good times. I went out with a couple of cousins yesterday and we got to watch a cloud of mallards at the opposite end of the lake. Several groups came and visited us so I brought home four (woohoo). One cousin is several years younger than us and has never been duck hunting before so it was thrilling for him to get to shoot some birds. Effinshenanigans- I used a Hevi-Shot blend and it hit them pretty hard... none of them went anywhere once they hit the water. There was a good 1" of ice along the shore and reeds. Thicker than that in spots. I've been on warmer boat rides. Spoiler Wheee! It was the first time I've been waterfowling with a dog so I appreciated having him in da boat. His name is Judge and he always finds 'em guilty. Good pooch.