Something a little Different

[senseisugarbear]

Let's try this topic out, Beings it's 100 degrees out. How many DEER do you use in a year? Do you do your own buthering? What do you do with the carcass.......I'll bet we get some INTERESTING responses.,,,,,,,,,,,,Myself, I need 2-3 deer to get through the year. Nebraska allows 2 bucks by any method(1 to permit) Then along the River systems you can buy Antlerless only permits (2 to a permit) That gives me the meat that I need.( REPLACES BEEF) I don't hunt horns.I'll shoot any Large bodied buck. and I leave the short noses alone ( young of the year) I hunt for a large dry Doe. If I find one I'm done.I won't fill my last permit ,unless I come up short W/ the other 2. I bone them out and GRIND it all to course hamb. We use it better that way. I take the bones and trimmings back to where I hunt to feed the critters. Hides go to the Fur Buyer. He trades a very nice pair of deer skin gioves lined with Thinsolate for each hide. ...........BE SAFE>>>>>>>>WALLY

 

[Henry Miles]

2/year keeps my other meat supplemented usually. I also grind most of my meat, process it all in the front yard and finally in the kitchen. Wife helps pack it up. I vacuum seal so it's fresh all the way until next harvest. Carcass/guts and hide go to nature for recycling. Does are better meat, bucks can be chewy. Prefer to harvest does for groceries! Horns are cool but not very useful past a certain quantity. I hunt in my backyard on my own 14 acres. Herd management program in place!

 

[Grimord]

3-dee rwill provide all the red meat my family (2 of us) needs for a year. I am permitted to take up to 6 deer in a season with all the required permits. I prefer does and young bucks, but will shoot a big racked buck if it comes within range of my muzzle loaders. I butcher my own deer into chops, steaks, roasts and stew meat. All gets vacuum sealed and put in a dedicated game chest freezer. The carcass, bones and hide are put in a pile that gives me a 100 yard clear shot from a blind at the coyotes that eventually come to feed on the remains.

 

[sb 54 cal.]

1or2 a year shoot mostly does. At my age I will watch a lot more before I get serious about taking one. Do my own butchering.

 

[Patocazador]

I kill 3/year on average. I butcher two and put them up and give one to my non-hunting son. His family loves venison but none of them go hunting.
I won't be around much longer so they will be forced to hunt or beg from hunting friends.

 

[Stykbow]

If we really make an effort we’ll eat two, but more realistically just one. Nowadays I usually won’t shoot more than two. I’m not saying I wouldn’t shoot more if the mood struck me. I’d just give it away to the many non hunters I know who like venison. I butcher them myself. I ain’t the best you ever seen, but I get by.

 

[deermanok]

2 deer are plenty for the wife and I. Do my own butchering.
I leave the gut pile where I find my deer and the carcass gets dumped out back in the woods. The vultures clean em up pretty quick.

 

[Bigpete]

We could EASILY got through 3 deer a year.

 

[Dutch7]

We have trouble eating 2 a year, just my wife and I, when the kids were home 3 did us nicely. Usually take one a year sometimes two, I took two last year and missed a third thankfully. I have mine processed professionally. I’ve done it but would rather pay someone to do it better.

 

[The Crisco Kid]

When we lived on Prince of Wales Island in SE Alaska we ate 3 or 4 a year. The season ran August through November with a 4 buck limit. We also ate a lot of salmon. It was my wife and I and 2 kids. We moved further north in SE and were out of the deer area but we ate moose. One moose would last my wife and I and our bachelor neighbor for 2 years. Now I'm back to hunting the grocery stores except for a javelina and if I'm lucky a buck during muzzleloader season this October. At least the beef and hog season is always open at Safeway. It sure don't shine beside deer and moose though.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

When I was single, I’d hunt elk and get mostly deer. When I moved out and got a roommate, an elk would feed us for a year. Add more roommates and a deer or two and things were plentiful for us allI. We were a fun crew back in the day.

33 years ago, I was newly married, and suddenly I had another person that relied on me. And as my little family grew over the years, the need to fill the freezer grew. I’d get minimum of an elk and a deer each year…as my family grew, I’d add to my meat larder by bringing home a couple antelope, out of Wyoming. I also supplemented this with lots of geese. I love goose hunting, and when the limit was 5 geese per day…the meat adds up. Goose sausage is some of finest sausage you can eat…add to that goose chili, or Philadelphia Cheese Steak Sandwiches made from goose. My goodness goose is a versatile meat, once you have a lot of it and need different ways to prepare it. In a season of hunting, the amount of goose meat that I brought home was probably as much as the meat from a large doe deer.

Pheasants, quail, doves, rabbits and some squirrels come home every year and make very fine table fare, but not enough to support a family reliably, for any length of time. It‘s too time consuming when compared a single hunt and a fat cow elk in the freezer. But those are fine meals, following a fine day in the field chasing upland game. Smoothbore smokepoles are awesome.

A number of times I’ve gone up to Wheatland Wyoming and taken a Buffalo…a single Buffalo would feed my entire family for a year, and have enough to share with others. Buffalo are an amazing animal, those hunts left quite an impression on me, and a lot of respect for this magnificent beast of the plains. Buffalo is hard butchering, they are such a massive animal; when the largest game I’d taken, previous, was elk. So, I need to back-peddle a bit. I butchered my 1st Buffalo, after that the processor in Wheatland took over. They are a lot of work to butcher. You add a Buffalo with deer & elk in the same year and it’s a Cornucopia…I’m giving meat away. It didn’t take long before we had 2 freezers, 20 cubic foot each; and another 20 cubic footer for all the processed perishable crap.

Aside from Buffalo, I always butcher my own meat, I take care of my game from harvest to dinner plate; and I do not trust the commercial Butcher to keep my wild game meat separated from others. I’ve seen the way other people take care of their meat in the field…it’s not that people don’t like the taste of gamie meat, it’s that they don’t know how to care for the meat, once the animal is down. Take care of the meat you harvest, it’s a skill that you are obligated to learn. Nothing beats a fat cow elk for fine dining. If I draw a bull tag, I’m not opposed to taking a massive bull, but it’ll be mostly elk burger in the freezer that year.

Last couple years, the needs of my job no longer allowed me the time to go hunting each year. So I’d go every other year and finally…not going.

For the last couple years, we’ve gotten a side of custom beef and a whole hog…it’s palatable, but just not the same….

I miss my wild game; I miss crawling into a herd of bedded elk and taking a fat cow or a mossy horned bull…now that I’m retired, probably time to start getting elk and deer again.

 

[bud in pa]

I always butchered my own deer. hang them in the garage with a come-along. used another come-along to skin it, easier than with a knife. used a butcher's hacksaw to break it down and cut up the parts in the basement in front of the utility sink. Pa does not allow you to dispose of the left overs in the woods, they are considered house-hold garbage. If they catch you they will fine you. Had to call the game commission to ask if they fined the deer that died a natural death in the woods? The person didn't appreciate it, I guess they realized how dumb the law is.

 

[Will king]

I normally take 2 a year here in NE Georgia and would take more if I had the time to get in the field. I dress my own meat and save some of the bones for knife handles that I let set for a few years and then boil them out. Same with horns just no boiling. The carcass and whats left of the bones I take back to the fields or woods to feed the critters.

 

[kyron4]

Between me and my daughter 2 or 3 a year. We butcher the deer ourselves . Heart, liver, and kidneys are saved and eaten. Love me a deer heart sandwich .

 

[VA Hawken]

Two deer last year for me, then a single buck a year (minus one year) for the previous 4 years. I'll be out of meat well before season starts this coming year. I do a fair bit of grind, and then a lot of jerky, some steaks and roasts.

 

[Daveboone]

a lot depends on the size of the deer. I prefer to wait for a big mature doe for a meat deer. One does the wife and I pretty well in recent years. A second deer though gives us plenty of odds and ends to have processed into sausage, salami, etc. for nice variety.

 

[Marshhawk]

Two is plenty for the wife and I. I took three last season and that is too much, but a lot of that goes to inlaws who don't hunt and like venison, especially ground. I don't butcher them myself except during the depredation hunts I take part in during the summer when the processors are closed. Just don't enjoy butchering when it's 87 degrees or more. In S.C. the processer I use is meticulous about not mixing deer. If a processer raises suspicions of mixing deer around here, they are quickly out of business. I guess I'm spoiled by not even having to gut deer. Just bring 'em in whole to the processor. Getting lazy in my old age. Ha! I'm pretty much a meat hunter, not a horn hunter. But as others have said, if "Old Mossy Rack" walks out in front of me I just might take the shot (and catch hell from my wife about bringing home a "tough, old stringy buck" for the table.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Haven't hunted in a couple years. Miss it. But when I do, I do my own butchering. Wife doesn't like venison so I don't go after them for meat anymore. However, I will probably harvesting one this year. We had a herd that comes into the yard. In that herd is a dominant doe. She chases and kicks all the other. A real meany. Not really hunting, but when the weather turns cold, I plan to shoot her from my back door with my Dave Persons built Little Fella flint rifle. It needs to be 'christened'.

 

[LSB]

I usually shoot two deer per year here in South Dakota, sometimes three if I get a license for another part of the state. My son and grandsons usually shoot another three or more per year counting muzzleloading and archery seasons. Processing costs have gone up so much lately here (around $350 to $400 if you have the entire deer processed into jerky, salami, deer sticks etc.) that we usually dehydrate our own jerky now and maybe cut one deer up for canning. The canned deer meat tastes just like beef and makes great stew meat and gravy for potatoes. Some of the deer are always donated to the Sportsman Against Hunger program. We just don't care for the taste of deer steaks, chops, roasts etc. The deer burger is OK in chili but we are just not fond of straight deer meat. Elk is something different and is, in my opinion, superior to beef but I have only shot two elk in my life (a 6X6 and an 8X8) and probably too old to ever shoot another one. You must now dispose of the deer/elk/antelope carcass in a landfill here because of concerns about CWD. The gut pile is left where the animal drops and usually is gone within 24 to 48 hours thanks to the coyotes.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

I am loving this thread. You people are awesome…It’s been so nice reading your replies and posts.

What a great thread topic…