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thibodeaux 
RAG
Group: Privateers
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Posted on: Oct. 30 2011,15:51 |
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Decided to try my hand at deer hunting. Anybody got any tips, especially in regards to dressing/butchering the kill?
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GORDON
90%
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Posted on: Oct. 30 2011,16:34 |
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Paging Unk. He's killed herds of deer.
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I don't give a fuck!
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Paul
The Cumulonimbus of the Interweb
Group: Privateers
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Posted on: Nov. 01 2011,07:19 |
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I'll probably be getting into that next year as well, but that's sort of my girlfriend's job so I'll have a good mentor.
I'm sure there are plenty of videos on it out there.
The local hunting & fishing show aired a two-part segment on butchering a deer last week and the week before. Maybe they have a copy of butchering the deer on their Youtube channel?
I think most people shoot the deer, tag it, disembowel it, haul it to their truck, then take the carcass to a processor.
The processor cuts it into steaks, grinds it into burgers, and turns the rest into sausage.
I know several people who insist on doing all of this themselves though, because then they know that they get all of their meat back, and that the meat they get back is theirs.
I know female deer have the most meat, so if you want meat find a nice fat doe.
Bucks are pretty much for trophies.
My girlfriend likes fawns because they are the best eating.
She made me deer steaks a couple weeks ago. They were good. Beef is a lot better though.
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"All hail Paul." Â -Unk
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Paul
The Cumulonimbus of the Interweb
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Posted on: Nov. 12 2011,07:03 |
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My girlfriend, her BFF, and I went deer hunting today.
I was just an observer, but the women were armed.
The GF and I went to a tree stand we'd set up yesterday, and the BFF hunted from the ground.
After 30 minutes of waiting, a large doe came down the hill. It saw us, and then moved to another ridge to get another look at us from maybe 75 yards away.
BLAMMO!
The deer took off down an embankment and we lost site of it.
We ran to where it was shot but didn't see blood.
I went back to the stand to make sure we were searching the right location.
Then my GF found a blood trail. It was a a pretty defined blood trail, and I think even my 8 year old daughter could have followed it to the body.
Then she filled out some paperwork on the deer (some sort of log you have to do).
It was a big fat doe.
(My GF & her BFF are biologists for deer in this state, and both amazed at how much far the deer had when they processed it.)
She cut the guts and butt-hole out. This was the bloodiest part. The body cavity was blood & guts soup.
My friend's BFF was about 300 yards away and she said that she saw two bucks shortly after we shot ours, bit it was just a small button-buck and a 4-pointer, and she didn't want to waste her 1-buck limit on small things like that.
I dragged the carcass back, maybe 400 yards, up and down gullies and such. Dragging it down hill was easy. Up hill was a bitch.
I strung it up and they processed it.
It's hung by the back legs, held apart. They cut around the legs and pulled the skin down, harvesting meat from various places (tenderloin, back strap, hams, etc.)
I'd seen the process before on television (Kentucky Afield has a DVD out on how to do it).
It was pretty neat.
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"All hail Paul." Â -Unk
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GORDON
90%
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Posted on: Nov. 12 2011,07:07 |
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Bitch is hard core.
Also keep in mind she could do that to you in a hormone-fueled delirious rage.
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I don't give a fuck!
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Paul
The Cumulonimbus of the Interweb
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Posted on: Nov. 12 2011,08:08 |
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Yeah, but I weigh more than a deer, so she couldn't drag off my body.
* * *
I'll add that the dear was shot in the lungs.
The bullet went right through it, busting a big hole in the rib when it exited.
She got in late last night and hadn't sighted the gun, so she was just assuming that it would fairly accurate.
Edited by Paul on Nov. 12 2011,08:10
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"All hail Paul." Â -Unk
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Paul
The Cumulonimbus of the Interweb
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Posted on: Nov. 12 2011,10:52 |
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The two of them are out now, at the brand new Marion County WMA, hunting it on foot.
The KDFWR give permits to hunt deer there based on a lottery. You put your group information in (hunting license numbers I think) and if your group is drawn they all get to hunt.
They were drawn to hunt it this weekend (along with several other people), which is opening weekend on a site that opened this year.
I didn't put my name in with them, and the site is closed to non-hunters during these two weeks of modern gun season, so I can't tag along as a sherpa.
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"All hail Paul." Â -Unk
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Paul
The Cumulonimbus of the Interweb
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Posted on: Nov. 12 2011,18:51 |
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My girlfriend and I went out again this evening. We had about an hour before sunset.
This time I had the gun. I lack a license, but as a resident landowner I can hunt on my own property without one.
We saw one small 4-point buck. He came up behind us (took his time too), and then went down past us and up a hill, where he turned around.
He turned around because a doe had come down from the other direction.
She brushed him off and came walking up toward us.
I had no intention of shooting the small buck, but I'd have shot the doe if it presented itself.
It stayed behind trees and would stop in the thick stuff, checking us out.
We stayed motionless.
It was starting to get dark and it just kept rooting around behind some trees. I could hear it, and my girlfriend could see it with her binoculars, but I only got occasional glances.
After that it ran up the hill.
It had to go in the open during that run, but I'm not going to shoot at a running animal at 50 yards, in the twilight, so the thing lives to see another day. I'd never even shot that Remington before, so I was only going to shoot it under optimal conditions.
When it got up the hill and out of site it started barking at us. My GF (the cervid specialist) said it was a warning call.
After that it it was too late and too dark to hunt, so we packed up and hiked back to the house.
I'm sort of glad I didn't get one. By the time we got back to the house it was dark, and I'd hate to have to gut & process it in the dark. I mean, I guess I could have pulled out a floodlight and there are no bugs this time of year, but still, it would be difficult considering I don't know what I'm doing.
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"All hail Paul." Â -Unk
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Paul
The Cumulonimbus of the Interweb
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Posted on: Nov. 20 2011,18:51 |
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Last Wednesday my daughter and I dressed in hunter orange, grabbed out binoculars, and went to the tree stand in my back woods.
It took about fifteen minutes for two small deer to show up. They got about 30' away from out stand. It was pretty cool. It was a nice bonding moment with my daughter.
* * *
Friday evening my girlfriend and her best friend went out hunting on one of their friend's chunk of farmland. I accompanied them.
The land has a small field, but is mostly a big hill. The top of the hill has a long clearing for the high tension power lines.
My GF and I had set up a tree stand on the back side of the hill a few weeks ago. My GF's BFF walked to that stand while my GF and I stayed on the closer side and hunkered mid-way up a fairly steep hill, near a crumbling rock wall.
There were plenty of deer signs, like rubbings, hoof prints, and droppings.
I do not have a hunting license, so I can't hunt off my own property. I can accompany hunters though.
I was armed with only binoculars:
It was cold and got colder. It was also fairly windy.
I only had a hoodie and t-shirt on under my coveralls, so I was getting really cold.
We saw three donkeys walk by, a few goats, and one cat.
Zero deer.
We heard other hunters shoot stuff.
When it got dark we called it quits and went back to the car.
My GF's BFF had seen one nice buck, but it was on the opposite hill which is the neighbor's property. It never came onto the property we were hunting.
She said it went over the hill and 5 minutes later she heard a shot come from that direction, so she thinks it may have met its end at the hands of someone else.
So basically I just sat on the ground in the cold for 1:45 or so just to watch farm animals.
Oh... I did play Words With Friends on my phone, and check email.
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"All hail Paul." Â -Unk
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Paul
The Cumulonimbus of the Interweb
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Posted on: Nov. 20 2011,20:23 |
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(thibodeaux @ Oct. 30 2011,18:51)
QUOTE Decided to try my hand at deer hunting. Anybody got any tips, especially in regards to dressing/butchering the kill?
It's important to have a good knife.
I look before I leap, and researched knives. Â The best all around knife is a skinning knife, as you can disembowel the deer and process it.
Some knives come with a gut hook, which is a hook on the back side that's used to pull up the deer's belly (like a zipper) to access the body cavity without a sharp blade touching the guts.
If a blade accidentally cuts the guts it can squirt out. Â It stinks, and the juices ruin any meat they touch.
Gut hooks are difficult to sharpen and make the knife bulkier.
I opted not to get a gut hook because I wanted a knife with a bit more finesse, which makes butchering it easier. Â I should point out though that my girlfriend says that her next knife will have a gut hook, because she wants to try one.
People on the various hunting forums seem to love Cold Steel brand knives. Â (They like others based on nostalgia and looks, but as far as performance goes Cold Steel has had nothing but raving reviews). Â I bought the Cold Steel Pendleton Hunter on Amazon. Â This is a better version of the knife that won Field & Stream's 2010 Best of the Best in knives.
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After we found the deer my GF shot we put it on its back and I held the rear legs apart.
She cut a hole in the belly, then expanded it laterally and then horizontally up the belly to the rib cage.
There was no blood, just a lot of connective tissue and a big blob of guts. Â It reminded me of the pod things in Aliens. Â Lots of slime and stuff.
She took care not to nick the guts.
After that she had to disembowel the thing. Â I pulled the body open while she stuck her arms in and separated the gut sack from the chest walls.
There was quite a bit of cutting to sever the trachea up under the neck. Â There was plenty of blood for that. Â The body cavity held all the blood in like some sort of cauldron.
The knife cuts around the anus from the outside, and when the gut sack is dumped out of the body cavity the anus is pulled through and comes out with that.
Back at the house I cut a hole between the tendon and the femur of each leg. Â I ran a rope through one hole, ran it through a 2' piece of PVC pipe, then ran the rope out through the other hole.
I used the rope to pull up the deer so that it's head wasn't touching the ground. Â Really, the important part is that it;s high enough to work with.
First you peel down the skin. Â You peel it from just below the ropes down to the neck. Â You basically cut circles around the legs and then slits down, then pull. Â As you pull with one hand, you use the knife to slice away all the stuff that's holding the skin to the body.
It's not rocket science, but I guess there's technique to it.
They cut out the back straps and tenderloins and put those into Ziplok bags. Â These are the best parts.
They cut the shoulders off (still on the bone). Â I used tree clippers to hack through the bone.
I did the same with the back legs to get the ham, which of course dropped the carcass to the ground.
By then the meat was gone, so I dragged what amounted to the head, neck, ribs, and spine into the woods.
The shoulders and hams went into trash bags and into coolers full of ice. Â They were taken back to my girlfriend's house and stuck in the refrigerator.
* * *
This weekend I removed meat from the femur.
Basically you're just separating the muscles and cutting them out. Â You push your fingers around to feel what goes where.
You want to cut out every bit of fat and all the white stuff that coats the muscles. Â Each muscle has this stuff on all sides, and so you need to carve it off of all sides of the muscle.
I wasted a lot of meat doing this, but I was told it's best to error on the side of caution, as the white/shiney stuff is really chewy.
We saved the largest muscle for a roast, leaving the silvery white stuff on it to hold it together.
The rest of the meat was cut into chunks and ground into burger. Â I should mention that when I saw them do this on TV they saved some of the larger muscles and made steaks out of them.
Earlier this week she did something similar to both shoulders.
When she ground up that meat she did it in a separate batch though, because it has more connective stuff riddled through it.
That is, the ham stuff we cut up today was the good stuff, so it was ground in it's own batch, and the less desirable shoulder stuff was ground into a batch that was marked "shoulder" so she's know what it was.
Edited by Paul on Nov. 20 2011,20:24
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"All hail Paul." Â -Unk
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unkbill
The Mope.
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Posted on: Nov. 24 2011,20:24 |
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Leave Sunday for hunting. Will be my 25 year on the same farm. I started hunting 2 years before that. Will read the whole post maybe tomorrow. One thing I noticed. Bucks are edible. Unless they are 8 or 9 years old. Then they get a little tough and best to have ground up. Deer are hung from the rear legs but if you plan to have a buck mounted you hang it from the antlers so the blood drains down and out.
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In marriage there is always one person right. And the other one is the husband.
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Paul
The Cumulonimbus of the Interweb
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Posted on: Nov. 25 2011,06:49 |
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I did not know that about hanging a buck from the antlers.
I just asked my girlfriend (the deer & elk biologist) about that and she said that if you're going to cape it (caping it is peeling the skin over the head and cutting off the neck to give to the taxidermist) right away then hanging it by the rear legs is fine.
If you're going to take awhile then yeah, hang it head-up so that the blood doesn't coagulate in the head and face.
I learned something new. 
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"All hail Paul." Â -Unk
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unkbill
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Posted on: Nov. 25 2011,09:23 |
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As far as puncturing the guts, don't do it. That is when gagging may occur as it smells really bad. It won't hurt the meat. We take our deer and flush them out with a garden hose to remove excess blood and you normally may have a few turds hanging around.
The throat tube is the hardest part. It should be pulled so the neck scrunches up and then cut. It is the first part of the deer that will go bad and spoil meat. When dealing with the back legs you should find the scent glands and avoid at all cost. That stuff will ruin meat. Some people cut them off. I have always left them intact and had no problems. All of us hang our deers at least overnight before skinning. It is easier when they are a bit stiff and pelt is cold. Our deer sometimes hang in the barn all week if we get them on Monday. It is cool in the barn and we keep bags of ice in the body cavity.
When you peel the skin down from the back leg you can use a knife to start but I have seen people use vice grips and just pull it all down. As long as the meat dosesn't start coming off with the hide.
I have seen people be that fussy with cleaning the meat. All of our is ground up so we cut the fat and larger white sinu off. When grinding for burger or sausage I have never had any bad parts. A lot of times the meat is bad around the gunshot hole. Dark red clotted meat is disgarded.
When gutting the first part we do is remove the male organs. Generally I hang them in a tree branch and let out a primal scream. People and other deer know when we kill a buck.
I just dig the deer head up from the garden. I planted it up to the antlers. Place a bucket over the antlers so no mice or squirrel would eat at them. After a year it was preatty clean. Just hosed the dirt off of it. Am mounting it to a board now. I think it will look good when it bleaches out and is a different kind of mount.
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In marriage there is always one person right. And the other one is the husband.
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Paul
The Cumulonimbus of the Interweb
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Posted on: Nov. 25 2011,13:43 |
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The skull an antlers is called a European mount.
A lot of people stick the head in a big bucket and boil it all day to get a nice clean skull. Then they pick off any lingering flesh, and soak it in hydrogen peroxide to bleach the skull.
I know they sell special electric kettles to do that, so you don't need to worry about running our of propane.
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"All hail Paul." Â -Unk
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GORDON
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Posted on: Nov. 25 2011,13:43 |
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Big box full'a maggots.
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I don't give a fuck!
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| Post Number: 17
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Paul
The Cumulonimbus of the Interweb
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Posted on: Nov. 25 2011,13:54 |
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A maggot box would be awesome.
I think flesh eating beetles would be cooler. I've seen The Mummy.
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"All hail Paul." Â -Unk
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unkbill
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Posted on: Nov. 26 2011,14:34 |
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Friends of mine have tried boiling. Have been told it stinks, literally. Never thought of peroxide. My sister does her sheep heads. She says one part bleach one part water. But only for a few minutes. The bleach eats the stuff that hold the skulls together.
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In marriage there is always one person right. And the other one is the husband.
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unkbill
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Posted on: Dec. 06 2011,20:14 |
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A freind of boiled his in the house, Said smell was not a problem.
As for me I'm not going to have that problem. The doe I shot Friday is to small to worry about. And the 10 point buck I shot on Saturday is going on the on the living room wall.
The weather for the first part of the week made it the worst start ever. By Friday morning we only had 2 deer. By Saturday night we had racked and stacked 20. As far as beer. I think a few people were slacking. We only managed to go throu 40 30 packes.
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In marriage there is always one person right. And the other one is the husband.
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