Deer hunting BS thread

I know all about small deer. They don’t typically get very big here in north Ga either.

 

Had my dream buck show up on my trail cam. This dude is a 10+ year old (hard to do in the Sonoran desert) super heavy and unique 2x3. Would have loved to see him when he was younger, but he is top priority for me come deer season.

 

good looking deer, put him out of his misery. thing is prolly starving to death on a count of him having teeth wore down to the gums. hopefully he has spread some good seed around over the past decade

 

Found this guy this afternoon. Saved him from the grasp of time and he will be cherished forever now. Not how I prefer to find deer but I’ll take it!

 

I found what is a nice 11pt split brow tine yesterday. I heard the ravens up behind my house and I was busy and couldnt get up there to check it out, yesterday I finally had a little free time. I went towards where I thought they were and started finding fresh raven droppings I didnt search very long and found it. It had to have been shot further up the hill but either they thought they missed or didnt continue looking for it. The birds and animals had already stripped all the meat off of it so I couldnt tell if it was a bow or rifle shot. If it was rifle it was early as season doesnt open till 10th of Oct! Which means it was poached...Im still glad I found it, I will post pics later. I sure would have like to shot it myself but glad to find the unique rack.

 

this has become my most favoritest way to eat deer (or maybe meat period for that matter)
I soak a whole should in coke and maybe a little vinegar (pickle juice, pepper sauce, apple cider, white, what ever is handy) and maybe a little dale's or salt of some kind for a day or so. then I rinse it off and dry it pretty well. throw it in the crock pot with a packet of ranch mix and ~a half a stick of butter.

cook it on low for 6 or 7 hours and it will fall off the bone, also there will be a good bit of broth in the bottm of the pot and this is important; take the meat out and start pullin it off the bone/the bone out of it and add a packet or 2 of brown gravy mix to the broth and mix it in well, then throw the meat back into the gravy on warm for an hour or so and let it get good and saturated.
it makes a great entree with mashed potatoes but the left over sammiches may even be a little better

 

oh also, you don't have to worry about all that connective tissue/sinew whatever stuff that is usually super tough otherwise because it melts in the crockpot and it, to me, is really the only way to even attempt a deer shoulder, and it now has become my favorite part of the animal, so I'm a double lung or head shot guy if I can help it haha

 

I might have to try that. I didn't like my last shoulder roast so much. Crock pot with onion soup mix.

 

on a doe inside 150 yards I'm gonna go with a head shot if I have a decent prop, everything else I try and hit the very tip top of the shoulder, on shots that happen to farther than I estimate this gives me a great margin of error for drop, and if I hit there or just a bit higher its an instant drop spot. obviously there are a lot of variables in deer hunting but under "perfect" circumstances, those are my first choices

 

Subbed for this recipe!

 

this is another good thread full of recipes but you may have to dig around some of them mud birds and stuff to find some deer foodies
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/post-your-wild-game-recipes.414121/

 

I'm gonna do all I can to stay away from anything near the guts

 

Got the lease ready last weekend. First time to take my little boy out there. He loved it. Lots of good times ahead.

 

My boy is bummed out because he can’t legally hunt here yet. He’s already shot some arrows from the stand in the off season and I honestly think he wrapped his head around how to adjust his aim for the angle faster than I did. Hope I’m right so I can buy another freezer.

 

Rut usually kicks in hard the first or 2nd week of December around here and the first Saturday in December I walked up on 2 does and a yearling right at shooting light about 200 yards out from my stand, I watched them for a couple of minutes and the biggest one started to get nervous (doe season had ended the week before) and I thought she had become aware of me, they all trotted off and I started to stand from my kneeling position when a shooter popped out of the woods opposite of them. it was still low light but I could tell he was a pretty good bit past his ears, but I only saw him for maybe 2 seconds and he was after those does at about 40 mph. I hurried to my stand and hit my grunt call hoping he would pop back out but a young like 4-6 point is all that showed up. The owner of the property said he saw that deer right after season ended so maybe a truck didn't hit him this summer and he will be a sure nuff monster

 

Always sucks finding them dead knowing the whole thing went to waste I’m really not sure how the old boy I found died, the skull was the only piece of him left. Had to have died during late winter, had a busted brow tine from fighting during the rut. I would assume a cat got him, he was found on private land I have access to so I doubt someone shot him and lost him. If there was more of him left I may have been able to figure it out.. here in the desert dead critters don’t last long between the yotes and all the buzzards and crows!

 

Thank you!

 

Age, I’m turning his frustration into fuel with different challenges. He’s getting sharp and I think putting him in the tree with me this year will help him with recognizing buck fever and then we can work on how to push that back down and focus on the harvest. Like many kids he wants to impress his father but I keep trying to turn him back to focusing on what he needs to know to safely hunt.

 

our gun season doesn't open till the Saturday before thanksgiving and last year (the first time in a while does season didn't run the length of season) was the first 8 days of gun season and the week between Christmas and new years

 

Well my boy won't be hunting yet. He's 3. He'll be out there with me though. I've still got a full freezer from last year so will probably let the others on the lease take the shots.