Culvercreek hunt club

I hard time justifying it if it’s waste. I know all the reasons to do it but as the season gets later and I can do something with them I will keep them. Everything I am posting right now is only on 80 acres. I also am short on stretchers right now. I have gotten the cart before the horse on some of this. I don’t have enough stretchers to handle more coons right now Well tonight I popped my cherry. Finally a canine. Got a nice male red fox on a 4 trap blind set on trails leading into a bait site. Also got a grinner. Checked the dog proofs and had another opossum and another small 10# coon. Kept the possum to try skinning them and le the coon go.

Well last night's trap check yielded 3 small coons and I forgot my phone. These were really small and I am glad they didn't hit my trail set. it was however a new learning experience in releasing a trapped animal. walking up they were so docile and calm. kind or cute looking actually. But let me tell you about the Hades possessed devil they turned into when the loop from that catch pole closes up. These things were probably only about 10 pounds but it is all you want to do by yourself...lol. This is something you can watch on YouTube and think "I got this" but when it is growling, hissing and baring it's teeth and the distance from the pinned head and the trap lever you have to squeeze to release it is less than a food it makes you very aware of judging distances....lol. SO here I was with the first one. (should have had someone videoing me because you guys would have got a chuckle). loop tight on the neck, right hand on the catch pole and the end of it in my right armpit to try and keep it pinned. trap chain tight so you are almost using the chain and the catch pole like a bipod to keep the white chomping teeth where you want them. Lean forward and with the left hand compress the spring on the dog proof trap. All good right? well that just let the one leg of the "bipod" loose and off they try to run. It was like someone kicking my leg out from under me as I was leaning on the pole to hold the raccoon down. Well I got the first one released and I don't think I have eve seen one run so fast. Luckily it was in a direction away from me. Glad I learned something on a smaller one. The other two went much better. I wasn't depending so much on the pole to hold my weight as I leaned forward. The canine traps were still sitting idle. nothing dug, no tracks at the sets and no bait touched. There had been a lot of sign where I set and several guys are telling me it could take a week to 10 days for them to come back to there. I'll see how my sets held up to the rain. I had them made with peatmoss and top dressed with dirt so hoping they weathered well. The weather is going to be turning so I will be making some waxed dirt over the next week to handle the wet and freezing temps that are sure coming.

I honestly believe that bacterial growth is much like a fire. It requires different "components" to be present to allow for growth that is abnormal. (Let's face it, like many have said here, we are not doing surgery and we can not maintain a sterile environment). What's a fire need. heat, fuel and Oxygen. Bacteria need to be present, temps, moisture, Ph (the previous ones and other minor ones provide a good growth environment) and a food source. We can't control their presence and their food source is our food source. That leaves two variables. temps and moisture (environment) and those are the only things we can control, or try to. I am sure everyone on here has tried jerky. How is jerky preserved? Salt and lack of moisture. Washing a cavity out is not going to cause an explosion of bacterial growth on it's own in the short term. Rinse it, make sure there is no standing water and, like we always should do, make sure the cavity is propped open to allow good air flow for cooling and drying. I will not hang a deer if temps are above 45. When the temps are up it is rinsed, hung and is getting cut up. That is my way of taking out the other required aspect that is in my control, temperature. cut it and get it frozen. If you want to age it and temps are up, cut it up and vacuum seal it and let it sit in the fridge prior to freezing.

The biggest factor is their ability to have multiple litters. Some info I am seeing is in out climate they could have 4 litters a year. In warmer it can be up to 7. In a big marsh you’d be hard pressed to trap them out but in a small area I guess you could. That isn’t good management but in the right spot one a day could be

It is a necker 600. I don’t have a big frame of reference but it seems to work well. I am going to sharpen the sharp side a bit though. I have an aluminum 3 hole tail stripper. About a $15 first cut knife. I Love the havalon replaceable blade knit I got to skin. I may actually try it for skinning deer. It is razor sharp. I built a gambrel since I had the 3/32” cable spool. Wanted to play with heights and spread before I build something more permanent. I have a bench vice so if you are gonna use cable and have a vise don’t waste money on a bench swagger. For the Furrels. I lick mine in the vise and it works great single handed. Running Berkshire earth anchors with 18” between anchor and swivels. I used 12” pvc pipe to cut my fleshing beams. I got the wire because a guy I bought some traps from made me a deal I couldn’t refuse. I am trying to get woken stretchers though. They work much better in my view. Working on a mill to cut me 1/2” basswood planks to build my own. Coyote wood is like $90 a half dozen. Boards will run me $15. Less if I build them collapsible.

Eagles taste like chicken

Yeah. That's just what I was thinking. It picked the snow plow up for his pickup to load it on a trailer so I gotta believe it would tug a skin off.

I've heard that about the coyotes. In my buddy's barn we set up a deer processing station. 10' ceilings and I have any electric 2,500# hoist all set up with pulleys to lift and adjust deer. I have seen quite a few of these set ups online with bottom anchors used to power skin a coyote. (and coons for that matter). I think I may fab a base, anchor it to the slab and run them the 2 miles over there to do them. (assuming I can strong arm my buddy into buying into the idea...lol). I am betting it would be worth the drive for the time savings. And as an added plus there is always beer in the fridge.

I always liked the Lickalottapus.

I only use surgical gloves when gutting (I know..."girly" for you manly men). I typically don't drag deer anymore. They get lifted onto the wheeler. If I was dragging I would not split the sternum. but if I am transporting on a wheeler I sure do. Pelvis to throat and never get a drop of blood over my surgical gloves. It is an easy reach in to cut the esophagus and windpipe at that point and you can get it close. A sharp knife goes up the cartilage pretty easy besides the sternum and rib ends. I tip the deer over to make sure the blood all drains out after. I also like to use clean cold water to rinse the cavity out once I pull the inside tenderloins out. with a close cut on the windpipe and the chest split the water ALL drains out and there is no moisture issues even if we let sit a couple days. Besides there is really no contact with any part we save to eat once the inside tenderloins are removed. We don't keep the ribs and I don't waste time trimming between them. (no applicable if mounting) Also there is no need to ever wrestle and split the pelvis on a whitetail. Even if I was packing out a hind quarter I would be pulling each off the bone in one piece and take that out but leave the bone in the woods. To the OP. Take you time. get as much fat off and silver skin as you can. I gut and process the entire deer with a 4" knife. I add in a nice fillet knife to trim and cut up on the cutting board. Don't cut against a stainless metal sheet and get yourself a decent sharpener. A dull knife is a dangerous knife. Let the individual muscles guide where you cut. Use your fingers to separate the major muscle groups and tell you where to cut to break them apart. I hang by the hind legs. through the process be careful to NOT cut the "Achilles" tendon on the back of the deer leg. That is the quickest way to have the deer drop on the ground...lol. Stay away form the tarsal glands with your knife. If you cut them wash and sanitize you knife before continuing. When removing the hide ALWAYS cut the skin from the inside out. this cuts the skin and separates the hair follicles and minimizes the amount of hair that gets on your meat. Here are the major steps I use. hang by the hind legs. (if you haven't taken the inside tenderloins out, do it at this point. This is mostly finger work but you will need to cut the top to release it once you get it all freed up. cut off front legs at the knees cut the skin from you gutting incision up the inside of each hind quarter and cut around each hind leg at the knee peel skin down (easiest when warm). cut the tail as you pull pass it. (use you knife to find the joint in the vertebrata and it pops right through(. continue to pull skin down and cut as you need to in assisting with that. as you pull past the front legs pull them back through the hide and they pop right through. pull down to the head and cut off the head. Move the front leg around and feel for the end of the shoulder blade. cut very thin from the sternum to the backbone to expose the shoulder blade end. and start cutting behind the shoulder blade. Their shoulder is not like ours. It is not attached by bone. keep cutting and let gravity help you. (be careful to not cut into the backstrap). Repeat on the other side. Next is backstrap. at the hid quarter on either side of the spine feel for the point of the pelvis. cut horizontal just below that point (bump) on either side of the spine. That is the end of the backstrap. cut down either side of the ridge of the backbone to the neck. now start to peel the backstrap top down assisting with the knife. You may have to cut away from ribs as you go to assist this. Take it right to the neck and stop when the backstrap starts to get a lot of fat and texture change in the neck area. Let gravity be your friend. Repeat the other side. the hinds are difficult to explain. this is where you use your fingers and you can clearly see the different muscle groups if you look. I take the entire hind off in on piece but I know folks that cut one muscle off at a time. Take the neck meat off and any other small parts you with to take for grinding. this is where return on investment come into play. I know guys that take hours and hours trimming every little morsel off the deer. me and my couple hunting buddies typically take 7-10 a year so I don't waste that time. Your call. We don't cut steaks anymore becasue we are never sure how we will use the meat. We trim up roasts suitable to 2 people from the hind quarters. this way we can either grind it, steak it, slice for jerky or use as a roast. we can make our mind when we pull it out of the freezer. The backstraps we cut into 6" long trimmed pieces. (suitable for 2 people) and we always cook them whole on the grill. Front shoulders are all ground or chunked for stew. Neck is either used in the crocrkpot for like pulled pork or ground. watch some videos and don't be scarred to try it. As long as you have sanitary meat handling what's the worse that happens? you end up with more ground venison that you planned on. And the ain't nothing wrong with ground venison.

Well no song dogs last night. Tossed out another set in a high swalegrass draw that has quite a bit of fox sign in it. I think the little buggers are in the knocked down sections of it mousing. I did end up getting another coon and it is the biggest one I have gotten so far. I also had a wring out on another DP. Maybe the evening checks are letting them sit too long from night time movement. I may have to rethink that. I had the DP cabled off to a 4" sapling with about 3 ' of cable and the tree went up a foot and then bent on a 45 degree. it had climbed the tree, wrapped the cable and the trap chain around it and a branch and pulled out. I am thinking that must have been a good sized one. When I got home I got to work putting up the previous coon and the one from last night. I have to get some more wood stretchers. They present the pelt much nicer than wire in my opinion. The smaller ones were pretty blue on the skin so there is no value there I am sure but it was good practice. I absolutely butchered the first pelt I did which was ok since I broke it darn tail off when I was skinning it. Took me a bit to get the feel for the knives. I consider myself pretty good with knives and skinning other small game and big game so I hope the learning curve will be fairly short. It became obvious as you are working on the furs when your set up isn't quite right. It is one of those "you don't know what you don't know" situations. things like needing a place to put the fleshing knife when spinning the pelt. needing a squeegee to clean the beam between animals. I'll be happy to see it cool down though. The coon fat is VERY much like bear fat. @Pygmy. You were right on the mark there Dan. It almost liquefies with the temps from working it and your hand temperature. Hoping to get a canine to give them a whirl soon.

Off to check traps. I have a bad feeling I forgot to flip the safeties off on the 160 trail set...lol. 6 new coyote sets to look at and the 7 coon traps. (mumbling no skunks please, no skunks please under his breath)

The vast majority of scrape activity is night time. I am not saying it won't get used during the day at all but there are way better places to concentrate on than a scrape.

Happy Birthday Chris. I hope you are spending it in the woods

Dan, What's your pan tension set at? Did you say what traps you are setting? I don't remember seeing that.

I skinned one out quickly when I got home before I got ready for work. Was dying to try the gambrel I made and the new knives. I couldn't believe how much fat there was on them and it seemed very similar to bear fat in texture. I'm thinking about quartering them and freeing the parts for buried bait sets for canines. I would think they would eat them and it would give me some use for the meat.

$350 and they are yours. Be great for someone with a plow truck.

Well I thought I would chronicle what I am doing this year as I start off trapping. I have been trying to get all the equipment together and get a half-assed fur shed area set up in the garage. I'll take some pics of the stuff I have put together, but I just had to get some traps out this weekend. At this point I will be targeting coon, fox and coyote. I didn't have my peatmoss yet so I didn't set for canines yesterday. It was just too darned wet. The traps I put out for coons didn't produce Saturday night. I think becasue the area I had them in got a little flooded with the heavy rains. Last night was a different story though. I got up at 4 am and headed out on the wheeler. First trap I checked was a 160 trial set I put in using a home made H-stand and it connected last night. I then checked 3 locations where I put out pairs of Duke DP's. Each pair I split up the bait in them. One had dog food with fish oil trailing scent and the other had marshmallows with maple syrup. On the first location the dog food connected and I forgot to take a pic of that one. The second set location I actually had a double. The third location came up blank and that surprised me becasue that was the spot I thought was going to be a slam dunk. They were set right next to 3 big old rotten denning trees. These sure were not the big coons that I have seen the tracks from but it's 4 egg eaters off the property and 4 hides for me to try out the PVC fleshing beam I built and hopefully learn some knife handling skills before I come up with some more prime fur.

Nice job Greg. Mount?

Just a reminder all. If you haven’t had a chance yet to donate through the licensing portal and would like to toss a couple bucks towards a very worthy program, hit up our go fund me page. We are coming into the season where many deer are going to be brought into participating butchers and every dollar will help assure this program continues in the state. Greater Rochester branch is matching donations dollar for dollar up to $1,000

Honestly when I’m the context of conservation in taking them. They don’t seem to take issue. Preference seems to be utilizing as much of a animal as possible.

Nick is a good guy. We had multiple participants choose dmp’s for that area since it’s low probability and one was lucky enough to get one. So it’s signed over to Nick. He should be ready to go is a buck or doe offers an opportunity.

Great work Dan. I see a year of batting 1000 in the near future. ( how’s that for optimism. Lol)

https://www.harborfreight.com/4-sided-diamond-hone-block-92867.html cheaper than I remember

I turned 54 in June. I can't see me ever stopping until they toss dirt on me. I will say that the thrill is taking on a new dimension as I age. I am enjoying trying new things like the recurve and starting trapping but the biggest jolt I get is seeing someone get their first deer. Last year was a highlight for me being with 3 new hunters and their first deer. I remember texting Moog when I shot the spike with the recurve that I was actually shaking after the shot like I had just shot a booner. lol.