wolc123

Cool, my kids have often decorated one of mine with a red nose for Christmas, they could skip that step with that one.

Very much so. I always wondered why they called those from cattle "Rocky mountain oysters", until I gave them a try, with lots of pepper. I learned that trick from Steve Rinella from the "Meateater" video series on Netflicks. He cooks up some from antelope in one episode and mule deer in another. Both times, he used butter and "lots of pepper" when frying them up. The pepper is definitely the key (I used olive oil instead of butter). What keeps most folks from giving them a try, is a lack of the primary ingredient. If you ever get a pair yourself, and decide to try them, don't forget to slit thru the outer membrane first, or they will "explode" in the frying pan. No problem, oddly enough, my wife just mentioned that she would like to try a new meatball recipe (we have an abundance of ground venison in the freezer). Maybe she can give that "porcupine" one a try.

I have killed a couple porcupines, including one up in Quebec about 30 years ago, while I was on a moose/bear hunt, and one last October up in the Adirondacks. They were both big, but I did not check to see if they had balls. I see that recipe is not about that kind of "balls" though. The rice must stick out of the ground beef "meatballs" and resemble the quills of a porcupine. The secret ingredient, to make the "real" balls of any species taste similar to sea oysters, is lots of black pepper.

I had to twist my wife's arm a little on Wednesday, to convince her to make me pickled deer hearts, like she has done every year for Valentine's day, since we have been married. I only got two last year, so I asked that she add a couple of beef tongues to the mix. She dutifully performed the task. I got her a half dozen yellow roses, from the local produce market, on my way home from work yesterday. Those are her favorites. She was overjoyed with that $ 10.99 token of my appreciation. I am enjoying some of that pickled tongue right now as I type, and saving the heart to take Ice-fishing up at the in-laws this weekend. They love the heart but won't touch the tongue. I always preferred tongue and it is too bad that deer don't have bigger ones. Pickled moose tongue is my all time favorite wild game meat (they are bigger than beef tongues), but those from Black Angus or Holstein is almost as good. My wife does not mind preparing the hearts, but always complains a bit about the tongues. She says that skinning them, after they are cooked, grosses her out a bit. It has been a few years, since I had tongue on Valentine's day, so I will agree that this was the best Valentine's day in a long time.

I have driven only GM trucks (about 50/50 Chevy & GMC's), since 1980, and none have left me stranded. That is 40 years with no tow -trucks or flat-beds, so I really can't complain. I did have a close call one time with my 2000 Chevy Silverado. My wife was backing it up to the boat launch, up on the St Lawrence river about 5 years ago, as I waited in the boat out on the river. I heard a loud "bang" and she stopped suddenly, then started yelling for me to come and see what happened. The drive shaft had broken off (from lots of corrosion), just forward of the rear universal. Fortunately, that truck was four wheel drive. I pulled what was left of the shaft out the transfer case, tossed it into the back of the truck, engaged the front-axle, and pulled the boat out with it like that. I nursed it over to a local mechanic, and he welded me up a new shaft the next day. The truck handled very well as a front-wheel drive. When corrosion started to get the best of the frame a couple years ago, I was planning on taking that truck off the road and making a field vehicle out of it. Instead, I gave it to my father-in law, who still uses it for plowing snow up at his retirement home in the Adirondacks. He got the frame welded up and has taken care of most of the other corrosion issues in his "spare-time" such that it is almost as good as new now. I still get to use it while hunting up there every fall. I do save a lot of money in gas by driving my little Chevy Sonic back and forth up there these days. Thanks to climate change, I really don't miss the 4 wheel drive at home in western NY. Our current Chevy Silverado is a 2000, 2wd, "rustless" extended-cab from Florida. As long as I can keep that one rust-proofed, I should have no further need for a four wheel drive.

Corn is the only spring crop that I put in for deer. I think you can get up to two bags of RR corn thru NWTF if you join, at $ 50 per bag (compared to aprox $250 per bag retail price). I have always used free, leftover seed that I picked up from farmer family and friends. It keeps very well if stored properly (I have not noticed any drop in germination when stored up to 5 years on a shelf in my basement). I have also never paid for soybeans, but they don't store nearly as well due to their high oil content. I only planted them once in the spring and that was enough to teach me to not try that again. The main problem for me was they drew in lots of coyotes. I would much prefer the deer to be somewhere else during fawning season (whitetail fawns may be the coyotes #1 preferred food source in NY state). Soybeans are most attractive to deer during their early growing stage. Even the coyotes eat the plants at that stage (probably because they are so high in protein). Until NY state opens up a year round coyote season, I will not plant soybeans again in the spring. It is always easy for me to find free soybeans at the end of planting season (June). I use them the same year, mixed with white clover, and winter wheat, which I plant starting around September 1st. Those sprouting soybeans draw deer to those plots like candy, and "climate-change" has resulted in late frosts, which keep them drawing deer to the plots into October (when you can kill them). They don't survive the first hard frost, but usually they have completed their mission by that time anyhow. Corn is the only plot that holds deer on my ground after gun-season begins. Obviously, that is because it provides cover in addition to exactly the type of food they seek at that time (carbs). Last year was the first in the past 25 seasons that I did not plant corn and I did not even see a deer on my land after the first shot was fired on opening day. It was way too wet in the spring for me to get any in. Fortunately, the soybean/wheat/clover plots kicked some but, and the best 8-point that I have ever taken fell dead to my crossbow bolt (with a bellyfull of that stuff) 2 weeks before gun season opened. He was also the only deer I have ever killed in WMU 9F, that did not have any corn in his stomach. Here is how I found him, just off the edge of one of those plots:

It is no wonder that Democrats are coming unhinged, given all of the stunning defeats that they have suffered over the last week.

Clearly, this one ^ ^ ^ is a Western coyote, based on the desert features usually shown in the cartoon. NY has the Eastern variety, which is part wolf and much bigger. This is pretty well explained in the opening video that Rattler posted. I have never killed a coyote while deer hunting, but I could have last year, if I had only opened the back window of my blind (faced the neighbor's field), like I did the side ones, as soon as I got in there well before sunrise. They were so froze up that it made a heck of a racket, and I had a hard time opening them. I did not bother with the back window, because I prefer not shooting deer that are not on my property. I regretted that decision, when a big red-phase coyote showed up in the middle of that field, 75 yards away, about 2 hours after sunrise. I never seen one move as fast as that one did when I tried to crack open that window. He was gone, over the horizon, before I could get to my gun. I very rarely hunt turkeys in the spring, but I do recall a very large male coon approached me in the woods one morning as I was making hen calls. It was so long ago, that I can't clearly recall the details of what happened next, but I think it might have involved a shovel. I may have had similar experiences with young coyotes and a .22 rimfire, in the summer after the hay was cut, but again too long ago to remember clearly. I did kill on big male coyote, legally, from my bedroom window, over a carcass pile, around midnight, with a .22 from about 100 yards away. I took a few shots at his mate as she bolted off after the initial shot but no signs of a hit in the snow on her. His hide got tanned and now hangs next to my bar in our billiard room.

At least there are a few positives from the high taxes and dysfunctional politics: 1) Less traffic on the roads (many without the gumption, patience, or money to stay in NY have already high-tailed it off to another state). 2) Less competition for available "free" meat (by that I mean fish and game) from able-bodied people. Retirerees don't put as much pressure on those resources. 3) The satisfaction of knowing that more of the money you earn goes to helping others than yourself. That one might not be all that handy here on earth, but will pay off well in the hearafter, and that lasts forever. 4) Lastly, I can take the cold a lot better than the heat, and could never survive South of about Gettysburg PA. For me, the weather here is almost perfect and better on average than any other of the lower 48 and I have been to most of them.

I only know a couple. They are very persistant, that is for sure. I had to wait about a half hour past sunset, for them to get back from the woods, on opening day a couple years ago, and help me put my buck on their scale. These two hunt much harder than most of my male hunting friends and have killed more trophy bucks than most of them. Now that I learned the WMU 9F correction multiplier for the PA chest (or heart) girth chart that g-man posted a few years ago, by using the lady's certified scale, I no longer have a need to weigh any more. The old trusty tape measure is always handy and does not need as frequent of a calibration.

Throw my name in the hat and send it to "Rattler" if drawn. I have no need for a meat slicer but I do appreciate the volunteer fire departments.

I think a better explanation of Trump's success, is that he has embraced the Christian Agenda, while the Democrats have opposed it. That can be seen by just looking at just one issue (Abortion). Maybe more folks (even non-Christians) would wake up if they could accept the simply-proven medical fact that "new" life begins at conception (1/2 of the "fetuses" DNA comes from the mother and 1/2 from the father). The number of "born" people that were murdered by Hitler and the Nazis in Germany was less than half of those "unborn" who have been murdered in the USA since Row vs Wade. The "unborn" murders were even more evil, because the victims had no chance to escape. I would love top see Trump get 4 more years. The most important reason for that, is to further the Christian agenda, and get a bunch more Conservative judges in place. The Devilratic party has a tough row to hoe. Maybe they don't realize that this country is about 75% Christian, although that may explain why they are so eager to get more illegal immigrants in. They can't win with "the cards in the deck" so they think it is time to bring in more from abroad. The references to Grant and Patton were interesting. Clearly, much of those two's success came from their support of the Christian agenda. Humans are flawed by definition, and those two certainly were (Grant drank to excess a time or two and Patton slapped a soldier). Like it or not, we are stuck with "humans" as our leaders today. Grant was clearly on God's side during the Civil war, which was fought to end slavery. Patton also certainly had His support (remember his prayer for clear sky's to facilitate air-support during the liberation of Bastogne in the battle of the bulge). If the Devilrats think they can win without God, they have another thing coming.

There are some good arguments on both sides of the coywolf controversy. There is no point in talking about Western coyotes, since they don't exist in NY. The positives of having them around, is that they help keep certain nest predators in check (coons, fox, opossum, skunk, weasel, mink, etc), along with some other useless vermin like rats and woodchucks. They also keep deer numbers in check, in densely-populated areas, where hunting is not allowed. That one benefits me every weekday, when I must travel thru such a town, to get to and from work. On the other hand, I can understand some folks hatred of them. If I were struggling to fill my spring turkey tags and noted a coyote coming in to my call and saw a few piles of feathers, indicating their kills of those birds, I might be tempted with SSS. There are too many bugs in the woods for me at that time of year, when I spend all my spare time on the water fishing, so that one don't matter to me at all. If I ever failed to end up with a year's worth of venison for my family by the end of hunting season, I would be pissed. Fortunately, that has not happened yet, so I am ok with the coywolfs. I do appreciate the fact that they take out the weakest of the deer first (primarily fawns, wounded, and rut-weakened bucks). I would rather err on the side of two few coyotes however, so I would vote for a year round season in NY if given the chance. The species could certainly handle the increased hunting pressure. If there were ever to bee "too few" around, they could always readjust the season dates. If you ar unhappy with the current coywolf situation, my suggestion would be to respect the law and try to enjoy the benefits they provide (the biggest one for me is a safe ride on the highways).

I am also for a year round season, but if I were an exclusive "turkey-guy", who had little or no use for deer like Bill, I might reconsider. NY politics is so disfunctional (as evidence by the the crossbow fiasco), that it will require a coyote killing a toddler before a year-round season. I am certain they will "get right on it" after that happens.

Be careful what you wish for. I think the "coywolf" (aka Eastern coyote) does the wild turkey more good than harm. The reason being that they are extremely efficient at taking out coons and foxes which are both big-time nest predators.

I have seen mostly singles and a few doubles. If I ever get a crack at a pair again, I will aim for the smaller of the two with my first shot. The last time it happened (with a pair feeding on a bait pile on a moonlit night), I took my first shot at the big male. I then sprayed a few more at the smaller female, as they bolted away, with my Ruger 10/22. I found the male the next morning (Remington yelow-jacket thru both lungs) 40 yards from the pile, but no sign of the female. Just like with deer, killing the females is a lot more effective for population control. The only time I saw more than two, was in June when the hay was just cut, and the pups would come out and play in the daylight. It is too bad that NY state don't let us shoot them then. I think the local population is down these days in WMU 9F, based on increased fox sightings (coyotes do not tolerate foxes in their territory). I only saw one coyote last throughout last deer season. I blew my chance at that one (looked like a big red-tinted male) when it heard my frozen blind window crack as I slid it open. It would have been a standing broadside 50 yard "chip-shot" at 10:00 am in the late-morning.

That's why I cut it also. It makes makes it easier to get "things" (piss sack, etc), out. The only difference is, I use a folding Gerber saw, but the cut takes under a minute. That saw gets used for lots of other things, mostly clearing branches from shooting lanes, so I need it in my pack anyhow. With the butt-out tool, most of the other "things" are already out, by the time the pelvis is cut. I like to get that part of the deer wide open, for the final rinse (using the blood which has collected forward of the diaphram), and cutting the pelvis is the only way to do that.

Happy Birthday

I have been using gloves for the last three seasons. I like the thin rubber ones from Home-Depot that extend about half way to the elbow. When I am done gutting a deer, I walk to the nearest standing water, or use snow to rinse the gloves off. They definitely help out with hand cleanup, saving a few minutes on each deer. I have used the butt-out tool for the last four seasons and that saves about 4 minutes on each deer and results in a cleaner job. I waited until the price dropped to $ 4.99 on Amazon, before I bought one of those, but it has definitely been worth it. The 6 minutes total saved on each deer don't sound like much, but it is a big deal because that is a savings at "prime-time" when the bulk of my family's venison must be secured. It is especially important, when you consider that I usually only have (7) days, over a 2 week stretch in early November, to secure the 3-4 deer that my family needs to provide us with enough red meat for a year. For those who are only looking to kill an occasional trophy, are vegetarians, are content to get most of their meat from "cooped-up" livestock, or have every day of the season(s) available to hunt, I can understand why the time savings from gloves or the butt-out tool is no big deal. If you are looking to get the most wild, free-range meat, in the least amount of time however, those two things are well worth carrying.

I drag the deer to a clear level spot, and start with the butt-out. Next, cut thru shallow from rear to sternum taking care not to puncture the gut(s). Pull out all the stuff behind the diaphram, saving the liver in a gallon zip lock bag if it is a younger deer, along with the nuts. Next, I cut thru the pelvis with a Gerber folding saw, and make double sure the pis-sack and all that stuff is cleared out. Next, cut out the diaphram, remove lungs and save heart in zip-lock bag. Use that fresh blood from forward of the diaphram (there is always plenty there) to rinse the inside of the back part, especially the tenderloins. Those get eaten fast (usually for lunch, along with the oysters that day - see photo) so I go to extremes to make sure they are not tainted with any piss, crap, or gut-juice. A fresh blood rinse does the job perfectly every time and any place.

A 4 year clover one year corn rotation works well for food-plotters. One of the biggest advantages of getting that "free" N from "fixation", is that it does not acidify the soil like heavy urea application does. I will have to look into getting some of that stuff for this spring's crop. I never add urea anyhow, thanks to following that clover rotation. My ground has never needed lime for that reason. Maybe, using that stuff, I can drop starter fertilizer (15-15-15) at planting down from 50 pounds/acre to 25 pounds or so. If I can get the Envita for free, that will greatly reduce my input costs (fertilizer is usually my biggest expense), and really help out on the venison cost per pound. I wonder if it was legal in NY last season ? If so, I will have to talk to some friends and see if they have any "leftovers". It is all about "more for less", and "free is always good".

Good stuff indeed. I am glad to see that we ain't the only ones who prefer to "live off wild animals" rather that get "store-bought meat from cooped up livestock". I could not have said that better myself. I see young Nils-Elmer is eyeballing those big moose oysters in one of the photos. Hopefully, they used lots of pepper when frying them up.

Tacks left a butt-out by one a few years ago.

In all the excitement after killing a nice deer, I have lost several items, including a nice Shrade sharp-finger knife and the Barnett rope-pulley cocking device for my crossbow. The two T-handles that I made to replace than work a lot better than the original device (I might even be able to reload fast enough with them to get off a second bolt if it was ever necessary). I still miss that knife though.

Young and dumb is another possibility: That reminds me of something I did on my first year deer hunting, when I was 16. I had made a climbing tree stand in metal-shop at school that year. I was carrying it by a strap on my right shoulder and I had my grandad's Ithaca 16 gauge shotgun in my left hand, as I was walking through the woods (not on a trail), about an hour before sunrise on opening day. Not knowing exactly where I was, in the big woods across the street, I stopped and leaned the gun against a tree. I took the compass and flashlight out of my pocket, to get my bearings. I then continued off in the westerly direction, reaching the far edge of the woods, and crossing an overgrown field to a hedgerow on the opposite side. When I got to the tree I wanted to climb, I realized that I did not have my gun. It was still a half hour before sunrise and quite dark. I attached the stand to the tree and back-tracked to try and find my gun. Somehow, I was able to walk almost directly to it, despite the darkness and having no clear trail. It was a bit after sunrise, when I finally got up in that tree. A large buck showed up about an hour later. I think I missed him clean at 40 yards. It was my first sighting of a deer while hunting, and I think "buck-fever" prevented me from bringing up the rear sight properly. I imagine that my shot went over his back. During the off-season, I mounted a Weaver 1.5X scope on that gun. That corrected the "sight-picture" issue, and I have not missed a deer with that gun over the next 37 seasons. I am very thankful that I found it that day long ago and that it did not end up like that old Winchester. Dozens of whitetails likely think otherwise however.