wolc123

Sorry Dan, thats the wrong buck, but you did give me an idea for a taxidermy project. The little 6-point, second from the bottom, was the Texas-heart buck. It would have been cool to have a photo from the front, when that bullet struck. My father in law always tells me that the eyes would probably have been protruding out pretty far, right about then. The cape on the shoulder mount up top was given to me by a friend. He had a buck that his grandfather had killed re-mounted on a larger cape. He gave me the small mounted cape, and I attached the rack from my first buck into it. My dad made the walnut plaque for the back. Dad also made the little red-oak plaque that the Texas-heart buck rack is now on. When and if I find the time, maybe I will put my first buck's rack back on that small oak plaque that it was originally on. Then I can put the Texas-heart rack into the little cape. I will try and pull the glass eye balls out as far as possible, to try and re-create the actual "holy crap" facial expression. I will also put the exit hole in the lower neck (there was no entry hole). The exit hole was just to the left of center on the lower neck (the buck's head was facing right when the bullet struck). That may be the best shot that I have ever made on a deer and it would be nice to have a lasting reminder of it. I always go for "aim small miss small", and hope to hit an individual hair. There was no hair at the spot I aimed that time, but there is also no doubt that my bullet struck right on it.

I have removed many of them with my power washer, while doing euro mounts, but I have never tried eating one. Birds and other vermin always clean up every last scrap, along with the eyeballs, lips, etc, within 24 hours. I have always been amazed at how small a whitetail buck's brain is, considering how elusive they are. The brain of a 3.5 year old buck is about the same size as one of it's nuts. It would take several to provide enough calories for a meal. Certainly the small size makes the head shot a much poorer shot choice than the butt shot. The Texas-heart (butt) shot offers a quick-kill zone of at least a foot in diameter, while the head shot is less than 2".

I have not been over to visit my parents (both in their 80's) since the Covid-19 stuff started. My mom mentioned on the phone last night that dad found a big antler near the back of a clover field behind their house (4 points on it). He has been trying to find the other side, with no success so far. I have been concerned about the fate of a big 8-point, that I saw a few times over there during archery season, and now I can rest a bit easier. It appears that he made it thru gun season. I did not see any bucks over there during gun season, after I "accidentally" killed the resident old doe on opening day. I had seen several bucks over there earlier, all having smaller or busted-up racks, except for the big 8, which never gave me a good shot opportunity. I was a bit concerned that a big, busted-rack buck that a neighbor killed over there might have been him, but dad's antler find proves otherwise. I am guessing that he will be 4.5 this year, which is a bit out of my league, but has me looking forward to the coming season. I had killed 3.5 year old bucks over there in 2017, and 2018, but missed my chance last year. I did manage to get one at home with my crossbow, but the bodies (and chest girth) are a lot bigger on the ones over at my folks place, on average.

That'e how the Inuit get there vitamin C. After that moss gets fully digested, it is all gone. They don't have much citrus up there.

About half of the trees on our farm are ash and they have been getting hit hard by the borer for the last few years. I am getting sick of burning ash firewood. That is all I have been using the last 6 years. All of my permanent tree stands were in ash trees and I finally got the last one of those down (2) years ago. Thankfully, I never fell out of any of them. Now it is all ground blinds or ladder stands in maple, oak, or poplar trees for me. One thing is for sure, I wont miss the ash trees when they are finally all gone. I hate cleaning all the ash they make out of the woodstove. I see where they got their name. I don't need to clean the out stove nearly as often when I burn cherry, oak, maple, or walnut. Good riddence to those ash trees. I also don't think they have any value to deer, and aluminum works better fro baseball bats

That part always gets left on the gut pile. As far as the nuts go, I will never again let them go to waste. Pepper is the key ingredient, and it makes them taste just like the finest, freshest sea oysters. If and when you get the balls to give them a try, remember to make a small slit thru the outer membrane prior to tossing them in the frying pan. If you don't, they will explode. I use olive oil, but "Meateater" Steve Rinella recommends butter. I tried them first on Thanksgiving weekend of 2014, when I saved a pair from my first Adirondack buck. My mother in law fried those. Unfortunately, most was lost in the explosions. Those explosions made a mess in their kitchen, and my father in law (fearing a repeat of that incident) threw the sack containing those, from 2016's infamous "Texas-heart" buck, over the edge of a steep cliff. The next time I was able to try them was from a button-buck in 2018. That time I witnessed the explosions, but fortunately they were mostly contained by a deep iron frying pan. They tasted ok, but not much flavor. I made the slits and eliminated the explosions from my next buck that year (a 3.5 year old), but once again they had very little "taste". Those in the photo on this thread were from last year's 3.5 year old buck. That time I used plenty of pepper, and I learned that was the true "secret" for making them taste spectacular. They were so good that they really have me looking forward to hunting season this year. I should have enough tags for (7) bucks (5 would need to be buttons), but I will be very thankful for just one or two. Hopefully, you will get to enjoy plenty this season yourself.

Rigor mortis effects the liver very significantly. That is why many people think the liver from older deer is too tough to be enjoyable. If you cook and eat it right away (within a couple hours of the kill), it is possible to get ahead of that process, but that timing rarely works out. An easier method is to keep the livers from older deer in the fridge for a week or so, prior to freezing. That will allow time for the rigor mortis to break down and it will be tender when cooked. If you freeze the livers, a day or so after the kill, you are locking in the rigor-mortis at about the maximum toughness stage, and they will be very chewy when thawed and cooked. I left a lot of livers in the gut-pile from 1.5 year and older deer for this reason. Fortunately, I never abandoned a button-buck liver (the 6-month olds are not affected by the rigor mortis process), and they were always tender and awesome tasting. I have only been blessed with button bucks every other season, during the last 36 years and last year was an off year. I saved the liver from the 3.5 year old buck that I center-punched with my crossbow last season, and I placed it in the fridge for week. I ate about a third of it fresh (it was quite large compared to those from button bucks, which I can easily down in one sitting), and froze the rest. It was very tender and almost as tasty as that from button bucks. The other two packages, that were in the freezer, were just as tender and tasty as the part that I ate fresh (after a week in the fridge). I just ate the last one a couple weeks ago. Based on that experience, I am going to keep saving the livers of older deer, especially if they are very cleanly killed like that buck was. I did not keep the liver from a 3.5 year old doe, that I killed later with my shotgun, because that was not such a clean kill (It took me three 16 gauge foster slugs to end her suffering). How cleanly the deer is killed has some effect on the flavor. I always save the deer hearts, and my wife pickles them for me each year on Valentines day. She uses a recipe that my grandmother had for beef heart and tongue (I always liked the tongues better, but they are too small to bother with on deer). Since I only had two deer hearts last year, she added a couple of beef tongues to the batch. That was some damn good eating for sure.

The external buck deer organs are good also:

For my first 35 years, all of my fish was fried. Perch, walleye, and calico (crappie) are better that way than bass, because there is less oil in the meat. They are also not as good baked or broiled for the same reason (they dry out too much). Fish oil is very good for you, from a health standpoint, and baking and broiling are healthier cooking methods than frying. That is why I have been mostly sticking with bass and baking/broiling the last 20 years. Besides being healthier, they are a lot more fun for me to catch than walleye, perch or crappie. The older one gets, the more valuable time becomes, so I look to squeeze as much fun into what time remains and I seek to extend that time as long as possible. These days, I will take baked bass over fried walleye or perch any day of the week and twice on Sundays. To each their own though, and I am glad that so many folks prefer golf or fishing for walleye, perch, trout and salmon. That leaves more bass for me. I got to admit that trout and salmon fishing on Lake Ontario is lots of fun and I have done a fair amount of it. The power runs of those kings are great and the aerobatics of the steelhead is always spectacular. I can be on lake Ontario in a half hour and I would certainly do a lot more if it, were it not for the health advisories against eating those fish and if I could safely feed it to my wife and kids. If and when I do manage to go again, I will try that gill-cut trick. I could wack them over the head with a club and let them bleed out in the transom well to keep the boat's carpet clean. Keeping the boat clean is important to me. What I like the best about trout and salmon trolling, is having the ability to drink a beer or two during the process. That is a no-go for bass fishing, because the first thing alcohol takes away from a person is the ability to detect the strike. That is a non-issue when the rod is in a holder and the fish hooks itself. Bobber fishing for perch, crappies, or pike also has that advantage (being able to drink a beer).

I have heard of others doing that with bass and they say it does get rid of the red in the fillets (which I usually trim out of the larger fillets before freezing), after killing them with the club. I wonder if that would result in that same awesome fresh-fish taste (complete lack of "fishyness") that I get from bass that were very much alive when dispatched, compared to if they were just left to suffocated on ice. I don't think it would be worth the risk to find out. I also like the livewell, because it lets me cull out the big ones. As far as the taste comparison between the livewell bass and cooler suffocated walleye goes, we did that last week. I used our last pack of lake Erie walleye (from June 2019) for the wife and kids, and a pack of St Lawrence largemouth (from August 2019) for myself. My wife baked all of it in the oven. The bass was way better than the walleye but I think that was more due to the fact that the bass were from fish on the smaller side (12-15"), while the walleye were from fish in the 25" range (thats about what they averaged on Erie last year). The walleye definitely had a hint of that "fishy" taste, while the bass did not. Much like big lake Ontario trout and salmon, those big Erie walleye make for some impressive photos but they are certainly nothing to right home about on the table after they have been in the freezer a while, even if they were vacuum sealed. I think I will release those I catch by accident this year, if I won't be able to eat them right away. In 2018 we ate a big walleye the day after catching it, never having been in the freezer, and it was a lot better baked but still not as good as the smaller bass. We should be good now until the third Saturday in June anyhow, because the last six packs of vacuum-sealed fish in our freezer are smallmouth bass from the Upper Niagara (caught in September and October 2019). It will be nice not to have to separate it, for the wife and kids and myself anymore, when baking and serving. They were not overly impressed with their last fish dinner (big, fishy, 8-month in freezer, walleye), but they will surely love the next few.

Fortunately you don't need to take the bow course because NY state law still considers the crossbow to be a muzzleloader. You do have to sign the little card in the rulebook (or available on-line) and cary it with you when you hunt. If and when they open up all of bow season to the crossbow, they will also require the bow course. I doubt we will see that happen anytime too soon however. You do have the best two weeks of bow season to use it now, in the southern zone, plus three days a month earlier up in the northern zone, prior to the early ML season up there. Personally, I have had more success, in just (6) years with my crossbow, as I did in the previous (30) years with my vertical bow. It is that much of a superior weapon for deer hunting. Not needing to draw, with a deer in close, and having the ability to shoot from a rest with a telescopic sight makes it way more lethal.

I walked to the back of our back 40 today, and it looks like it is drying up pretty good. I might be able to start some spring plowing soon myself. Last spring is was too wet and for the first time in well over 100 years, we did not grow any corn on our farm. That meant that there were no deer here either, after the first shot was fired on opening day of gun season. I don't know if I am thankful or sad that the factory where I work is considered "essential". It would be nice to have a little more time for field-work, but at least they asked me to switch to second shift for the next couple weeks, so I will have a few more daylight hours available. We make critical machinery for power generation and the Navy, and they still need that stuff during the crisis. With all the bars and cafe's closed last week, the crowding around the microwaves was pretty intense at noon on first shift last week. I walked to the far back corner, where the range is, to get a big office chair out of my blind back there. The only thing I saw out of that last gun season was a monster, red coyote. I carried my Ruger 10/22, with the clip loaded with yellow jackets, just in case he showed up today at the tail end of the season. No sign of him, but the wheat back there is looking pretty good, and there are lots of deer tracks in it. The damn chair must weigh 50 pounds, and it was a pretty good workout carrying it all the way back, strapped to my back. I don't own an ATV, and it is still a little too muddy to drive a tractor back there.

Maybe someone will figure out how to do that on-line.

I always try and use the fish, in the order that it went in the freezer, but it is not so important if it is vacuum-sealed. Every once in a while, I loose track of a pack or two, which I find later when I thaw out the freezer. It still tastes the same as fresh stuff does, when it is thawed out and cooked, even if it has been in there a year or slightly more. The vacuum-sealer really makes a big difference. I use to just freeze the fillets, in zip-lock bags filled with water. Back then, it was a lot more important to use it faster. Being frozen in water, it also took a lot longer to thaw out and cook. It also never tasted quite as good as the fresh stuff, even if it was only in the freezer for a month or two. Prior to vacuum-sealing, I dry the fillets with paper towels. Speaking of fish, I am going to bring up a couple of packs right now and put them in the fridge to thaw for tomorrow or Friday's dinner (St Lawrence river largemouth bass for me and Lake Erie/upper Niagara river smallmouth bass or walleye for the wife and kids). I eat about as much myself as those three combined do, including the leftovers which I always take to work for lunch the next day. Per the NY state health advisories, men over 50 (like me) are good to go on the the St Lawrence stuff, but not women or children. That is why I always make sure to mark the packages with contents, origin and date. The wife and kids started liking fish a lot more after I started using the vacuum sealer.

The afternoon rush-hour traffic on Transit road was less that half of the usual, so Covid-19 ain't all bad news. It is also nice to get to spend a little more "quality" time with the kids after school, instead of just hauling them back and forth for sports, while they are on their smart-phones, and spending all their "free-time" on homework. I got to watch two movies with my daughter the last (3) nights. Watching "Guess who's coming to dinner" was today's homework assignment for her high-school film class. We helped the local economy a bit today, getting a new toilet installed in the kids bathroom, and a new beer-fridge delivered (Home-Depot got a little boost anyhow). It has got to be tough on the bars and food joints though. I can also relate to the slow-down in auto service. My car is getting close to being ready, but the miles are piling on less than normal without all those extra school runs.

Our freezer is in good shape, with plenty of venison and even fish left, but I can't wait until October when hunting really is "in" season, and I can sit down to a fresh surf and turf special like this ("oysters" and tenderloins): - and even the beer tastes better at that time of year

Prayers sent

Not sure about antlered ones, but this was my biggest button since joining forum anyhow. PA chart says field dressed nearly 100 pounds and about 50 pounds edible meat. That was in 2018, and we just finished the last vacuum-sealed roast. That sure was some fine quality eating, which I always try and save for special occasions.

There are lots of good places for canoeing up there and the scenery is as good as it gets. Our girls, who were around 6 years old at the time, lust loved Buttermilk falls. They liked hopping around on the rocks below the falls. We took them on a few canoe excursions to nearby spots during the week we were up there. They "helped" a bit with little paddles in the center of our 17 footer, with my wife in the bow and me in the stern, with the big paddles. It was late July when we were up there, there were no bugs around that I can recall, and the weather was nearly perfect. One day we made a shore dinner of smallmouth fillets in a frying pan over a little one-burner Coleman stove.

Last week's squabble between our illustrious Senator and the Supreme court was very encouraging. The end is now in sight for the tragic executions of about 10X as many totally innocent lives, by abortion doctors in the USA, as were carried out by the Nazis in German concentration camps. It seems that some people (like our Senator) are not too happy with the job Trump has done so far. No President, in my lifetime, has accomplished more good than Trump has. His effort to stack the Court and end abortion is the greatest proof of that. It was great to see our own Senator proudly displaying his true colors. This should help eliminate any confusion some Christian voters might have about who is good and who is evil.

He was also the dirtiest scoundrel of the war. There is nothing honorable about killing unarmed black solders who were trying to surrender with a sword. He should have been hanged for war crimes and probably would have been, had Lincoln not been killed. After the war, Forrest became the first grand wizard of the KKK. If I knew where his grave was, I would piss on it.

A side benefit of destroying all that money will be helping to control inflation.

stout but slow

I traded my old Starcraft 14 ft rowboat for a 17 ft Wenonah Spirit canoe about 20 year ago. When our girls were younger, I often took them out on the Erie canal and Tonawanda creek. It was always fun. On the canal, when power boats passed by, we would sometimes give that universal "slowdown-wave" as they passed us, making a wake. I always got a kick out of it when folks on shore give me that wave when I am cruising along in the canal or lakeshores in my own powerboat. I usually give them a standard wave in return. The look on their face is always priceless, when they think that I think they are waving at me and not telling me to "slow down". Sometimes that is followed by high-pitched yells, threats to call the police and turn me in for violating "no wake" laws, etc.. Patience is a virtue, which I often find myself lacking, so the canoe don't suit me so well for fishing. I have only fished out of it three times, and they were all memorable. The first time was on Goose bay, for largemouth bass, up on the ST Lawrence river. That was the first time I used it and I ended up capsizing and loosing my tackle box. I did not realize how tippy those things were, and the importance of keeping a low center of gravity. I was sitting in the center of the canoe, on a swivel chair that was mounted on top of a cooler that I planned to use as a "live-well" (I am not a catch-and release guy). Fortunately the water was warm and I was close to shore when the accident occurred. It took me a few years to work up the courage to fish out of it again, but one year we took a week vacation to Long lake. We drove up to a rented cabin, with the canoe strapped to the top of our mini-van. Every morning, sleek bass-boats with big motors on back, would work the shorelines for bass. I tried that a little from the canoe, with limited success. If there was anything above a slight breeze, it was very difficult to manuver, especially against the wind. On the second morning, I decided to paddle out to the middle of the lake (actually not really a lake, but a "wide" area on the Raquete river). The fishing was a lot better out there. Those "unmolested" smallmouths went for my bucktail jigs, and I ended up catching plenty for a few meals. I gave some of those jigs to a kayaker in the next cabin (who hadn't been having much luck himself) and he ended up catching a few nice smallies. Later in the week, I was floating broadside out in the middle (using a 5-gallon bucket as a drift sock), with 3 or 4 bass on a stringer. I noted a powerboat coming at me with what looked like a sail up front. It was an elderly couple, and the "sail" was actually a towel or shirt the woman in front was holding up for shade or something, between a couple of oars. The old fella in back had the outboard at wide open throttle and the sail was completely blocking his view of me. With the fish and bucket in the water and attached to the canoe, there was no way I could move out of the way. I took a deep breath and yelled at the top of my lungs, just in time to avoid being cut in half like JFK on PT 109. The last time I fished out of it was about 10 years ago, on Cuba lake. That is a small lake, ringed with cottages, and usually crowded with powerboats. We were visiting friends, who had a cabin on the lake. I brought along the canoe, once again strapped to the top of our mini-van. I tried a bit of fishing at mid-day, but it was a no-go because all the wakes from power boats made it terribly uncomfortable. Towards evening, when the traffic died down, it was ok. I ended up catching a very large smallmouth on a jig, across the lake from the cabin. It was cool how that bass was able to spin the canoe around. It was way to big to eat and I did not have a camera to take a picture. I tied a string thru its lower jaw and towed it back the the cabin for a photo. That bass kept pulling the canoe, almost like an electric motor, all the way across the lake (never in the direction that I wanted to go however). After the picture was taken, I was able to release it relatively unharmed, and it swam away looking perfectly healthy. My most frequent use of the canoe these days, is on those occasions (every other year or so), when mother nature blesses us with "lake-front" property. When the floods come, The girls and I can paddle from our own deck, to my uncle's "lagoon" next door.