wolc123

Top 3: Moose tongue, Whitetail Button Buck Liver, Ruffed Grouse Worst: Mule deer, second worst: wild Turkey (I don't even like the tame farm-raised stuff)

Many years ago I harvested a 3-legged buck just like the one you are describing. I had to check the date to make sure it was not the same one. That remains the largest-antlered deer I have killed (I am a pure meat hunter), and the second heaviest. I made a mistake on it, but the mistake the guy made a week earlier cancelled out my own. I was many years younger and a lot faster back then and was easily able to catch up to the buck who had only two good legs, after my first shot hit high on a front leg breaking the bone. He stumbled thru the thick bush, hindered by his very wide rack, broken front upper leg and shot off rear hoof (the other guy did that). After my first shot, my scope fogged over and I emptied the magazine as he stumbled by, close under my stand, not touching him with the other 4 shots. I got down, reloaded, and caught up to him in the brush, using my last slug on his neck from point blank range. I have been carrying 10 bullets ever since that. I have not used more than three in over 20 years since, but you never know. When mistakes are made, two things should be done: First is to minimize the damage, and second is to learn from it so it is not repeated. I minimized the damage on that doe this year by delivering a second shot ASAP. Next season I will sight that gun in properly so it is not repeated, even if it takes a few more of the $3.00 each slugs. I minimized the damage on that heavy buck two years ago by taking two more shots ($1.00 ea bullets), finally connecting on the last. I prevented a possible repeat this year by hunting areas where closer shots were more likely.

I am not overly enthused about my last hunt with the shotgun in 9F this afternoon, as I sit here in the house by the woodstove. It is mighty cold and windy out there. I still have a DMP for here and there are still way too many deer around. Having a full freezer and no buck tag takes most of the wind out of my sails in this kind of weather. I will just bundle up with my warmest gear and sit it out. I will get out of the wind inside what has been my most productive blind this season. A couple hot-hands in the muff and a thermos of hot cider should make it bearable. Hopefully a doe or better yet, a fat BB will present a good shot. Getting your hands into a fresh deer is the best way to warm them up.

What did you do wrong this year and why? We all like reading the stories and seeing the happy faces when everything goes right but stuff rarely works out perfect and we could all do better. It takes some guts to admit mistakes on a public forum and I thank those who already have or will because it gives all of us a cheap way to learn those lessons without having to make the same mistakes ourselves. That is the best thing I see about this site. I will start it out: The doe I killed on opening day of gun season suffered for about 40 seconds longer than she should have. More "prime" meat was destroyed than should have been by my first shot, which was outside of the vitals, and a second shot was required to put her down. My first shot from a rest at 100 yards with a 12 ga sabot slug using a bolt action rifled shotgun and a fixed 4 power scope hit her high, above the lungs, and broke her back. She clawed her way into a ditch and I immediately closed the distance and put a second shot into her brain. I claim 100% responsibility for that mistake. The root cause was that the gun was sighted in 5" high at that range and I knew it but was too cheap to use the extra slugs and dial it in closer. I remember thinking that the 5" high would be ok because it would enable longer shots without holdover but I would not have done it had I known it would cause that doe to suffer longer than she should have, and the loss of about 6 good chops. I think I also discovered this season, the root cause of a mistake I made two years ago where I missed the largest bodied buck I have ever seen while hunting on my first shot (I also missed him on my second shot but fortunately the third one was on the mark). I was high up on a mountain ridge and I fired that first shot at a 300 +/- 20 yard range from a well rested position with my 30/06 with the scope dialed up to 9X, at the buck down in the valley below. He was stopped when I fired but started walking immediately after the shot. I assumed a hit (I had previously learned the hard way to assume every shot is a hit until proven otherwise). There was fresh snow and visibility was excellent. I follwed him parallel from up there and fired a second shot offhand when he reached another opening. He must have heard that one and stopped walking. I rested the heavy rifle on a tree and fired the third lethal shot, dropping him there in his tracks. At first I thought that first miss was caused by firing the shot from an oiled barrel. I verified that was not the case on the range last summer, finding that my bullets hit within an inch of the same place from an oiled barrel or one that has fired two shots at 100 yards. This fall I got back up on that ridge and noted some branches that may have caused the deflection of that first bullet. Even though I took my largest deer ever from that spot, I did not hunt it this year because I did not want to repeat the same mistake. I found a better spot, where the shots would be closer, and was rewarded with an almost perfect one-shot kill on my rifle buck this fall. I did take about three pages of flack on here for taking that shot but those folks were not there to see it and I would take it again in a heartbeat if it were ever offered.

Keep us posted how it turns out. The slow death and old age are not in your favor when it comes to taste and texture. I have am old GE non-frost free refrigerator/freezer from the 1950's in the garage that does a good job of aging venison without drying it out too much. I think a modern frost-free one might not work as well. I have removed all the internal racks and installed hooks on the top. In warm weather (when the long range forcast is predicted to be above 50 degrees for extended periods), I skin the deer ASAP and remove the rear section with a saw. I rest the front part on the neck against the bottom of the fridge and hang the rear from the tendons by the hooks on the top. Close the door, leave it in there for a week for a 1-1/2 year old deer or 10 days for an older one. Then you are ready to process, all the riggermortise is out of the meat, and it is not dried out at all like those pictures up above.

I was a few years older when I killed my first antlered deer (18 or so I think). No beer was involved but tobacco (chew) was. I got up in a tree-stand my cousin had built at the back of our farm about an hour before daybreak on opening day. He and the rest of the hunters in our family were down at Allegheny state park for the opener. I could not go because I had an important test at college that day. Opening day in the park was a family tradition. I had gone the year before and killed a button buck down there with his dad, my godfather. I was not going to put the slugs in my gun until legal sunrise and I had my grandads old bottom-feed Ithaca 37, 16 gauge. There was snow on the ground and it seemed quite bright for a while before sunrise. I was spitting my Hawken into the snow below my stand, trying to hit the same spot and watching it get bigger. Shortly before sunrise, I heard something crashing thru the brush in the overgrown field adjacent to my stand. I looked at my watch, and just a few seconds after legal sun-up, a busted up 6-point (was a 7 before the fight) stepped out of the brush and stuck his nose right into that tobacco stain. At that point, I would have much rather had the side feeding Remington 870 that I have now, but I shoved a slug up from the bottom and hoped that it went into the chamber when I brought the action forward. I aimed down at the base of his neck and thankfully there was a bang when I pulled the trigger. He break-danced around a bit there on the ground then layed still. I gutted him quick and made it to class in plenty of time for the test. I passed it, but not by much. That was one of the last times I chewed tobacco. A week or so later, during a little snowball fight at work, I took one on the chin and swallowed a big mouthfull of chew. That was not too pleasant and caused me to drop the habit. Maybe someday I will buy some again, mix it with water and try it as a deer lure. A funny thing about that buck was that I had seen him twice during archery season, but well out of range. He had all 7 points on him those times. I guess maybe 7 really is a lucky number because his ran out when he got down to 6.

Sorry grow, I will have to look it up. I thought it was legal for a landowner to kill coons that are damaging crops. I certainly am far from perfect. I even missed a couple shots at a deer a couple years ago. Fortunately I brought him down in his tracks with the third one. They were all safe, because I was up on a ridge and he was in the valley below. I could clearly see my target and what was beyond. Could you see what was beyond that ten the other day? Hang in there, you might get him yet. Next year, I would put a scope on that shotgun. That makes it a lot easier to hit them as we get older, or wait for a nice close, standing shot. You still got all of ML season also. Does yours have a scope on it? Good luck the rest of the season. I checked the regs and verified that it is legal for a landowner to trap and kill coons that are damaging crops, gardens, or landscaping. No DEC permit is required for that. The only stipulation is that the carcass should be buried or burned if trapping season is not open. Most of mine this fall were taken after coon season opened, but I may not have buried a few that I took earlier. Now that I know it is required, I will make sure I do in the future. Thanks for the tip.

Yes they were skinned. The last one was a big male and my cousin tanned the hide for me. I vividly remember turning that dried up, untouched carcass under in the spring when I plowed the ground for a corn plot.

At this time, glysophate (gly for short) is considered safe. No one knows what the future holds. At one time, agent orange was considered safe. I compromise by using gly very sparingly. Now that Monsanto's patent has expired, you can buy Roundup much cheaper than it used to be, and knock-off brands cheaper yet. Glysophate is a non-selective herbicide, which are generally safer than selective types. The application of gly allows much higher yields of corn by eliminating the weed competition. Almost all corn is RR (or gly restistant) these days, including the feed corn you can buy at Tractor supply. I don't recommend planting that because it is illegal and there are even cheaper ways to plant RR corn legally. If you are going to break the law, where do you draw the line? Why not just shoot deer at night with a spotlight over a pile of feed corn and skip the planting? Corn seed contains very little oil and will continue to germinate for many years, if stored properly (in a dry place at relatively constant temperature such as a high shelf in your basement). I clean out the big planters of area farmers at the end of planting season (late June), and use that seed the following year(s). I have planted up to 6 year old seed, stored that way, with no significant loss in germination. You can broadcast the seed, but a higher rate is required per acre if you do it that way (about twice as much seed) for comparable yield. I prefer to use a row planter on 36" rows, that also applies fertilizer (high nitrogen) at planting. That minimizes the input cost of seed (always free for me anyhow), fertilizer, and gly. The wide 36" rows can also be effectively hunted on windy days during archery season, while broadcast can not. Most of the nitrogen my RR corn needs for decent yields has been banked in the soil from white clover. I only put in corn on old clover plots where the grass is starting to take over, telling me the nitrogen has been building up in the ground. The corn puts that to good use, while grass is about the easiest weed there is for gly to eliminate. Besides using half the seed for the same yield, the row planter applies the starter fertilizer on the rows only, where it is needed by the corn. Broadcasting the fertilizer wastes a lot between the rows. The row planter also makes it easy to apply the gly only on the rows, where the fertilizer is, and where the weeds want to grow the heaviest. With a spot sprayer pointed at the rows and mounted on my cultivator tractor, i can mechanically take out the sparse weeds between the rows with the shovels, and completely eradicate the heavy weeds in the rows with the spray. I would consider my two row corn planter with fertilizer applicators to be my single most important piece of foodplotting equipment. It is the key to reducing input costs, such that the cost of boneless venison can come in at under $1.00 per pound. There is no other foodplot that offers the combination of carbs, and cover, just when they need it, and holds deer on your land as well thru the end of late ML season, during daylight hours. One last tip to get the most out of your corn, is to eliminate the raccoons. They get in the corn and knock over the stalks, tasting a little of the tender stuff at the end of each ear, before knocking over the next one. Fortunately, they are about the easiest furbearer there is to trap. A few rows of early ripening sweetcorn at the edge of your RR corn will draw them in. Those dog-proof traps that look like beer cans work great with a little cat food poured in the bottom. Box traps baited with marshmellows coated with peanut butter also work pretty well. The deer themselves are very efficient users of corn, eating all the kernals off an ear before moving on to the next one, without removing it from the stalk. I have never killed a deer on our farm that did not have a belly full of corn. A couple years ago, a couple little piles of corn was all that remained of the gut-pile a few days after I killed one. I picked up some of it and planted it in a tomato flat. Not a single one of the 12 kernals germinated. I wanted to see if it would sprout, and if it would retain the RR trait after passing thru a deer. It looks like the stomach acid must kill it all the way however.

I see the craft beer thing as a fad. Eventually folks will tire of that bitter "hoppy" taste True quality endures. The white-can "red-eyes" also have a cult following out in Denver CO. There was a little typo up above but it won't let me edit now - "beef" should be "beer".

If you put it in the right spot, and the deer is properly positioned, you can thread one thru the hind quarters into the heart and neck and have minimal meat damage. I have only heard of that happening one time however, so the odds are against you.

It is just a little under-appreciated in the Buffalo area. In the rest of the state, country, and the world, it goes over pretty good. It won several gold cups at the world beef festival in Munich. A famous actor actually had it written into the script of an Oscar nominated movie ("A History of Violence") a few years ago, because he liked it so much. They wanted him to order a Yiengling but he would not do it. Google it if you doubt me. I always aim for the truth. That is one of my top ten favorite movies because it has my favorite line: "I will take a Genny Cream".

Cool story. Do you remember what kind of beer it was?

I just had a Genny red-eye, along with some black angus liver for lunch. It seemed to be a good combo and brought out the flavor very well. I am saving the last Cream-ale in the beer-fridge, to go with a button buck-liver in case I am able to score one with my last DMP. If you are going to eat the best you may as well drink the best with it. 1

I am 3 for 5 with mine so far this season. I could not believe that it worked perfectly on the last one, a 1-1/2 year Adirondack 6-point, where I sent a 150 gr, 30/06 bullet up there first. My two earlier failures were probably related (in more ways than one). I am guessing that the 6 month old BB did not have enough thickness in the lower intestine lining to allow the teeth to grab properly. (Has anyone ever used one effectively on a fawn?). I threw it down, next to his gut pile, but tried it again on his momma when she showed up for 4:00 pm milking time. It probably would have worked on her if I would have cleaned the BB intestine residue off the teeth prior to insertion. It also worked perfectly for me earlier on my 1-1/2 year old Adirondack ML doe and my 2-1/2 year old crossbow buck. My father in law got to witness both at his camp up north and was very impressed. The key to making it work (on older deer), seems to be the 1-1/2 to 2 revolutions prior to withdrawel. If anyone knows how to make it work with a 6-monther, please let us know. If I don't hear anything better, I will try 1/2 to 1 revolution on the next fawn. Remember to keep them teeth clean.

I saw more grouse than ever up in the NW Adirondacks this fall (zone 6C). I flushed about 10, while deer hunting, on my last walk down the ridge over the long Thanksgiving weekend. The turkey population up there looks very good also. We saw a big flock in a field near Ft. Drum, along rt 3, on the drive home and almost hit a couple when they crossed in front of us. I did not see any signs of fisher, but my father in law saw a raccoon run under a cabin in the middle of the day. That is a pretty good sign of distemper or rabies. Maybe that is why the grouse and turkeys are on the upswing up there. Back home, in WNY (zone 9F), the coon population is down from last year and I have never seen a fisher. I trapped 7 around my corn plots so far this year while the last couple years, my neighbor has got more than 50. I hear he has taken 8 coyotes so far this year, which should be good for the birds and the deer. I don't think we have to worry too much about rabies here because there are still a few folks (like me) who like to trap in spite of low fur prices (I just feed the coons to the buzzards). I still come out in the black because If I don't get rid of the coons, I have to put in a lot more corn to hold deer on my farm thru gun season and that gets pretty expensive. Fortunately, coons are about the easiest furbearer there is to trap. Boneless venison is coming in at less than $1.00 a pound for us so far this year, after subtracting all foodplot (mostly corn) input costs, thanks in large part to near complete eradication of the local coons.

Coyote carcasses are the only ones that I have thrown on the bone pile out back that even the crows don't touch. They just end up dehydrating and shriveling up over the winter and I plow them under in the spring. Everything else: deer, coons, woodchucks, possums, and even fox is quickly picked clean down to the bone. Coyotes got to be pretty bad if the crows and buzzards won't eat them.

There is definitely a place for keeping the pressure on them and that is a muscle hit, with the broadhead in the deer. My first archery kill (a button buck) was one of those, many years ago. I hit him low, and too far forward, high on a front leg. The arrow broke a bone on the entry side. The shaft sheared off and the broadhead stuck in the muscle on the opposite side. The shot was taken early in the morning and a friend and I got on the trail right away. Each time we lost blood, the other would circle until we picked it up again. We were a lot younger and faster back then. By lunch time, we had crossed two roads, and were in the next town. There we caught up with the fat little guy up in a grassy meadow on a hilltop. We had lost the trail on the edge of that meadow, were getting hungry, and were ready to give up. I cut across the meadow, towards where my buddy was and stumbled across the deer right in the center. It had just enough strength left to stand, after being pushed about 5 miles. I delivered a "double lunger" to put it down for good. We gutted it quick and made it back in time for a late lunch. The bottom line is that every situation is different, and the wrong decision is always what leads to a loss. In general, a long wait (8 hr) is best for a gut hit, but when the broadhead is still in there, an immediate, relentless push is often better for a muscle hit. The best decision of all is to not take a shot at a deer unless you are 90% or more sure of a clean kill. That has been working out very well for me over the last 10 years. 100% of them, that I have shot at with a bow, crossbow, shotgun, ML or rifle, in that time, have been cleanly killed and died within 1 minute of taking the hit. With a family to provide for, I no longer have the time to get to that 90% number with my vertical bow (the last one I killed with it, 10 years ago, took the arrow thru the jugular when he ducked the shot), so I stick with the crossbow now.

Nice one TACs, I think I heard your shot. My supposidly 40 below rated black Micky boots only kept my feet warm until 9:00 this morning up in the stand and I abandoned ship. I should have got a pair of the white ones that are supposed to be good to 70 below (according to my father in law). Now I am typing in front of the woodstove and thawing out some black angus liver for lunch. I did not see anything from 7:00 - 9:00 this morning in 9F, but lots of fresh tracks in the dusting of snow. I still have 1 DMP for here and hopefully a couple hours in a blind before sunset will take care of it. There is no more room in our freezers, and I am sick of butchering, but I hear Buck & Doe is accepting donations for feeding homeless folks. One less doe to dodge on my way back and forth to work on the road would also be a good thing.

You can use one for everything: I used my old Buck 110 for 5 so far this season, and I even cut the tongue out of the first one with it. Remember that Field and Stream or Outdoor Life article this fall showing how to do it? We always pickled beef tongues, along with the hearts, but that 1-1/2 year old doe tongue was pretty small. I just left the other 4 in the heads, but now I will at least be able to say that I ate some deer tongue. My wife will slice up the hearts for me but she makes me do the tongues. What is up with these modern women? Grandma never complained. I like pickled beef tongue better than the heart (it is a little softer and better tasting).

The rifle used on the subject shot was a full-sized Ruger-M77, bolt-action, 30/06 with 3-9 Redfield scope (set on 3) firing a 150 gr Federal "classic" bullet. It has always held moa from a rest at 100 yards, so getting the bullet into that 3/4" dia hole at 50 yards on a standing deer from a good rest and with light wind was a chip shot if there ever was one. Here is another strange coincidence, that I did not understand when I sighted in my rifle, but now the reason is perfectly clear: When I verified the zero on this gun from my 100 yard bench earlier this fall, the two bullets (from the same box as the 5-pages and counting THS bullet) struck 3/4" apart, centered on the bull. For many years I had that gun zeroed 2-1/2" above the bull at 100 yards. That enabled a dead-on hold out to 350 yards (my prior kill with it 2 years ago was just over 300) Rather than adjusting it back up, I left it where it was. I expected that hunting shots in the Adirondack woods this fall would most likely be at closer range (there were a lot more leaves on the trees when I went up for my first hunt this year). Had that bullet hit the deer even 1" higher, there would have been some major meat damage.

I would look for the closest patch of brassicas near heavy cover and hunt that. Brassicas are like candy to them during real cold weather like we have now, after the corn is gone. Don't expect to see much out on a cut cornfield during the daylight now.

That is a nice blood trail. Every deer I have shot with my 30/06 has dropped dead in it's tracks (1 mule deer and 2 whitetails).

Cool, it looks like I got an honest to goodness internet stalker. Don't worry chef, I say another prayer for "no tag soup for you", get out there with your ML if you need to and fill that tag.

DEPLORABLE!