wolc123

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!

I lost significantly more meat on my "quartering to" shot at close range with my crossbow this season than I did on the 50 yard "Texas-heart" shot with my rifle. The mechanical broadhead entered just behind the shoulder and took out a big part of a butt-roast on it's way out the other side. That was also a messier gut job, with corn everywhere from where the broadhead sliced thru the stomach. The bodies on both bucks were similar sized but the rifle buck produced 1 more quart of meat (a lot less trimming was needed). That is enough to feed my family of four dinner and a "leftover" lunch for me the next day.

Buckmaster, it sounds like grandma might loose a couple of chops on that shot but nice job. What was the rifle?

My father in law gave me an old, made-in-USA Buck 110 a few years ago. It does not hold an edge real well, and I would prefer a smaller, two-bladed pocket-knife for deer. I have manged to kill a lot of deer while packing that old Buck. It makes him feel good when he sees me using his "gift" to gut them. He has seen that three times in the last three years up at his new Adirondack retirement home, and it puts a big smile on his face every time. I figure using that knife up there is the least I can do in exchange for the room and board. I use it at home these days also, and it gets the job done ok, but needs a frequent sharpening. After using it to gut two bucks two years ago, without sharpening after, I really struggled with it to slice the throat and finish off a button-buck that a hit-and run driver knocked the wind out of and left suffering at the end of our driveway. I am going to pack another "classic" knife next weekend, during late ML season, while hunting bear (no more deer tags) at my buddies place in the Southern Tier. My wife bought me a old made-in-USA Schrade 153UH at an antique shop last year. I will be a lot more comfortable hunting bear with that, than I would with the Buck. The longer, fixed blade seems to be made of much harder steel. A quick second shot is not going to happen with my crossbow or ML, but I think I could finish a wounded bear quick with that knife if I had to. I have lost a few knives over the years, and I don't have a particularly strong attachment to any of them. My favorite one, that I lost about 15 years ago, was a Schrade "sharpfinger". I remember playing cards at night in the cabin years ago, on a Quebec moose hunt, and using that knife to pick up dimes off the table. It really held an edge, and stayed incredibly sharp for a long time after taking a lot of abuse.

In the morning (before work): Remove a vacuum-sealed roast from the freezer and take off the plastic bag. Place the still-frozen roast in a crock-pot. Add one packet of Amish beef gravy mix ($1.20 ea. at Nolt's in Lowville NY, or other Amish stores in NY state). Add 2 cups of water, a few potatoes, onions, and carrots. Set crock-pot on low. 8-9 hours later (after work): Serve for dinner. This method takes minimal time and effort and tastes great. The leftovers are even better. A can of cream of mushroom soup can be substituted for the Amish gravy, but is not as flavorful. My kids like the Amish gravy mix a lot better. I get (6) aproximately quart-sized roasts from an average sized deer (all cut from the hind quarters), and an occasional neck roast. Each roast, prepared this way, will feed my family of four one hearty dinner, plus provide me enough leftovers for my lunch at work the following day. We put (32) of these roasts in the freezer, so far this season, so we should be eating very well until next season. No special culinary skills are needed to do it this way. It works great for folks with full-time jobs in other fields.

I usually hang them from the back, from a spreader beam, made from white oak, that hooks the tendons. I saw off all the legs (rear below the knee to save the tendons, and fronts just above the knee). I skin the rear legs far enough up to remove the tarsal glands and expose the tendons prior to hanging. If outside temps are predicted to be below 50 F over a week in the long range forecast, and hang the carcass in my insulated garage (with all the windows covered with cardboard to block out the sun). Leaving the hide on insulates against temperature extremes (high and low) and keeps the meat from drying out. Pulling the tenderloins right away and tossing them in the fridge for a couple days before eating is a good idea. They would dry out too much over the hanging week to ten days if you left them in. This does look like a perfect week for hanging a deer.

Was this post intended for this thread? If not, no big deal and thanks for the "bump". A 5th page would be nice. I think a "Texas heart shot" thread went that long on this site when someone else posted about it a few years back. Has anyone else made one where there was minimal meat damage, including un-bruised tenderloins, and a clean gutting job? I guess it is ok if I am the only one. It took 35 years of deer hunting for me to be presented with the perfect conditions for this shot, and I don't suppose I will see it again. It is definitely not a shot I would recommend for beginners, or those who are not confident in their marksmanship on deer. Proper placement of a good bullet with enough energy will guarantee a quick kill but will most likely still result in a significant amount of damaged meat and a messy gutting job. Speaking of coloring, that reminds me of something else, in addition to bullet placement and the alignment of the deer to my gun barrel, that was close to perfect about this shot. That would be the spot where it happened. I don't remember a prettier spot than right there, on that snow-covered forested ridge, up in the Adirondacks. Just one more reason for me to believe, that there is no limit to the blessings that The Good Lord can deliver, while we are still down here on Earth. I can only imagine how much more awaits in Heaven.