RoadKill44

How bit is 1 part. (a quart?) and 2 parts (2 quarts?). I need to cut it down for one boiled heart. certainly don't need a gallon jar.

I got to have your pickling recipe. I tried pickling once slicing boiled heart into vinegar and hot pepper marinade. Other than preserving it, the meat didn't pick up any of the pickling flavors.

Way back when I first started hunting I hunted out of a camp with my dad, brother and others. Of course my field dressing skills developed under the same tutors. Through those years the last step of "gutting" was to pick out the heart and liver, place them into a plastic bag and carry them back to camp while dragging the deer. The following day the liver was sliced up, flopped in flour and fried with butter. That coupled with fried potatoes made for a delicious supper. Maybe a day or two later a couple of hearts would be boiled up, cooled and sliced for sandwiches. Homemade bread and a little miracle whip -- Mmmmm Mmm a great lunch. Years later when hunting with my brother-in-law I dragged a doe in but when I presented the heart and liver I got a very unwelcome response. "Eew - You don't eat the guts do you?". I was totally unaware that most people don't salvage those parts. For me it was the third best parts after the T-loins and back straps. How do you feel about harvesting hearts and/or liver? Is there anyone using other unusual innards?

Add the bow/muz tag that comes with bow privilege and there are six tags. Just being a nitpicker LOL. This year was not favorable for me. But I had enough tags to make a big batch of tag soup. It tasted very much like track soup but with body.

I agree with you and a couple others. A saw is not a good idea for field dressing. I use a tiny Buck 425. Blaze orange handle and neon green lanyard. I hold my finger along the back of the short razor sharp blade. I know where the cutting edge is when reaching inside and I know where the knife is if I set it down. Not fancy but for me it's the best knife ever. Comes in around $12 to $15. Oh yes and here is the saw I use but never on deer parts.

You need the Muzzle loading privilege (not a tag) to use a crossbow. Plus you need to sign and carry the certificate in the regs book. The muzzle loading tag is a BOW/MUZ tag. It is an identical to the BOW/MUZ tag you get with your bow hunting privilege except if you get both privileges one BOW/MUZ tag will be either sex and the other will be antlerless only. Still you need the Muzzle loading privilege (not a tag) to use a crossbow. No, you don't need a bow hunter course unless you want the bow privilege and a second BOW/MUZ tag. In addition you can use your regular hunting season tag during muzzle loading season to take a deer of either sex with a crossbow. Don't worry if this totally confuses you. There is a good chance things will change by October 2016. There may (likely) be a requirement to take a bow hunter course to use a crossbow. Those of you without past archery privileges should keep and eye open for the change. If the change happens bowhunting classes could fill up. That is unless they devise a method of being crossbow certified online. Are there any other instructors out there that have heard the same thing.

I love my Gerber saw. A little bigger than what your showing. Measuring 6-1/2 inches closed the exposed teeth are 5-1/4 inches when opened. It's a lock back blade in a plastic handle and carries easily in a cargo pocket. I've had it about 15 years and its stayed sharp enough to tackle two and three inch limbs nicely. Unfortunately there is no stampings of part numbers and I looked online but couldn't find it. If you want I'll send a photo.

This deer was taken a couple years before I had a digital camera. If your talking live "on the hoof" shots, then "no" to that as well. I took a lot of film snap shots when we gathered to skin him and a couple others. I took quite a few of him at that time but we probably focused on the rack. I'll have to hunt those old photos up to see if I have any showing the mane. If your thinking it might be a Jackalope type enhancement it's not. I have seen a few others. Just not that pronounced.

In 1998 I harvested and nice 10 point. One thing that stood out was the this buck had a mane. While I've seen a few other mounts with manes (maybe 1 in 20), I haven't seen any as prominent. It sometimes shows as a mound of darker hair. Here's a close up. Almost like a brush along the back of the neck. A step back for size perspective. Is this uncommon? Has anyone else seen deer like this?

Cool. I've never looked for K9s. In fact, I seldom looked at the teeth mainly because I was never interested in aging deer. This has peeked my interest so I guess it's time to start paying attention.

Ideally it would be nice to have doe attractant September - October and let the doe draw the buck in. But more importantly, I'd like something to hold them over in order to get them through those cold winters. Right now my plot is small (50' by 120') along a hedge row to farm field. It's about 200 yards east of my house and I can monitor the deer activity easily. Just north and east of the plot (about 100 yards) is a 2 acre pine lot where deer (10 or so) seem yard in the winter. There is also hundreds of acres of brush lot around to the north and farm fields to the east and south. Year one (2011), I put in radish. I had huge plants and the deer didn't touch it until February. They would dig through a foot of snow to get to it. Year two, I did the same thing but mixed in a few beans. The deer got in there early and by July everything was mowed down to all but ragweed, grasses and a few thistles. A few radishes remained but plants were small. I also tried clover but they didn't seem to touch it. Last year I did nothing but my neighbor put in a late planting of wheat. That seemed to work well for drawing in doe during bow season. Of course last year was also a deep snow season and a doe carcass ended up not far from my plot. This year I was thinking of throwing down some beans late to have healthy sprouts by the end of September.

Talking about biting off more than you can chew

While shooting in a archery league play make-up, I experienced a shoulder dislocation. It wasn't painful but it put me out of archery for four months. The only way back in was the special permit to use a draw lock device which literally turns a bow into a vertical crossbow. The draw lock actually includes an anti-dry fire mechanism and it works great. The draw lock also includes a foot stirrup for cocking like a crossbow except cocking is manual (no need for cocking aid). You bend over grab the string, pull back and place it on a hook at the release. From there it's treaded as a cocked crossbow. A year later, at a league play again, while cocking the bow, the string slips out of my fingers just as I was placing it on the hook. TWANG!! Dry Fire! $270 later and 2 months waiting for parts the bow is back in use. Side bar - Comments have been made about the difficulty of carrying a crossbow through the woods. I've got both and the draw lock on a standard compound bow is far worse at getting hung up in the brush.

Wow. Nice job. I haven't done many Trail cam videos but I have some software I could recommend called Adobe Premiere Elements 13. I think it was about $60. With that software you can cut and splice originals to maintain clarity and add music. You have the editing talent but the video taken from a screen display was noticeable. I haven't placed anything on U-tube either so you're already ahead of me there. Again great job.

How do you determine the size (acreage) or requirements of a food plot? Here is what we see annually: Right now we see 4 to 8 deer in our 5 acre grass lot yard. By late winter there may be 16 to 20 yarded up. April and May there may be nothing but a doe or two which bring on there fawns. Fall rut activity picks up with 10 or so doe and we had 3 nice bucks watching over them this last year. There are brush lots, pinewood and hardwood stands around us. I assume I'd want to gear up for the 16 to 20 deer yarding up through winter. But you tell me.

Ooops. Didn't mean to step on your toe. In fact I agree with you. It's my opinion that big bore air guns are not for big game. I thought I said that.

I wounder what you'd get if you ordered just the box.

I can't see the air guns as a ethical deer hunting weapon. And I'm speaking for myself. On the other hand referring to them as BB guns and useless is not fair. Back to the topic though. If they are interested in a new and separate set of rules to target doe they could include other liberties as well. Because the problem of over population is in the urban and suburban areas the new season should be geared to that situation and leave the remaining seasons as they are. 1 - Doe only. This would truly be for population control and It's a first step that could develop into allowing a hunt for either sex. 2 - Archery only (including crossbow). Guns (including air guns) are perceived unsafe for dense human populated areas. 3 - Open up the dawn and dusk hours. At least the half hour before sunrise and after sunset. Some special rules in the past include hunting until 11 PM and allowing the use of lights. 4 - Provide Individual suburban landowners with doe permits transferable to hunters they choose for their backyards. The landowners will realize they do have a part in seeking a solution. This too is a great first step to establish communication between non-hunting suburban landowners and hunters eager to help. This from a suburban hunter of two years.

A ground blind hunter myseft. To mimic your fence structure into the forts I once build as a kid provide great blinds for the friends and family. This one, called Ten Point after a wall mounter, has produced deer just about every year. You might consider it the resort hotel of deer blinds.

At a family Xmas gathering it seems both a nephew and a brother-in-law acquired crossbows for Xmas. In a short time one side of the basement was converted into a 20 yard archery range. They placed a shooting block on a table and relocated storage boxes to the center of room. Soon half the family was shooting crossbow for their first time. A great way to enjoy both family and sport.

I don't know exactly what I'm looking at. The empty box appears as though it should be a bow shipment. But instead you got 10 copies of the manual. Bummer. Where's the bow?

I have the deer in my yard and love it. But, I've heard several success stories about taking three or four eggs and setting them out to rot. After a week or so you mix the putred eggs with water in a spray bottle. Then spray it on to the perimeter bushes and grass. They say it's cheap and it works. I couldn't tell you that for fact. I think a lot of stuff you buy has egg in it.

I think the 2% number refers to adult deer deaths. Most documents I've read (Michigan, PA and others) report 20% predator deaths among fawns. Many of the so called factual numbers vary in many different reports. The deer reproduction rate use in the webinar (for instance) used deer population doubling every year (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 growth). In the Bowhunter Education class the manual teaches a growth rate of about 60% (2, 4, 6, 10, 16, 26 growth). There's a big difference between 64 deer and 26 deer. I believe the latter to closer to the truth. I guess my point is, it's all about guesstinations and people in the know can't even agree. "There are 1 million deer in NYS". This is a guess because there's no way to actually count every deer. This number has remained pretty much the same over the last 4 or 5 years. Yet there are a lot fewer deer, according to hunters, and many more deer, according to farmers and suburban dwellers. So who's guess is going to be closer to the truth? Those actually using and improving on scientific methods to count deer or by popular opinion from various groups. The NY state reported 238,672 deer were taken in 2014. It looks like a precise number but it's a guess. Using statistics they believe they are right within plus or minus 10,000 or so deer.

That 2 deer to 64 deer refers to the situation where 100% of the deer survive in a perfect habitat with no predators or diseases. One buck and one doe (2 deer) will cause the doe to make 2 fawn (first year 4 deer). Assuming fawn are averaging one buck and one doe each year there are two breading doe which produce 4 deer the next year (second year 8 deer). and so on. each year they double. Hence 2-4-8-16-32-64 is the potential growth rate. That doesn't happen because 20% of new fawns are killed buy predators, some 80,000 are hit by cars and another 250,000 are killed by hunters. Other stuff like disease and old age make the NYS deer population to remain constant. 1 million NYS deer lasts year and 1 million deer this year. The three or four WMU per aggregate is to solve a statistic problem. They aren't changing the WMU to make them larger. They are just using three or four WMU at the same time in this study to collect data in larger quantities. It's all a game of mathematical guesstimations. The bigger the area of study the better the guesstimation. I think the rule is that three times the data means nine times the accuracy of the guesstimation. But maybe somebody more into statistics can correct me. My last statistics class was more than 30 years ago. The rest of the message related to changing how they planned to hold meetings and how they intend to get more people involved. I still don't understand what that's all about. Sounds like a bigger bureaucracy where there are more people to disagree. In the end there are just as many upset with the outcome. Then again it could end up favoring the hunter.

A disclaimer start: I'm not and expert just a hunter of 55 years. But there are others on this sight that might be able to chime in and help out. It sounds like you have an ideal farm area that could be good mix deer habitat. Doing the math there is 320 acres of woodland with water nearby in two swamp areas. There are two things that come to my mind immediately. 1) Lack of hunting pressure when you are there. 2) There can still be a food problem. Nearly everyone is hunting the first two days of hunting season. Pressure is high and nearly 20% of all deer taken are on those two days. By the time you get back your best option might be to "Still Hunt". Deer are active at dusk and dawn just beyond the legal sunrise/sunset times. with your land posted up and no other hunters around a tree stand over a plot or even an illegal bait pile, is bound to be fruitless after the first week. Your other option is to get some buddies and family to hunt the same days. Even then half of the hunters should be walking around "Still Hunting" or driving. A single 120 acre woodlot could be easily hunted by four people. that would help but without pressure on neighboring property it could still be a bust. As far as food problems go, I'm just becoming aware of that topic myself. Good deer habitat requires more than cover and local farm fields and food plots. Deer need a lot of low brush and leaves to feed on. For me hinge cutting may be the answer. Not being qualified to even suggest methods, I can only point you to the links I've found. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chEPUV0V2yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofow0-VUDuE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_fPWzsHtC8