Arcade Hunter

My son in law and his brother butchered my bear this past Saturday. Very tedious indeed.. I found it impossible to trim all the fat and gristle out. Mind you , This is the first bears I have done and I am not a professional butcher. We cooked a steak on the grill and half the steak was un-seasoned, the other half had salt, pepper and Montreal steak spice on it. The unseasoned half was delish... tasted a lot like beef to me with a hint of sweetness... the other half was equally good. The meat is tough, so extra chewing is necessary but the flavor was outstanding!

WTG Jay!!!!!!!!!!!

DB says it well. I 've also learned a lot about this sport from this forum... met a few folks from one here also and can't say it any better than this: Some of the finest people I have ever interacted with are on this site. I hope everyone here has a fantastic season this year!

Been trying to get caught up at work all week long so far as I was off all last week... So this is my bear from late last week. I was out near Ellicottville about a mile back in on state land and I see a black "thing" maybe 130 yds off. Looking at it through the scope, it moved and I could see the head and ears. I watched it for quite a while, trying to decide if I wanted it as I knew it was not going to be easy getting this thing out from the creek bed area. The bear stood up and looked around and it spotted me, dropped back on all fours and started over towards me. Absolutely certain it saw me, I decided if it comes in reasonably close that I would take it. Well, at 80 yds I got a perfect shot off. I found a taxidermist near me (Your Trophy in Alden) and we skinned it out last night. The shot was quartering toward and entered just inside the right shoulder into the chest and out the opposite side at the rear of the rib cage. Double lung shot. I selected this half mount pictured below.

Great thread. I will be watching cold fronts closely from now on... Thanks for the insight.

No offense taken at all. I will generally try to trim more fat and white stuff off but I was on a time schedule with this deer. I honestly cannot detect any flavor differences with that amount of white. I will trim down some of this better right before it goes in the grinder. I guess folks do it and other things a little different, that's one of the reasons I like to butcher myself... I get the job done the way I like it. Some folks like to add beef fat or pork fat, but I like my ground all venison (unless I am making sausage, then I'll go 50/50 venison to pork butt). Also, I'd like to add that I only grind after I practically freeze everything. It grinds nicer in my opinion. I like to coarse grind first then fine grind after that. The meat stays plenty cold enough to grind twice.

Crappyice, I do grind all of that as you mentioned. I will go through more ground than roasts... I will usually grind the front shoulders, brisket, rib meat, and neck meat. Any other smaller pieces left over from trimming and the leg meat gets ground also. I did get about 15 lbs of ground off this deer, 3 nice roasts and some nice thick steaks. The back straps get cut in 6 pieces. I like to make chops with these but I won't cut them into chops until I am ready to cook. I'll share the recipe in the "what's for dinner" thread for the chops next time I make them...

Tacc, That is one heart in the jar and I used the first recipe that popped up on a google search. If its awesome, I'll post it!

Opening day of gun, 3:30 in the afternoon I am in a two-man stand and see a deer off to my left coming up from behind me. I got the scope on it and it looks like a doe... maybe 90 yards or so. It works its way in and now it is about 75 yards out and just to my left. Lined up on her and took the shot. Tracked it for about 70 yards before I saw and big blood... just a drop or two here and there. As I followed the tracks along, the bloodbath started unfolding and there it lay. I express my disappointment when I discover it is a spike with the left side missing and the right side horn was 4 inches long. Bye-Bye regular season buck tag. Good for the freezer though!

I made some pickled heart also... it should be ready Saturday. I have another butchering job later on this week... Think you all may find this interesting. More to follow.... Sodfather and Tacs know what I'm talking about

My opening day deer ...

I believe they are made of polypropylene. They were tossing out a 4x8 sheet at work and I grabbed it. Have enough left over to replace this one once both sides are used up.

Son in law's 3 PT... his first archery deer. Double lung shot at 15 yds. We hung this for 10 days and butchered night before last.

I like to hang them for 5 to 10 days. This is my son in law's first archery deer and we hung it for 10 days. Deer was taken in West Clarksville. He opted to cut the hind quarter roasts into steaks and I took a few of those steaks and cooked them up. Best venison I ever had!

Bingo. Parasitic draw

I would eat that pizza !

Happy belated birthday!

Happy birthday

all YAall be worrying too much about dang nothin

I've been out 6 times so far... between being unusuaully busy and the rain my season has been stunted. I will say that I have seen deer every sit, a spike and a 6 just this past Sunday morning. I have the entire weekend coming up and remain hopeful to put some meat in the freezer.

Happy Birthday!

I think you can get them until they run out?

Ran out at lunch today and got 2 8G doe tags. Plan on hunting the Alabama swamps at times when I am in a time crunch. I don't live too far from there. Anyone have any tips or experience hunting there?

I found this link if anyone is interested. https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Deer Hunting (2018).pdf

Thanks for the replys I do seem to remember a few regulations for this place...