Hunting thread

[hilljack13]

Didn't see any threads for discussion for hunting. Big or small game doesn't matter. Let's see some trophy's and hear your stories.

Me, grew up hunting white-tails. Have moved into small game, wild hog, coyote, turkey. Like to shoot squirrels while deer scouting. Started when I was 11 or 12. I have become obsessed with bow hunting and recenlty my eyesight prevents the pins from being clear. They are all blurry, so I bought a crossbow for this year. Currently hunting public land in Alabama. Good success last season and only ~45 days till the deer season opens here.

What you got?

 

[tedtan]

recenlty my eyesight prevents the pins from being clear. They are all blurry

You know you can get glasses.contacts/Lasik for that, right?

Also, paging @Manurack.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I've been hunting off and on since I was 4 or 5. I used to do a lot of whitetail hunting, but anymore I prefer to duck hunt and go after small game (mostly rabbits). I'm going on a pig hunt with some buddies down in texas later in the year.

 

[Manurack]

I grew up hunting back home in the Canadian Arctic. Mostly barren land caribou, musk ox and moose for big game. I'd use Remington hunting rifles like a .223 for caribou, musk and moose.
For small game, I'd shoot Canada geese, big trumpeter swans and other water fowl with my 12 gauge shotgun.

This picture of from my hunts in 2011 to 2014. First is a bull caribou, next two are musk ox and a snow goose. All good eating! Except my favorite is definitely the sweet taste of the caribou!

This is a caribou leg roast that I slow cooked in the oven for 4 hours with some potatoes, onion and baby carrots.

Also, since you're a bow hunter, check out my old Homemade Bows and Arrows thread I started ten years ago! I was healing from a broken ankle, whilst waiting for my daughter to be born. I had to re-upload the pictures on page 4 of the thread I believe. Also, shoutout to @tedtan for the mention!

My hand made traditional Hunting Bows and Arrows

I've always been interested in the traditional hunting tools, and the bow and arrow are my favorite. I searched the threads for primitive hunting and didn't find anything. I'm Inuit, my ancestors, like other cultures all over the world, assembled the magnificent bow and arrow. Earlier this...

www.sevenstring.org

 

[hilljack13]

You know you can get glasses.contacts/Lasik for that, right?

Also, paging @Manurack.

Yeah, have had glasses for ~20 years. Doc keeps saying I have astigmatism, but all prescriptions lead me to using my old ones. I guess you get what you pay for, Tricare optometrist are not good.

 

[hilljack13]

Small game opens today. I can't go since I was unable to get to the license office. Will have to wait until Monday.
Here was my buck from last year. My biggest. Yes I have only hunted in the south only.

 

[hilljack13]

I grew up hunting back home in the Canadian Arctic. Mostly barren land caribou, musk ox and moose for big game. I'd use Remington hunting rifles like a .223 for caribou, musk and moose.
For small game, I'd shoot Canada geese, big trumpeter swans and other water fowl with my 12 gauge shotgun.

This picture of from my hunts in 2011 to 2014. First is a bull caribou, next two are musk ox and a snow goose. All good eating! Except my favorite is definitely the sweet taste of the caribou!

View attachment 113571

This is a caribou leg roast that I slow cooked in the oven for 4 hours with some potatoes, onion and baby carrots.

View attachment 113572

Also, since you're a bow hunter, check out my old Homemade Bows and Arrows thread I started ten years ago! I was healing from a broken ankle, whilst waiting for my daughter to be born. I had to re-upload the pictures on page 4 of the thread I believe. Also, shoutout to @tedtan for the mention!

My hand made traditional Hunting Bows and Arrows

I've always been interested in the traditional hunting tools, and the bow and arrow are my favorite. I searched the threads for primitive hunting and didn't find anything. I'm Inuit, my ancestors, like other cultures all over the world, assembled the magnificent bow and arrow. Earlier this...

www.sevenstring.org

Brah...making me hangry!!! That musk ox is cool. Something I had never thought about hunting. Super cool to see what game is taken from different regions.

 

[Manurack]

Brah...making me hangry!!! That musk ox is cool. Something I had never thought about hunting. Super cool to see what game is taken from different regions.

Musk ox is definitely an acquired taste as it's quite gamey. But, I am an Eskimo and I love the taste of it!

 

[youngthrasher9]

I haven’t been in quite a few years but I’ve processed tens of thousands of pounds of game. I think I have to wait another year before I can hunt here as a resident, sadly. I really want to make some more smoked deer sausage for the freezer.

 

[youngthrasher9]

I haven’t been in quite a few years but I’ve processed tens of thousands of pounds of game. I think I have to wait another year before I can hunt here as a resident, sadly. I really want to make some more smoked deer sausage for the freezer.

I will however share a picture from the night a yearling buck jumped in front of my truck in Alabama

 

[jaxadam]

I haven’t been in quite a few years but I’ve processed tens of thousands of pounds of game. I think I have to wait another year before I can hunt here as a resident, sadly. I really want to make some more smoked deer sausage for the freezer.

My stepdad brought home some deer meat once and my mom made a shit ton of deer salami when I was in the 7th grade. I mean a shit ton, like three days worth of baking that shit in the oven. Every time my buddies came over we’d eat it and she thought I loved it. So every day for lunch in the 7th grade I got a deer salami sandwich with a piece of bullshit generic yellow cheese and bullshit generic yellow mustard on Nature’s Own butter bread. I couldn’t even trade it for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich by the end of the year so I was stuck with it.

 

[spudmunkey]

My first whitetail deer hunting outing with my dad and my cousin (gun season, I think I was...14 maybe?), we split up. From my position looking out in front of me, way off to my right, was my dad down in a swampy area. In about the same position but to my left, my cousin was up in a tree stand. Both of them were obscured from view, while I was sitting in a folding chair at the edge of a clearing, about 15ft away from a treeline. We got into position at 3AM. At about 5:30AM, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was my dad. Apparently, I had fallen asleep, and a deer had come out of the woods directly behind me, walked right up to me, and sniffed my hat. The whole time, my dad and cousin tried to catch my attention by waving their hands, but didn't want to make noise. They couldn't shoot because I was right there. My cousin tried to take a photo from his tree stand, but the low light, lack of flash, and distance meant that all you could see was a black dot, but it was enough proof to know they weren't just kidding around.

My dad usually got a deer every year, between the family friend's cabin in norther Wisconsin, or his brother's farmland. We never got steaks out of it, though. None of us liked the texture of whitetail venison steaks. 100% of the meat was turned into summer sausage, and summer sausage sandwiches, two apples, and a thermos of 4 cups of Folger's coffee would be his daily work meal at the factory basically every day.

 

[Bandersnatch]

A thread already exists

 

[youngthrasher9]

My stepdad brought home some deer meat once and my mom made a shit ton of deer salami when I was in the 7th grade. I mean a shit ton, like three days worth of baking that shit in the oven. Every time my buddies came over we’d eat it and she thought I loved it. So every day for lunch in the 7th grade I got a deer salami sandwich with a piece of bullshit generic yellow cheese and bullshit generic yellow mustard on Nature’s Own butter bread. I couldn’t even trade it for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich by the end of the year so I was stuck with it.

That’s a good story!

Yeah, deer sausage in general and especially large diameter stuff like that isn’t super easy to execute… it takes quite a bit of know how and a lot of trial and error if it’s not taught professionally.

I personally do pork and beef fat in the deer sausage I make if I’m smoking it. 50/50 of each, really nice cover fat. I coarse grind the venison first, add about 30% beef and pork fat in cubes by weight, mixed in well then run that through a finer plate on the grinder again. I found that the texture balances really nice this way. The biggest game processing operation I worked in ground both the lean game and fat the same number of times and it was good but definitely more of the cheap hotdog side of things texture wise vs a nice emulsified sausage.

 

[hilljack13]

That’s a good story!

Yeah, deer sausage in general and especially large diameter stuff like that isn’t super easy to execute… it takes quite a bit of know how and a lot of trial and error if it’s not taught professionally.

I personally do pork and beef fat in the deer sausage I make if I’m smoking it. 50/50 of each, really nice cover fat. I coarse grind the venison first, add about 30% beef and pork fat in cubes by weight, mixed in well then run that through a finer plate on the grinder again. I found that the texture balances really nice this way. The biggest game processing operation I worked in ground both the lean game and fat the same number of times and it was good but definitely more of the cheap hotdog side of things texture wise vs a nice emulsified sausage.

I have been hellbent on doing my own processing for years but never go around to getting a grinder. I didn't want to spend $500+ on a good one, even though the cost would have paid for itself by now, and I am too cheap to get a lesser grade. Now when I do any processing myself my back just about goes out on me. I have no option but to use a processor. Good ones are hard to find.

 

[youngthrasher9]

I have been hellbent on doing my own processing for years but never go around to getting a grinder. I didn't want to spend $500+ on a good one, even though the cost would have paid for itself by now, and I am too cheap to get a lesser grade. Now when I do any processing myself my back just about goes out on me. I have no option but to use a processor. Good ones are hard to find.

Agreed on good processors being hard to find, and I have worked at two.

Nowadays you can get a reliable grinder on Amazon for about $180 but it’s a #22 not a commercial sized one like a #32 or #54 (basically just how much you can do in x amount of time, technically just plate size). I can typically run about 50lbs through in about a half hour maybe a little more. IRRC it’s an STX Turboforce.

 

[Manurack]

My dudes, I found some ground up buffalo meat at the local Kootenay Market grocery store downtown. I wish it was buffalo steaks, because I wanted to make an Inuit delicacy called mipku - dried meat. I always made it with caribou, musk ox and moose meat back home in the Arctic. They are thinly cut strips of meat and to help the curing/drying process faster, I always added Back Eddy's seasoning salt. It takes a day or two to fully dry, depending on how thin the strips of meat are cut and goddamn, they are so tasty. A food dehydrator helps to dry them in hours, but I prefer the traditional Inuit way of just throwing them onto a wooden stick and flip them halfway through. Here's a picture of caribou mipku that I dried on some oven racks.

Two days later, my daughter and I devoured it all! I made a simple but tasty dip of mayonnaise and soy sauce. Mipku is an amazing Inuit delicacy!

Anyways I got side tracked lol I'm going to make a stir fry with the ground up buffalo meat tonight with chopped onions, carrots, corn and seasoning salt of course.

 

[AMOS]

I used to hunt all the time, now I just shoot at steel targets at 100-300 yards. That's all I have the time for

 

[Manurack]

I used to hunt all the time, now I just shoot at steel targets at 100-300 yards. That's all I have the time for

What's did you hunt, dude? The guys on this thread are curious to hear your hunting stories!

 

[AMOS]

What's did you hunt, dude? The guys on this thread are curious to hear your hunting stories!

Mostly Pheasant, Duck, and a little Deer hunting. Not really any stories worth mentioning, besides how much bigger my arms got carrying around a Churchill 10 gauge side by side all day. That thing was freakin heavy.