2024 Deer Season

[WV Sawmiller]

  Today was our last day of our one week Muzzleloader season. I went several times earlier in the week but did not see any deer. The weather was pretty poor and I only have anterless tags left. Our daughter came up Friday so I did not hunt then or yesterday as we did early Christmas with them, our son's family and several friends and former students of my wife.

  My daughter and her bunch left today so after noon I went out to try one more time. When I got on my ATV ignition switch would not turn. I don't know if it was iced up as it has been real cold and we had a dusting of snow the last few days. I sprayed some WD40 on the key and in the slot and got it to turn and crank.

  I took off up the hill and about half way up the steepest part and a doe ran out past me and stopped so I shut the ATV off and unslung my ML and shot her. She was way up the hill above me but fell and slid to my ATV road. I went on up the hill and turned around, came back and looped a short firewood dragging cable on her neck then to the ball hitch on my ATV. I got back on and it would not start. Crap! Fortunately the grade was steep enough I coasted all the way down out of the woods to 50- yards from my barn. I went over and got my dog biscuit Kawasaki 650 I flipped several times a few years back and just use for hauling firewood. The cart was connected so I drove over and parked the cart on a slope, disconnected to lower the bed, dragged the deer on and hooked up again. I went ahead and pushed my other ATV into the barn then went and finished checking my deer on the phone. I'd already field tagged her. I called and got my check in number that allows me to dress her out.

    I pulled down to the skinning rack on the back of my boat shed and was getting set up to process her but when I went to connect my water hose to the freeze proof outside faucet I found it had a small drip and had frozen up and had a long icicle hanging down from it. Crap again!!

    I opened the well house and got out my propane fish/turkey cooker, went back to the house and got a lighter, fired up the cooker and warmed up the pipe and head and luckily I was able to thaw it out so I was back in business.

  I weighed her and she weighed 132 lbs (60 kg) which is a pretty decent doe around here. I skinned and broke her down into the shoulder. neck, hind quarters/hams and pulled the loin and tenderloin, and cut off as much meat for burger and such as I could get from her.

    I quit about 5:30 and put the meat in a couple of fridges and will finish working her up tomorrow I guess. I will likely give the loin/tenderloin to a friend as I don't need to corn any more and I'll get some cube steaks off the hams and grind the rest I guess.

    Now I just need to go clean and lube my ML and put it up till next year.

[trapper]

with the furnace failure and my wife falling I had things going on the entire MZ season.  We are in a zone for a holiday antlerless hunt.  Runs from Christmas to new years.

[beenthere]

Wish you well Trapper. Let it be a Christmas present.

Pray that your wife is doing well.

[WV Sawmiller]

   For us the next 3 days are only open to archery (including crossbow). 26 & 27 Dec are youth/senior days and I could shoot an antlerless each of those days that does not count on my bag limit. The last 4 days of the season/month are rifle antlerless and I could shoot one antlerless then with a rifle or keep hunting with archery gear. Several years back I shot a big spooky doe on the 28th of Dec IIRC and when I got to her she was a he who had already shed his antlers. He was a legal deer though. I don't know if I will go again. I have one more sawing job penciled in the 28-30 if the weather and such permits.

[SwampDonkey]

Deer season is short here, but you can hunt grouse from Oct 1st to Dec 31st. Before the last snow the first snow had gone with rain. I was walking up the woods roads to the woodlot in the nice weather and there was always a grouse in nearly to same spot out by the road in the tangled shrubs sunning himself. He'd fly. But sometimes he'd be right back there when I walked out. Grouse are funny that way. If you find a spot they are feeding or sunning, if you wait and be still they'll be back again. 

[ron barnes]

I still have 2 doe tags for this year.  Our season is open thru Dec 31.  Need to fill one of the 2 tags.  We use a lot of cube steak, hamburger and sausage.

[YellowHammer]

I guess we are lucky here, but we can shoot three antlered deer and then a doe a day for the entire season, that runs from mid October through January.  Archery starts first, then muzzle loader then gun and all stay open until the end of the season.  That's a lot of deer! I don't know of anybody who shoots that many, however I did know a guy who would average 35 a year, but I didn't think much of him for killing that many, it was excessive.  I guess I am just surprised at some of the pretty short and restrictive seasons you guys have in some states that I would think would have tons of deer and very long seasons because you have tremendous croplands or thick woods.  Around here, and in bordering states, the deer can be too thick in some places, and are tagged and shot during the summer as nuisance deer if the farmer can convince the court of such significant crop damage.  We also have some CWD spreading, and that is becoming a real concern, and it is due, in part, by over population of deer.  Do you folks have CWD emerging?  We have deer literally eating the grass in our front yard, as I type this. 

I'm just curious why other states don't have such a high or rising deer population with the nationwide decrease in hunting.  Just curious to me.   

 

[SwampDonkey]

This was a common scene at deer camp back in the 60's. 40 miles from the nearest town. Serpentine Lake.

[Magicman]

Like YH, we also have a long season with liberal harvest quotas.  On private property, any harvest method is legal through most seasons, which as virtually eliminated ML's.  Our season closes January 31st.

Looks like our wind will shift from North to South after Christmas so maybe we can hunt a few days.

[WV Sawmiller]

Ron,

  We eat a lot of cubed steak and the corned deer. I used to make sausage and still have some to use up but I see I can get pork Boston butts for $1.99/lb and sometimes on sale for $.99./lb. I prefer pork to deer sausage so when I run out from now on I'll make pork sausage. Last year was the first time we'd made burger. I sent some de-boned meat to be ground for sausage and the guy packed it in 1 lb rolls and I did not want to tear them open to season the meat so we used them as burger and I just shot another for sausage. Turned out we liked the burger so this year I shot one in October with a crossbow and made about 30 rolls of burger. What I don't make into cube steak on this one I will grind into burger.

Robert,

    I am surprised on that limit in Ala. Is that state wide or in your part of the state? I started hunting deer there is S Ala in my late teens and the limit was 1 antlered deer per day. Antlered was "horn visible above the hairline", They never had a tagging system that I remember so I don't know how they'd enforce it,

    We can get damage tags here, When my son was a teen a buddy had damage tags and  I was working overseas. They would ask my wife how many she wanted to work up and on what days then they would go shoot at night, I think they could shoot them until 10:00 pm, I don't remember if they had to call them in or had actual tags, My son has a co-worker with a big farm and he may shoot hundreds during the summer and drag them to the edge of the field to rot. He will bring in coolers full of backstraps and maybe hams if people want them but does not process them further and only then if people ask for the meat. I thought in many states you were not allowed to keep the meat on damage permit killed deer.

  In South Africa we used to buy Kudu, Springbok, impala and such in all the grocery stores and it was on the menu in all the restaurants. They had big game farms and would send out shooters at night with small caliber rifles like .223 with trucks with spotlights and extra alternators to keep the battery lights charged, They'd drive to an area and shoot 30-40 before the rest would run. They had skinners and mobile butcher shops and reefer trucks to skin and butcher the animals. A shooter who shot one anywhere besides the head would be fired. The game farms did better than beef as they could raise more meat per hectare that way and the native animals were used to the native plants and did less damage than cattle did.

  In Norway and I think most of Europe you could buy legally harvested moose and deer and such in the markets. I know our Noggie daughter used to sell some of her reindeer to the local groceries. She also got her dog certified for tracking and the road department would sometimes call her to track down a road killed animal. She'd get paid or get a portion of the meat she could use or sell. To hunt in Norway you had to have or have on contract the services of a certified tracking dog.

  I see here in WV I think starting last year you can use a leashed dog to track mortally shot game but the dog owner has to have a valid hunting license and if he does it for pay he has to have a guide or outfitter's license. I think using the dog is a good rule but the licensing requirements should not be needed. If someone called me I'd take Samson and go try to help him find one. He's not a great tracker but he has helped me a time or two.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I finished deboning the shoulders yesterday and took the backstrap and tenderloin to a friend for his Christmas and deboned the hams today and we cubed them. Made 14 packs of a lb or so each for us when vacuum sealed. I'll throw the neck and hocks (Fetlocks?) in the crockpot and cook the meat off the bones for sandwich meat and grind the rest into burger. Don't know if I'll try to shoot another or not.

[YellowHammer]

Surprisingly in South Alabama, the season extends even longer than here in North Alabama.

Due to CWD, Alabama has a pretty intensive (big ticket and fine) check in system for any deer shot these days not properly checked in (via app or in person) or in the counties with CWD alerts, samples taken.  We just heard in the news there was a positive deer CWD case a few counties over.

As most know, CWD in deer is 100% fatal, and although not yet jumped to humans, it is CDC recommended that no deer be consumed showing symptoms or tested positive.  Cooking will not kill it, and in the counties where it has been discovered, deer hunting has plummeted because no one wants to even take a chance of eating an infected deer before the symptoms appear, which can take years.  So the population explodes and it spreads even more.

     

[SwampDonkey]

Heat will kill anything, it has to be hot enough and well cooked through. Some people like meat half cooked, I don't. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Sorry I forgot to answer earlier, Robert, but we have CWD in 4 counties up in the north part of the state IIRC.

   There are special regs there and the head/brain and spinal cord cannot be transplanted out of the county. The deboned meat can be taken and I think the cleaned scull cap and antlers can be removed. Our DNR tells us in the regs the meat is safe to eat if properly cooked.

[Magicman]

Do some searching:

Will cooking destroy any prions that might be associated with the deer meat? While taking standard precautions will reduce or eliminate any contamination of deer meat with prions, cooking or canning will not destroy prions that might be present.

But the fact is that much/most about CWD is unknown.

[SwampDonkey]

Doesn't seem possible, but according to a lot of creditable sources (not news media) cooking won't kill it. I stand corrected on the subject. 

[WV Sawmiller]

  Well, I don't eat the brains of spinal cord and CWD i has not been identified in my area so maybe I will survive.

  I had 15 lbs of deer for burger and added about 9 lbs of pork Boston butt (The label also called it Pork Sirloin roast which was a new term to me) so I cubed and ground that together. I am loving my Weston electric grinder I go last year - sure beats the small or large hand grinders I'd been using. Samson loves burger making time as there are lots of left over pieces and small spills for him to clean up.

  I put the stuffer funnel on and we made 18 mostly overstuffed pound rolls which is also something we started last year. I have a big sausage stuffer with a bigger funnel which no doubt would be faster but then another machine to clean and sanitize so I used the grinder. I need to check and see if the bigger funnel won't fit the grinder. I think it will. Anyway the burger is in the freezer, the grinder and kitchen items are washed and air drying and I'll put them away in a bit and be almost done for the year.

  The only thing left is the neck and four front lower leg sections which are in the big crock pot and almost ready to fall off the bones. When they will I'll let them cool and strip the meat off and bag and freeze it for sandwiches. I could make hash from the meat or BBQ but they are pretty good as roast deer sandwiches. Its a lot easier to remove the meat from those cuts after cooking than trying to debone them raw.

EDIT-ADD-ON:

  I just checked my copy of our regs and find we actually have 6 counties in the extreme NE part of the state with CWD. The regs don't specifically say the meat is safe to eat but they do specify no part of the head/spinal cord can leave those counties except for antlers and scull caps or finished taxidermy mounts with no tissue attached. It also says de-boned meat can be transported as long as there is no part of the spinal cord or brain attached. Since I save the neck and make a roast and cook the meat off it I could not do that if I were in one of the affected counties.

  In fact I just finished removing my neck and lower leg roasts from the crockpot, bagged and tagged and put the meat in the freezer and cleaned and put away the crock pot.

    I checked on a butchering chart for deer and see the lower legs I have mentioned are called the shanks. There is some good meat there but hard to de-bone and remove the tendons and such but it comes off easily when slow cooked till it falls off the bone.

[Magicman]

Well, I don't eat the brains of (or) spinal cord

You may not actually eat the spinal cord but it is inside of the neck that you cook in the crockpot. 

Fact is, the precautions that the wildlife regs require will not prevent CWD from spreading because they allow the antlers to be removed.  How is it possible to saw the skull cap off without sawing through the brain?

[WV Sawmiller]

    Our regs say the cleaned scull cap can be removed. Yes you have to saw through the brain to do that, I gather a European mount could also be removed as the flesh and tissue would have been removed from them too.

   And my earlier comment included the fact I have saved the necj which does have a section of the spinal cord. I don't know if the prions come loose in the crock pot but I suspect they do. The cooked spinal cord slides right out of the neck bones when cooked a long time. It is a pretty tough piece of tissue.