Think I'll sit down here for a bit... (9)

[River of Zion]

I know I'm a newbie here, but I've noticed most everyone comes from up north. North meaning Michigan, Wisconsin, and all other tundra area states. I am a native desert rat, Arizonan, transplanted Texan. But I wanted to share a story of a trip I took in 06 to Michigan. To know where I'm from is important because- 1) Our deer are small and 2) You get caught killing a deer it's trouble.

In Minnesota the full moon danced over ponds and the cute little Bambi's drank peacefully was such an awesome site. I marveled at the beauty.

As I went around a curve, Bambi and her cousin standing way off on the side of the road jumped back into the woods.

But something happened! What I don't know.

Bambi forgot her medicine that day I figure. I hit Bambi and totaled my rental car. Truth be told- Bambi hit me! She twisted and jumped back around and right in front of my car!

Okay I don't know what genetic structure deer are built with up north, but they're neither Ford or Chevy tough! It's like they've been taking steriods!!

My dog will forever have PTSD! He still doesn't fully sleep when in the car.


So I ended up riding to St. Paul in Mater (from Pixar's Car's movie).
Gorgeous architecture BTW.

I now tell people that Bambi suffers from depression. I know this because of their suicidal tendancies and they need prozac.

I also let others know that Bambi is too anxious and perhaps a tranquilezer could be of some serious assistance.

I don't feed the deer and discourage all deer feeding. I believe it aids in their cycle of dysfunctional behavior.

I'm joking of course.

But in all seriousness, I'm not fond of deer signs on the road in any part of America.

I sure am happy I didn't have to pay for hitting the poor, schitzy animal.

 

[Jim47]

You see lots of dead deer on the road up here in Mich, its really sad cause they are so beautiful, and taste so good

It would be better if they just stayed in the woods where we hunters could harvest them in the fall, something I know not everyone understands, but it what God intended in the beginning, remember Abel?

I hit one on the road 40 some years ago while driving in the dark in northern Mich, it nearly wrecked my car completely. I felt bad for it but there was nothing I could do. It was badly injured but wondered off and I'm sure died.

A couple months ago a man I work with had one come through the windshield of his car in broad daylight on a busy road. The deer was of course a goner, but the car had to be towed off too, fortunately my friend wasn't injured.

When I was young deer were scarce where in southern Mich, and most of them were populated in northern woods areas, but as the loggers destroyed their habitat at the hands of greedy Mich politans who sold the mineral rights for next to nothing, the deer's homeland was destroyed, so they migrated to the southern counties where they can graze on the poor farmers crops and get bulldozed down on the roads by cars I guess its good business for the body shops

 

[QuiltAngel]

We have this saying in Iowa. You know you're an Iowan when you know three or more people who have hit deer.

We have gotten 3 just in our family. I think the State Hunting and Fishing got smart one year and upped the number of deer licenses.

The story did give me a much needed laugh today.

 

[River of Zion]

You see lots of dead deer on the road up here in Mich, its really sad cause they are so beautiful, and taste so good

It would be better if they just stayed in the woods where we hunters could harvest them in the fall, something I know not everyone understands, but it what God intended in the beginning, remember Abel?

I hit one on the road 40 some years ago while driving in the dark in northern Mich, it nearly wrecked my car completely. I felt bad for it but there was nothing I could do. It was badly injured but wondered off and I'm sure died.

A couple months ago a man I work with had one come through the windshield of his car in broad daylight on a busy road. The deer was of course a goner, but the car had to be towed off too, fortunately my friend wasn't injured.

When I was young deer were scarce where in southern Mich, and most of them were populated in northern woods areas, but as the loggers destroyed their habitat at the hands of greedy Mich politans who sold the mineral rights for next to nothing, the deer's homeland was destroyed, so they migrated to the southern counties where they can graze on the poor farmers crops and get bulldozed down on the roads by cars I guess its good business for the body shops

I understand destroying the land for progress. Used to protest that when a teen. I was not hurt and grew up with avid hunters. I think in AZ the reason there's so much trouble concerning the deer is because we would have to draw and only get one per year.

 

[Jim47]

We used to be allowed only 1 deer and that made more sence then what they do now, which is if you have proper licenses you can get three, that is unless you are a farmer or own a section of woods, tghen you can get permits to shoot a dozen or more. In the southern counties this may be necessary. but in the northern counties you can hunt for deer a whole week and never even see one. I know cause the last 3 years I was up north I saw nutin.

Unlike some hunters, I just love to be able to see them, shooting them is only for table fare, and I do enjoy that.

One of the most memorable hunts I had was a week after the season had opened. I drove up north by myself and stayed inside my van for the weekend, using a propane stove to both heat my soup for meals and for cooking. On the saturday I was there we had fresh snow fall of about 6-8 inches. It was beautiful as the sun glistened on the snow in the swamps and woods, but what I remember most was seeing a doe and her two fawns strolling slowly thru the woods browsing for food. I can remember that like it was yesterday. Ahh the find memories of years gone by, guess they'll make for good stories to tell my grandkids

 

[DaRev]

There are some suicidal deer in Texas. This I know for certain.

 

[Studeclunker]

We have a problem with deer hunting on the road here in Trinity county too. Sometimes it's the only legal way to bag a deer (LOL).

Technically, one is supposed to turn Bambi over to the authorities. They 'properly dispose' of the carcass. IE; they take it to the local landfill. Hence, we have deer carcasses all over the roads here all summer long. Since if one is caught taking the car bagged deer home it's a stiff fine.

'Course if the average driver around here would slow down a bit, the problem would be greatly alleviated. Sadly, most people in this area seem to think driving like Andy Granitelli at the Indy 500 is acceptable behaviour.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

We have a problem with deer hunting on the road here in Trinity county too. Sometimes it's the only legal way to bag a deer (LOL).

Technically, one is supposed to turn Bambi over to the authorities. They 'properly dispose' of the carcass. IE; they take it to the local landfill. Hence, we have deer carcasses all over the roads here all summer long. Since if one is caught taking the car bagged deer home it's a stiff fine.

Here in Ontario Canada, they used to take the deer to the county jail where it was butchered and fed to the prisoners. About 30 years ago, it was decided that it was not "fit" for prisoners so the law was changed. Now they ask the driver if they want it (I guess it's ok for the general public). If not, the road crew is called, and they get rid of it. Not sure where, they used to take it to a dead stock company, but now with the mad cow thing, they can't use it in pet food, and can't send it for rendering. Dump I would guess.

 

[ctay]

I'm in Alabama, i had 3 deer run across the road in front of me one day this week, they were all together, they are suicidal here too. I tried deer meat once and didn't like it. It had a very wierd taste to it and I don't see how anyone could kill bambi's daddy.

 

[ctay]

If you hit a deer here and it gets killed, you can take it home.

 

[BigNorsk]

Up here, this is the month now where the politics behind Bambi show up the best.

See it was the spring and Bambi's mother found some grass and they were eating it and then they had to run and the hunter got his mother. Well, no one hunts in the spring.

What does happen is that the warmest place out in the country is right on the edge of the road, and they melt off first, and the grass grows there first, so now, every evening, all the deer run to the edge of the road to eat the new grass.

If they'd have shown a Peterbilt running down Bambi's mom it would have been realistic.

It gets ugly for the next month around here after dark.

We have we don't know how many deer at Mom's. Something over 100. They come out of the corn every night and dig and dig to get some of the grass in the trees and eat every branch they can chew. Corn is deficient in one amino acid which if you were feeding cattle or hogs, you'd use soymeal to balance it, deer don't get soymeal with their corn, so they are hurting, looking for something to go with the corn.

Marv

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

What does happen is that the warmest place out in the country is right on the edge of the road, and they melt off first, and the grass grows there first, so now, every evening, all the deer run to the edge of the road to eat the new grass.

Marv

Deer also love, and need salt (ruminants need lots of the good old sodium ion). When I used to hunt, we would put out salt licks to draw deer. There is lots of salt on the side of the road as winter and it's snow goes away.

The result is ground venison.

The deer population here has boomed with all of the intensive farming. We had a "closed season" here for many years. The hunt was reinstated because the insurance companies lobby to the Government. Too many deer strikes=reduced profit.

 

[River of Zion]

Wow lots and lots of deer information. The bagging the deer on the side of the road may explain why all the hunters seemed to gather along the side of the road when visiting my daughter last October in Michigan. Didn't understand at the time why they would choose next to the road.

Yes BigNorsk I am coming to believe that is a more accurate description of the scenery around Bambi.

Actually Mark, making use of the deer like that makes sense. Sure beats wasting it. Didn't know deer got mad cow disease.

Venison does have a gamey taste ctay. In most cases, I believe, it's how the meat is prepared. If prepared correctly it's delicious, if not, even I don't like the taste. I love elk meat over deer. Elk is scrumpcious.

Stude, are you in Cali? If so taking the deer to the dump makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. I have to admit I don't understand most Cali's. They protest everything, eat grass and juniper berries, and when visiting myself experienced the largest amount of people propositioning me for drugs. So they promote "health" food, even their cows eat health food in a serene, relaxed enviornment for better milk I'm guessing- it's on a commercial- but pollute their bodies with "natural" chemical substances, hops and barley or sour grapes, or severe chemical substances. The two concepts just don't go together. Don't mean to offend anyone from California.

I know east Texas has deer DaRev. It was a big ta-do when my step-dad would drive to Louisiana to go hunting with his brother. The part of Louisiana my step-day was from laid directly across from Texas seperated by the Toledo Bend. At one point he quit going, I think because he couldn't bring it back to AZ. anymore. The Toledo Bend- some excellent fishing there!

Quilt, so is it that the extra deer on the hunting lisence cover hit deer on the road?

Is deer meat good if hit by a car? I would think that the animals adrenilane and fear would permiate throughout the body giving the meat an extra gamey taste. I was taught, and my teaching is limited of course to a few handful of hunters, that you want to keep the deer relaxed. One shot kill so that the meat is good.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Here's more info:

Wow lots and lots of deer information.

The bagging the deer on the side of the road may explain why all the hunters seemed to gather along the side of the road when visiting my daughter last October in Michigan. Didn't understand at the time why they would choose next to the road.

Same here. Other hunters will be walking through "driving", the ones along the road will be blocking.

Yes BigNorsk I am coming to believe that is a more accurate description of the scenery around Bambi.

Actually Mark, making use of the deer like that makes sense. Sure beats wasting it.

Didn't know deer got mad cow disease.

Yup, except it is called "Chronic Wasting Disease" (CWD). Same thing. It affects their brains, and they forget to eat.

Venison does have a gamey taste ctay. In most cases, I believe, it's how the meat is prepared. If prepared correctly it's delicious, if not, even I don't like the taste. I love elk meat over deer. Elk is scrumpcious.

We used to raise Elk. It's the best. Wild deer should be mixed 50:50 with pork and made into summersausage, or pepperettes.

Stude, are you in Cali? If so taking the deer to the dump makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me. I have to admit I don't understand most Cali's. They protest everything, eat grass and juniper berries, and when visiting myself experienced the largest amount of people propositioning me for drugs. So they promote "health" food, even their cows eat health food in a serene, relaxed enviornment for better milk I'm guessing- it's on a commercial-

but pollute their bodies with "natural" chemical substances, hops and barley or sour grapes,

These are good!

or severe chemical substances. The two concepts just don't go together. Don't mean to offend anyone from California.

These are bad!

I know east Texas has deer DaRev. It was a big ta-do when my step-dad would drive to Louisiana to go hunting with his brother. The part of Louisiana my step-day was from laid directly across from Texas seperated by the Toledo Bend. At one point he quit going, I think because he couldn't bring it back to AZ. anymore. The Toledo Bend- some excellent fishing there!

Quilt, so is it that the extra deer on the hunting lisence cover hit deer on the road?

Is deer meat good if hit by a car? I would think that the animals adrenilane and fear would permiate throughout the body giving the meat an extra gamey taste. I was taught, and my teaching is limited of course to a few handful of hunters, that you want to keep the deer relaxed. One shot kill so that the meat is good.

Can be. They usually die quick, and bleed out into their body cavity (or on to the road if they are mangled.

You have to trim the carcass hard. You remove any bruised and mangled flesh, and any that has been tainted by the contents of the hollow organs.

We also check the lymph nodes and lungs of any deer, roadkill or shot for evidence of TB. Heads are to be turned in for examination for CWD.

I'm sure that this is more than you wanted to know... but you asked.

 

[BigNorsk]

If the deer gets a good head on, no, it's no good for eating, it's just one big bruise. But if you hit the head or a leg or something, it can be fine.

Now as far as gamey taste. That seems to me to come from some people's habit of letting game hange to "age" it.

Now if you hang a beef in an controlled environment, it is improved. But hanging a deer in the garage for a couple fo weeks after shooting it full of holes and so on doesn't seem to me to improve anything.

We tend to shoot deer on the weekend and starting Monday we cut and wrap and put them in the freezer, and we don't have any sort of gamey taste at all. Plus we do bone everything.

I think gamey is another word for pretty well spoiled.

Deer can get chronic wasting disease which seems to be a prion like mad cow, maybe even the same prion, it's not known. Some areas of the country have had some confirmed cases, our area has not. Bringing in game from those areas is restricted, you can't bring in the head or anything with the carcass because they don't want brain and spinal cords which might be thrown out and infect local deer.

We have really high comprehensive insurance on cars here, two reasons, deer and hail.

During college, I would typically have enough hunting licenses I never bought meat. One day I was eating a burger and it tasted wrong, then I realized the problem, it was beef. I hadn't had one in so long I had kind of forgotten the taste.

Coyotes are sure pushing the deer herds around. I see there are still two deer with bad legs at Mom's, it's that time of year when the snow will soften and they will break through, I'm betting the coyotes get them in the next two weeks.

Antlers just dropped the last couple of weeks so you can't easily tell the bucks anymore. Though a couple are so big it's easy to tell them apart.

Dog breeding season is just about upon us and they tend to travel around the country and they can really make a mess of a deer herd when they decide to have some fun.

 

[Studeclunker]

Yes, River, I live in Northern California. The state is probably the most varied of any in the union. We have extremes in both directions. San Fransisco is perhaps the most liberal city in the nation. Insanely so. Yet, once one gets out of the Bay Area, this influence isn't felt any longer. Thanks to this extreme liberal influence in our state capital though, there are a lot of silly and expensive govennment policies. Most of the state is a rather decent place to live. It's about to get considerably expensive though, thanks to those liberals.

Tax and spend... tax and spend... and spend... and spend...

One good thing about our government here is the initiative system. The people themselves can enact legislation. This is how we stopped the runaway taxes that occured after the inflation of the early seventies recession. People were paying more for property taxes then their mortgage! The legislature has been taking revenge on us ever since. The courts are finally being brought to heel in this state. The people told them no same sex marriages several times. It finally took a (state) constitutional ammendment to get their attention. Time will tell though if it really worked. The Liberals don't give up easily.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I think gamey is another word for pretty well spoiled.

I agree.

Then there is actual gamey...

Our season is the same time as the rut. You can smell a big old buck even before you see him. There are so many hormones in their blood that you smell it when you cook it, and you taste it when you eat it.

It's the same with "boar taint" in mature, intact male hogs. Until the 1970's it was illegal to slaughter boars in Ontario. We had to knock the tusks out of them (I could tell you some stories... but not here), and they were shipped to the US where it was legal. Usually to "Oscar Meyer". Now they end up as Pepperoni. Put in enough spice, salt, nitrates and smoke, and most can't taste the boar. We had hogs when I was younger, and I think I got sensitized. I can still taste it. I eat em anyway!

 

[Jim47]

Now as far as gamey taste. That seems to me to come from some people's habit of letting game hange to "age" it.

Thats one theory, but if the deer is cleaned correctly and processed correctly you won't get the gamy taste. There is a gland in the rear legs that if you cut into it will spoil the tatse of the meat, plus if you don't remove the inards correctly it will also spoil the meat.

Cooking is also important, but is actually very simple. My wife can make the pieces that most foks grind into hamberg tatse like prime beaf cutlets

I will admit I may be partial as i love all common wild game, but I will not eat anything hat stinks when you cook it, such as coon or woodchuck

 

[BigNorsk]

I'm the gutting guy at home. We are kind of spoiled, we usually just throw the deer in a pickup, haul it home, hang it on the farmhand and skin it, then gut it.

Really helps avoid mistakes that way. Doing it on my knees, in the snow, when I can't feel my hands. That I don't like to do, but if we have to drag it too far, I do.

My brother in exchange for me gutting them, he gets to do the splitting with the saw.

Specialized we are.

We barely got out this year with all the snow this year so we only did I think 5. Usually we do 9 or 10. First time in many years Mom didn't get one.

My son shot a buck this year that had a fresh bullet just under the skin, it didn't even bruise the flesh. Can't imagine how far away it was for a 30 caliber to lose that much energy. Guy must have been aiming like a mortar. Strange things happen. Didn't look like it went through another deer it was in such nice shape you'd have thought it brand new except for the rifling marks.

Marv

 

[ctay]

Well I guess I'm officially a member of the church I'm going to now, I'll be there for a long time I reckon, even had to go up in front of the church.