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Originally Posted by seclark
thanks, and sorry i didn't make it. crazy weekend.
i was in my blind at 5:30am. at 7am, 2bucks came thru and the first one was a monster. sighted in and shot at 35 yards and he hunkered over like he was hit. so i sits back down and pour a cup of coffee and wait for 30minutes for him to die, just like the big boys on tv. never found it...no blood or nothing. i pulled a rookie buck fever choke and missed him completely. sickend me.
got back in the blind at 8am and sat down w/another cup of coffee and pouted. a little after 9 a average 10pointer came down the creek and i blasted it.
spent most of sunday grinding burger and making jerky.
didn't get out yesterday...had to take the mrs. to get a new car.
i'm ready to go back out next weekend.
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You process it the day after you kill it? What do the rest of the hunters here do? I was always taught that you should let it hang for a couple of days to "age" it, until regamortis loosens up, but with this warm weather you should quickly knock it down and get it in ice.
We don't run a bed and breakfast type deer camp, and our furthest stand is a 30 minute walk from the house and the part of the way is more of a bent over going backwards through cedar thicket than a walk. With a clean shot it takes an hour minimum to field dress a deer and drag it to the house, and the weather hasn't been cold enough for 5 or 6 years to let them hang, so we immediately skin it, knock it down, and get it in coolers with ice. An average Ozark doe can fit in one large cooler, and the cooler takes 3 bags of ice a day. We keep the meat in ice water with canning salt for the first 3 days, and fresh icewater for 2 more days before processing. Right now we have 4 deer in coolers at camp, so 4 coolers x's 3 bags of ice, x's 5 days is 60 bags of ice at $1.25 a piece.
Why we do it this way? Because my dad does it like that, because his dad did it like that, etc... If you can grind it the next day without affecting the taste I am all for that. It gets dark at 5:30, so instead of sitting around drinking beer all night, we could process the deer while drinking beer all night.