HogCommander
Active Member
Checking to see who's willing to share memories/lessons learned from their early hunts in the hope the lessons benefit others. This thread was inspired by a few "war stories" by other MDS members...I'll offer one multi-lesson story for the crowd:
Got my first deer in 2012 while being supervised by an experienced hunter. In 2013 I went out on my own (public land in Maryland). First sit I shot a mature doe at 20 yards with Xbow. Good broadside shot about 20 minutes from last light. Sat patiently for 30 min and got down from the climber in the dark. Took longer than expected to find blood...long enough I started to feel a little panic & started walking in concentric circles around last sighting. First lesson...bring a good flashlight.
The deer had run through some pretty thick stuff so I was hot & sweaty from the early September heat and pretty scratched up by the time I finally found it. I had previously field dressed one deer prior to this and that was with help from an experienced hunter...now I was on my own and and almost a year had passed. I decide to recover the deer without field dressing and try the gutless quartering method at home. The drag damn near killed me even though in retrospect it was only about 200 yards. Second lesson...if you're hunting solo, get a game cart and/or don't be afraid of field dressing or even skinning/quartering in the field!
On the 40 min drive home I call my wife and ask her to go get a tarp, some ice, and some beer before I get there. Deer unloaded, I drag it in the garage, put the tarp down, and proceed to hang the deer by its neck for skinning. We lived in a developed neighborhood and my wife was terrified neighbors would freak out so she took down our shower curtains and hung them on the edge of the open garage door so people walking by couldn't see into the garage Third lesson...think about where you're going to gut/skin/process your deer in advance. Gonna have somebody else do it? Know which processors have 24/7 cold storage.
Skinning seems to take forever but I get it done, then quarter the deer and recover the backstraps and neck meat. The thought of gutting a leg-less corpse to get the tenderloins was too much so I let those go. Put the quarters/meat on ice and took to a processor the next day.
By doing what I thought was the hard work, somehow I thought the processing would be cheaper. It wasn't; had to pay full price. Fourth lesson learned...if you plan to harvest multiple deer every year, it's worth learning to process yourself. Aside from the cost, you get to control the quality of the processing and can spend the time you need to get the results you want. Nowadays I take it from field to fork and wouldn't have it any other way.
Hope others choose to share some stories either for laughs or learning or both!
Got my first deer in 2012 while being supervised by an experienced hunter. In 2013 I went out on my own (public land in Maryland). First sit I shot a mature doe at 20 yards with Xbow. Good broadside shot about 20 minutes from last light. Sat patiently for 30 min and got down from the climber in the dark. Took longer than expected to find blood...long enough I started to feel a little panic & started walking in concentric circles around last sighting. First lesson...bring a good flashlight.
The deer had run through some pretty thick stuff so I was hot & sweaty from the early September heat and pretty scratched up by the time I finally found it. I had previously field dressed one deer prior to this and that was with help from an experienced hunter...now I was on my own and and almost a year had passed. I decide to recover the deer without field dressing and try the gutless quartering method at home. The drag damn near killed me even though in retrospect it was only about 200 yards. Second lesson...if you're hunting solo, get a game cart and/or don't be afraid of field dressing or even skinning/quartering in the field!
On the 40 min drive home I call my wife and ask her to go get a tarp, some ice, and some beer before I get there. Deer unloaded, I drag it in the garage, put the tarp down, and proceed to hang the deer by its neck for skinning. We lived in a developed neighborhood and my wife was terrified neighbors would freak out so she took down our shower curtains and hung them on the edge of the open garage door so people walking by couldn't see into the garage Third lesson...think about where you're going to gut/skin/process your deer in advance. Gonna have somebody else do it? Know which processors have 24/7 cold storage.
Skinning seems to take forever but I get it done, then quarter the deer and recover the backstraps and neck meat. The thought of gutting a leg-less corpse to get the tenderloins was too much so I let those go. Put the quarters/meat on ice and took to a processor the next day.
By doing what I thought was the hard work, somehow I thought the processing would be cheaper. It wasn't; had to pay full price. Fourth lesson learned...if you plan to harvest multiple deer every year, it's worth learning to process yourself. Aside from the cost, you get to control the quality of the processing and can spend the time you need to get the results you want. Nowadays I take it from field to fork and wouldn't have it any other way.
Hope others choose to share some stories either for laughs or learning or both!