The Annual Deer Hunt on the farm

Preparing to butcher our buck

I spent time thinking about this blog and what I wanted to write.  When I first started my blog my interest dealt about writing about life on the farm and as a chef growing food.  The significance of this comes from my belief of having access to good quality food and showing to the outside world how to go about growing food for your family.  Life on a farm is about life and death, it is a constant, and we may witness the birth of an animal or the end of life.  We are surrounded by wildlife that may prey on other wildlife, coyotes, hawks and other creatures will roam the fields as they hunt for food.  Like the animals we too have come to understand hunting for our food. Managing the farm includes keeping the balance of life under control and only hunting what you will consume.  We are not hunters of antlers and trophies, we are hunters of food.  I am not judging those that hunt for trophy nor am I suggesting we are better because of our hunting reasons.  We are excited if our bounty for the year includes a large buck but we are excited if our hunt includes a large doe. Our freezer is often stocked with vegetables from the growing season and venison from the hunting season; it is preferable to raise, hunt or forage our own food.  The simplicity of doing this is not political, it is not based on social media memes or other glorified reasons, it is based on using what is in front of you and providing for yourself with what you have available. 

Delaying my writing of this blog came from concerns of others, who currently are not of mind to read about hunting and anything to do with guns.  I am empathetic to the feelings of others whose lives impacted by a gun or gun violence.  Sadly, we live in a time where many will resort to a gun to undo the life of another. This is not new but due to social media and the internet we are assaulted with the behavior almost daily.  The exposure of the violence is not something we should ignore or believe it is going to just go away.  As a hunter this bothers me for many reasons, the first I do not want to lose my right to hunt game for food and the second there are people in this world who have no respect for human life. 

One of the views of our hunt this year

Hunting in general has been a way of life for some and yet a denied right for others; early modern Europe hunting was exclusive to the noble and in fact controlled by the noble. Pheasants did not have the land or rights to hunt in many forests and those rights were held by only the noble.  Hunting for sport was more important than allowing the citizens to hunt for game.  Today we have two kinds of hunters, those that hunt for sport and those who hunt for the meat. I would fall in the latter category.  

The experience of hunting can be demanding, cold, and harrowing and yet exhilarating all at the same time.  Opening day is the day when you find out if you properly prepared yourself for the elements, and prepared your rifle to accurately shoot.  Depending on the weather you may find yourself bundled in multiple layers and as you head into the field you can feel every one of those layers weigh against your body.  I started to carrying a back pack with me when I go out; I can carry extra water, gloves and other extra garments that will keep me warm and more importantly in the field longer.  I also carry extra ammunition, my field knife, binoculars and rifle stabilizer in the pack. We usually head out just before sunrise to (I say “we” if someone else from our family or friend will be joining us on the hunt) find our spot to sit. Throughout the year you can observe the fields and get a pretty good idea of where you should be sitting opening day or throughout the hunt.  If more than one person is going out we have a plan of where each of us can shoot or if we are going to be moving around to create movement from the deer.  Sara will sleep in and head down later in the morning; when she comes down her weapon of choice, a cup of tea! Sara will walk the woods, to try and drive any deer sitting tight in the woods, towards me.  She has done this for quite a few years and in fact she will also purchase a tag for hunting, but I am the one who will fill the tag, if I can.  I always enjoy Sara’s company when she walks the woods and meets up with me after her foray, and she enjoys the exercise making her way through the woods, plus she can work on her trails for the horses.

Once I arrive to the area where I am going to sit I will quickly look around before settling in for the long haul.  The opportunity to shoot will often happen right away on opening day, the deer are not running until those first shots ring out.  If nothing is moving I unload my pack with any items I may want to have nearby, binoculars etc. This year we had snow on opening day; this is usually a good thing as we can track the deer in the snow a lot easier, although, I can track deer fairly well in snow or no snow.  It’s kind of humorous when you start to think about life on the farm as it is all about feces; this can be manure for growing crops, inspecting to see what animals are making their way around the house and hunting, as we look for fresh feces giving us signs of deer or other animals we may be hunting.  I swear sometimes it’s all about the shit! I digress though and want to point out there are other signs we will look for; deer beds for example are areas where the deer pressed down the grass as they were laying down. These beds can be very telling, they will point to the trail they ran off to or upon further inspection let us know how long ago they may have been in the area.  In the snow you can look at a track and identify if it is fairly new just by cut of the snow or how frozen the ground is where the track is left. 

Sitting in the cedar scrubs waiting for the deer to pop out!

This year Sara had pushed out three deer and I took my shot only to miss! I was pretty upset because I had taken the time to site in my rifle this year, and even went out and purchased a new scope. Unfortunately it was off, and as I learned the second day it was really off! I stayed out all day on opening day and after taking the shot I did not see much to shoot at and in fact the closest deer I did see was in another field across from our farm. The second day sitting and I had a nice doe pop out in front of me, I took the shot and I missed.  Completely flabbergasted and angry; I don’t usually miss and in fact take a lot of pride in only having to take one shot to put an animal down.  I literally left all my gear in the field took my gun back to the house and went upstairs to retrieve another rifle. Sara asked what was wrong and all could respond was to explain I missed again and have no idea why the site was off so badly! Perhaps, it was fortuitous in the end, because when I returned to my spot and settled in, another large buck came charging at me from across the field. This guy had no idea I was settled in behind some scrub cedars, and when he realized my presence he stopped jumped one of our fences but when he landed I shot and put him down with one shot! It was a surreal experience for a couple of reasons, the first watching this buck racing down the field towards me, at an incredible speed, in itself an awesome sight and the second watching him fly over the fence, well above my head, I knew this time I am not going to miss! It is important for me to put the animal down quickly, not just because it is humane, but also to keep the animal from running off, and having to track an animal that has been shot, and with every move it makes in that condition, the meat will change.  The single shot worked and the by the time I walked up to the buck life disappeared from the animal.

We are without a doubt very lucky to live on a farm where we can hunt and have the equipment needed to haul back our carcass after field dressing the animal. Field dressing is extremely important and if handled wrong the meat can be ruined! It is important to carefully remove the organs without piercing them and to make sure the animal has bled out properly. If at any point you do not do a good job you are at risk of tainting the meat and ending up with a very poor quality.  Once I have successfully field dressed the animal I will walk back and get our tractor and haul the animal back to hang for skinning and butchering. 

After field dressing the buck

The next stage is just as important when it comes to butchering the deer. I understand the importance of hanging the meat for a period of time before processing, but the hanging time can also have other problems, first being the weather! If it is not cold enough outside to hang the deer for any extended period of time, it is better to skin and butcher the meat quickly. The key is the cooling of the meat; I will butcher the animal into the primals and quickly and get them into the freezer or an area where I know it will be cold enough to store the meat for further processing.  The other reason we struggle with hanging our venison is we have numerous coyotes in the area and when they smell that meat they will be out! I have always butchered our deer the same day or within two days of the kill and honestly the meat is excellent.  The work that goes into the butchering is not easy, especially if you are working to remove all of the meat without damaging the meat.  I will debone all of the primals, it really is not a good idea to utilize the bones from venison and due to CWD it really is not safe.  The other important part of the butchering is to remove the fat, venison fat is not tasty and in fact it is what will make the venison taste off.  The primals are broken down into the neck, shoulder and its fore shank, the loin or otherwise known as the back straps, the round and the hind shanks. Inside the carcass are the tenderloins.  You can get some meat from the flank and brisket, but it will depend on the size of the animal as to how much you may get.  Once I quickly removed the primals I will cut them into the fabricated cuts, steaks roast etc.  Any stew meat I will decide to either keep as stew meat or process it into sausage or ground venison.  Finally I seal everything, label it and place it in the freezer.  It can be labor intensive but having that meat in the freezer will ensure we have meat for most of the year and we will not have to purchase any meat for the house.

The point of this blog, sharing my experience with those who want to hunt or hunt already and are like minded about hunting.  Life on the farm is just that life, it comes from the ground and all around you and how you manage that life on the farm is about preserving the balance of life. Consider if we did not hunt, the deer population would grow exponentially and cause crop damage and other wild life would be impacted.  The act of hunting for food is just that the hunting for food and it is no different than raising chickens, or other livestock that will eventually be slaughtered for food. The difference being you will not always get a deer and you are not purchasing any feed for the animal, unless they are eating the crops.