The official 2012 deer hunting thread.

[2165 Turbo Rail]

I want to go hog hunting. I've never been and luckily we don't have hogs on our land in Alvord

[brandon01rt]

It's pretty overrun... Game camera shows about 3-4 different packs of 15-20 hogs. Hell, I just want to try out my 6.8 spc. Next weekend will be my first hog trip

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[2165 Turbo Rail]

Where are those hogs?

[brandon01rt]

Don't remember for sure, I'm just along for the ride. Cleburne?

[Danny46]

Depends on your access. I'm not sure on public land

They make something that you can drag deer out with. Think of a rope with tarp on it that you wrap the deer in the tarp and drag it ( slides easier that way)

Or just wrap a rope around the horns or neck and drag it out to the closet place for a vehicle to get to it

If you are new to deer hunting you should also look into gutting a deer. There are basically two ways 1) field dressing which means gutting basically where it dropped. 2) hanging dressing. Which is where you hang the deer up back legs first is how we do it and gut the deer to where everything falls into a bucket below. We use about a 10gallon bucket

It's easy to do either way but if you don't have a basic idea it might seem scary. And you want to gut the deer soon after its dead because If you don't it will ruin the meat

Thanks a lot for the info (and to everyone else as well). I assume hanging dressing is easier to do than field dressing? I'll have to look into that a little more before I go out. What kind of time frame am I looking at to get it gutted? Any good places to get it processed?

[dee]

not 100% true.. you don't have to have the hunters ed completed to purchase a lic. but if you get busted you have to take the course and/or pay a fine

You do at the TP&W office unless you're above the age requirement.

[dee]

Thanks a lot for the info (and to everyone else as well). I assume hanging dressing is easier to do than field dressing? I'll have to look into that a little more before I go out. What kind of time frame am I looking at to get it gutted? Any good places to get it processed?

You'll find differing opinions on dressing animals I prefer to do it on the ground especially if I'm doing it alone, most everyone else on our lease hangs there's though.

[Sleeper]

butcher it yourself. Its stupid easy as well. You might not do a professional job but youll get it done.

For 200 or maybe a little more will buy you all the things needed to grind/vaccum seal the meat.

If you wife has a kitchen aid they sell grinder attachments and sausage stuffers for them.

I highly recommend a jerky board for whole muscle. As far as seasoning goes anything highmountain is good. For summer sausage i use a cheap jerky gun to fill the 2 1/2inch mahagony casings. Then either smoke them or cook in the oven at a low temp. Ill be trying to make my own snack sticks this year along with some brat/sausages. Maybe even a few burgers.

[GrayStangGT]

Talked to the rancher on our lease and he said the kill off from the drought was a lot worse than he expected. Probably just be a beer killing deer season for me. Since we already paid for this year he is going to give us 50% off next year for not shooting any doe this year.

[Lone Sailor]

Talked to the rancher on our lease and he said the kill off from the drought was a lot worse than he expected. Probably just be a beer killing deer season for me. Since we already paid for this year he is going to give us 50% off next year for not shooting any doe this year.

What area of the State is your lease?

[Lone Sailor]

You want big deer. Stop shooting them.

It really does help if the neighbors are on board. I really dont want to shoot anything under 140 inches.

But i cant stop the people who draw refuge tags or my neighbors from shooting a good one. They have just as much a chance as i do. One guy got a 175in typical litterly a half mile from my house. I never got a picture of that deer.

I don't have a problem at all helping to manage bucks as much as possible around the area that I hunt, but when it comes to filling the freezer or not filling the freezer I'm going to go ahead and shoot that younger buck if that's all that I'm presented with.

[GrayStangGT]

What area of the State is your lease?

West Texas
Between Mertzon and Barnhart, Southwest of San Angelo.

[Sleeper]

Id pass unless it was for sure a nice mature deer. Just small rack.

I've got access to so many deer i dont worry about it.

[CJ]

West Texas
Between Mertzon and Barnhart, Southwest of San Angelo.

That's even further west than where I hunt. How is it out there? I'm sure it's more arid, what kind of wildlife?

[2165 Turbo Rail]

went out to check on my feeder and food plots today

My camera (I just noticed that my time is about 2 hours behind judging by the sun coming up around 7:30a and my camera showing 5:30a)

http://photobucket.com/Chris_9-27-12_thru_10-3-12

Dad's camera his camera had a lot more pics on it. I'm not sure if that is because I didn't have any traffic or because of the way my camera was sitting (I built a mount for it and installed it last time) but by looking at my pics I didn't see anything wrong so I don't know

http://photobucket.com/Dad_9-27-12_thru_10-3-12

last wednesday I put our winter rye, winter wheat and purple top turnips and we got some ran on friday and saturday. Today is wednesday a week later and I already have growth. I don't know what is what but it did look like there were a few different types of new growth so I'm assuming all 3 are doing OK.

I stopped and got another 50lbs bag of the winter rye today and tossed it out around my stand and dads to give us a little more green grass growing.

I still don't know what the other guy planted about a month ago using a pull behind drill style planter but it is starting to come up too and looks different then what I have growing now so I still need to find out what that was.