Anyone Going Deer Hunting This Year?

Started by christulsa, November 18, 2020, 09:39:11 PM

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christulsa

I posted about this in the men's subforum, but that place is dead.   Anyone going deer hunting this year?   What are your plans?  Have a deer stand?  Putting out corn?  Tips?  If you get one, post pics here.

I've got a deer blind on a strategic spot in a remote part of a wildlife management area just outside of the city.  Been putting out corn and doe urine.  Re-supplying again very early tomorrow morning before work.  First day of deer rifle season starts Saturday.  St. Hubert, pray for us.

abc123

Was hoping to get out this year but life intervened.

Hoping to restring my bow, knock some of the rust off and maybe do spring gobbler.

Prayerful

I used to issue licences for that. Venison is so nice, but so weirdly rare in Ireland.
Padre Pio: Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.

christulsa

Quote from: Prayerful on November 19, 2020, 04:01:57 PM
I used to issue licences for that. Venison is so nice, but so weirdly rare in Ireland.

I've never tasted venison before.  If I get a deer this year, it'll be my first.  Will have to share some deer jerky. Had one in my crosshairs a few years ago before it darted away in the blink of an eye.

So what do you all hunt then in Ireland?   Any large game, or mostly fowl?

Prayerful

Deer are certainly hunted, but there's only like 5k licences, a typical pre-condition for a gun licence, and a gun dealer needs it too to release the gun. Now there are farmers and others who don't take licences too literally, or only have one in their imagination, or used to have one, but there's few like one 19 years who returned shooting 595 deer, with slaughterhouse paperwork for everyone. Consider the entrails, taking off the head etc., he's an organised lad, even if he's likely returning a lot for poachers. Deer hunting allows a higher calibre rifle than other forms of hunting, but you can go hunting them with a .22. In my inexpert opinion, that might work out badly, surely too small of a calibre. I think it was connected with discouraging high calibre rifles during the Troubles, which was the context for deer licencing from 1976. There's also wild fowl, snipe, pheasant, woodcock, on game estates, foreshore (barring that bordering the Duke of Devonshire's estates, as the boundary was never made there around the Blackwater, between his lands and former Crown lands), wherever.

I think punt guns are somewhat legal, at least to those with certain old licences (although the problem is getting sufficient powder for one legally), and legal enough in the north. I suppose if you're impatient. The UK overall has a few in use.
It might be a rare example of a gun legal here and illegal in the US, maybe. Imagine shooting one into water and the dog going again and again to retrieve birds.

Padre Pio: Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.

christulsa

Well, that kind of gets my Irish up to learn more about how your government restricts gun ownership, and hunting.  I would still own a gun and hunt illegally, then.  It being a fundamental right and all (to self-defense, and self-preservation).

You mentioned the entrails.  I was thinking today and decided if I get a deer, I'm going to keep them for making sausage, though I expect it'll be unpleasant to clean them out.  You watch these YT videos of guys in the field, removing the organs from their fresh kill before taking the carcass home.  I've dissected a human cadaver, which wasn't so bad, but something tells me when I reach up inside the deer to carve out the organs and pull them out as one unit, that is not going to be pleasant.  At least the first time.

christulsa

1st Day of Deer Rifle tomorrow!  Time for bed.  Will post here as I sit in my deer blind.  Starting 6:30 am.  St. Hubert, patron saint of hunters, ora pro nobis. 

coffeeandcigarette

Quote from: christulsa on November 19, 2020, 09:09:54 PM
Well, that kind of gets my Irish up to learn more about how your government restricts gun ownership, and hunting.  I would still own a gun and hunt illegally, then.  It being a fundamental right and all (to self-defense, and self-preservation).

You mentioned the entrails.  I was thinking today and decided if I get a deer, I'm going to keep them for making sausage, though I expect it'll be unpleasant to clean them out.  You watch these YT videos of guys in the field, removing the organs from their fresh kill before taking the carcass home.  I've dissected a human cadaver, which wasn't so bad, but something tells me when I reach up inside the deer to carve out the organs and pull them out as one unit, that is not going to be pleasant.  At least the first time.

You don't have to field dress your kill if you live pretty close to where you hunt, but I wouldn't leave it too long. If you wait for a real good frost, you don't have to carve up for a day, you can wait till the meat is good and cold. It doesn't smell then...just don't nick the bowels before you get them out.

christulsa

#8
It's 06:30 (CST).  Sitting here in my deer blind.  Sunrise is at 07:06.

christulsa

#9
Just shot at a doe 25 yards away eating the corn, using shotgun with slugs!  That was surreal.  First time.  But doggonit, wouldn't you know I just missed it, it seems, it darting away seemingly untouched across the field. No blood trail.  But the sun is up now.

christulsa

#10
It's 09:12.  Two good size does and a faun just came across the field grazing 40 yards out, but not long enough for a clean shot.  Loved the rush though.  Before you shoot ideally 1. the deer must be in range, 2. not moving, 3. with a side shot.  Drizzling now, cold front moving in.  Need a jerky and Diet Pepsi break soon, and to stretch my legs. .

christulsa

1.5 hours to go sitting here still as a statute, in the wet cold, before I head home.  Will stop at this little town diner on way home for steak and eggs, ask the locals in camo how they made out.   See pic attached of my blind, which I had to move this morning to be downwind.

Elizabeth.2

I did a nice oil painting of St. Hubertus; I can appreciate the thrill of the hunt. :P Except if I had to do anything like butchering I'd faint and starve.

christulsa

Hmm, we could make a trade.  Deer jerky for painting.  :).   I make very good jerky.  But your painting may very well be worth more than that.

I just saw a big ole country boy and his son pass by "my" field, all decked out in camo and hunter orange.  The boy couldn't have been older than 5, you could tell he was getting the hang of carrying a deer rifle, half his size. 

mikemac

#14
Quote from: christulsa on November 21, 2020, 07:15:27 AM
Just shot at a doe 25 yards away eating the corn, using shotgun with slugs!  That was surreal.  First time.  But doggonit, wouldn't you know I just missed it, it seems, it darting away seemingly untouched across the field. No blood trail.  But the sun is up now.

Does your shotgun have open sites or just the bead on the end?  If it just has the bead on the end like most shotguns you could be shooting way high, you know, if you are not shooting down the length of the barrel.  Standing or grazing deer at 25 or 40 yards should be a fairly easy shot with slugs.  Best practice is to take some target shots before opening morning so you know where and how your gun shoots.  For instance a long time ago I was hunting with a group south of Campbellford in the shotgun hunt.  We were dogging and blocking wood lots.  First day the leader of the gang that got the permission from the land owners put me in a good blocking position in front of the doggers.  I was using a double barrel side by side.  The previous owner had put a second bead half way down the barrel.  So I figured I`d just needed to line the two beads up and that is where it would shoot.  Stupid me, I didn`t do any target shooting before opening morning.  So the doggers put a real nice buck in front of me, but it just kept going as I took two shots at it.  Howey the leader of the gang was a little pissed off, and wanted to see where our guns were shooting at the nearby gravel pit after the morning hunt.  Actually he wanted to see where my gun was shooting.  And sure enough, it wasn`t even close.  Guess who got to be a dogger for the rest of the week, lol.  By the next year I had an .870 Remington with a 19 inch smooth bore slug barrel with open sites.

Another thing too, if you get talking to any game wardens they will tell you that a fair amount of deer get shot but left in the woods.  I have seen deer shot through the lungs that took off like a bat.  You wouldn`t even think they were hit.  Sometimes no traces of blood can be found.  If you think you hit it just keep looking a little longer, you might get a surprise.   
Like John Vennari (RIP) said "Why not just do it?  What would it hurt?"
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