My hunting story this year

[Yuri_Rage]

Love that story. Nice job!

 

[viking73]

Nice! Good thing you both had a tag!

 

[gratus fermentatio]

And here I thought you were going to say you got 2 deer with 1 shot
Glad you both got deer & your freezer is full. Now I'm going to be thinking about a nice, tender, juicy venison roast all day!
Regards, GF.

 

[Airborneguy]

And after you live up here for awhile you will be complaining about the NYC area folks who come up to hunt in your woods.

I used to own land in Sullivan County and one of the reasons I sold it was because of all the poachers. My friend is dealing with it now on his land near Deposit.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Deposit... my ex-girlfriend (the rich one) had a summer house about 15 minutes from there. I forget the name of the town. Delaware county right? Hellzapoppin', talk about remote. I'd mention some of the things we used to get away with out there, but Id be telling it to an officer of the law, and thats a bad idea.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

I was also going to say that growing up more than once we had fully armed men knock on our door. "Ma'am, can we shoot a deer in your yard?" My grandmother loved watching them from the window while drinking her coffee, so that wasnt happening. We'd hear gunshots anyway.

As a transplanted country boy who has lived in nyc for the past 10 years I have always had complicated feelings about the critters. I love venison, and think a kill-shot is way more humane than winter kill, but I will never forget the yearling that used to come up on my porch to be pet before he was killed by some hotdamner with a pipe.

 

[copyright1997]

I'm in no way saying that hunting shouldn't be allowed. While I'm too lazy (or busy brewing) to hunt, I think it is actually more humane to hunt what you eat vs picking it up at the grocery store. (But it is important to eat it if you kill it.) Plus I'm a big believer in the 2nd amendment.

Us upstate folks however, do worry a bit about hunting season as there are then a bunch of people who *have* to get that doe (or whatever) while they can, tresspass and sometimes make it unsafe to go out on your own land. I have a friend with about 50 acres who has had his garage window (facing the woods) shot out during hunting season. When I was running marathons and other long distance races, I would do quite a bit of my training in the woods (trail running), and I would have to stop runnning trails once hunting season started.

However, if you come to my door and offer me some nice venison steak in exchange for hunting on my land, shoot away! I might even provide the ammo!

 

[bierhaus15]

Around where I live, people probably kill more deer with their cars than with guns. We had some friends from Florida visiting last fall and their 5 year old daughter kept pointing out all the dead "horsies" on the side of the road.

I used to entertain thoughts of going deer hunting, but when they opened our area up for hunting with rifles, I dropped that idea real quick. Now we got morons with .300 win mags shooting cows and their neighbors houses 2 miles away!

 

[lschiavo]

Great story! Now we have some venison for our next smoker cookout

 

[IrregularPulse]

Nice story Yoop. Got my first ever deer this weekend. 2nd time ever "hunting". First time was 12 years ago with my cousin. I just tagged along. No gun for me and we didn't see anything in the little time we were out there. 10th shell ever shot from my new-to-me 870, first bullet ever fired at a living creature and first deer I've seen while hunting.

She ran right at me, I was in her path. She slammed on the breaks and stared at me just a little sideways from head on. We both looked at each other like, " what the **** do we do". Then I remembered, "oh yeah, I kill you now". Sighted her and pulled the trigger. I watched her hop up, turn and run back. About 1 minute later I heard her bleeting 2-3 times and that was it. It took about 2 minutes to find her 20 yards away.

Put a slug behind her left shoulder and it came out her back right ham. Nicked a lung, took a chunk from her heart and blew out 2-3 major arteries. Barely nicked her gut, but didn't bust anything gross. She ran maybe 20 yards and that was downhill.

Still unreal that I actually shot one. I went from being nervous about hunting, to shooting one, watching one be gutted (a tradition for the guy that took me. He always does a new guy's first one to teach them. I wasn't arguing), skinning one (mine) and processing one into various cuts all in about 17 hours yesterday. Going back this week to help process a few more so I get mine processed no charge. The guy I went with processes as a side gig. I guess he used to be the best taxidermist in the area as well years ago, but got out of it.

 

[lowtones84]

Awesome story Yooper! I'm not much of a hunter, though my dad does a lot of waterfowl hunting. I do fish a lot though, and fishing for steelhead on the streams at this time of year is about as close to hunting as fishing gets. Gotta love the great outdoors!

 

[Yooper]

Nice story Yoop. Got my first ever deer this weekend. 2nd time ever "hunting". First time was 12 years ago with my cousin. I just tagged along. No gun for me and we didn't see anything in the little time we were out there. 10th shell ever shot from my new-to-me 870, first bullet ever fired at a living creature and first deer I've seen while hunting.

I saw the photo on Facebook! Good job.

We had venison for dinner about the last four days, in different ways, and made 10 pounds of Italian sausage on Saturday.

 

[zman]

Careful what you wish for Airborne... spent half a lifetime trying to get OUT of upstate...

I managed to get out of both. Born and Raised in Queens (went to HS in Astoria). Five years in Binghamton. 12 years in Denver

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Hahahaha zman! I live on 31st Ave and 30th. Used to live on Broadway and 23rd, so the high school kids would be passing me on my way to the train for work. What a coincidence.

 

[Daydreaming]

Just come to Iowa and you can find as many field rats as you want. I remember a few years ago Iowa City hired sharpshooters just to thin out the in-town population a bit. If I remember right they killed about 3000 in one year then had them come back the next year to thin the herd a bit more. haven't seen many trophy bucks lately but there are plenty of decent sized does that could fill the freezers quick. I haven't went hunting in years but I still seem to get roped into cutting deer and drinking beer every year.

 

[Bru]

Do you guys go through an innitiation when you shoot your first animal ? Over here the new hunter gets "blooded" - blood smeared over his face. Sometimes you're made to eat the animals balls. Its an age old ritual.
Yooper - you need to hunt in Africa and shoot some big game. Let me know if you want a contact here. Its mostly "walk and stalk" over here - not much shooting from a hide.