Hunting party found GFG's deer

[Andy]

Yesterday morning not too long after the start of hunting, GFG saw a deer and shot at it. The party could not track it but did find a small amount of deer hair and blood. We all assumed that it was a minor injury and the deer was gone since the guys could not find it.

This morning while DH was looking for a deer he shot, he came across GFG's deer. The shot was just a little low and behind the mark - GFG did very well in that shot.

DH thinks that the deer hid well after it was shot in the first woods. Then, when the guys started to track it, it went across the road that DH had been watching during the stand. DH had heard the shot and knew a missed deer would cross that road. He never saw it.

(To clarify, the "road" I refer to is on our private property - he would never be hunting on a public road.)

So, GFG's first deer is a 5 point buck. We are very proud of him!


p.s. I have been lurking. I am spending too much time with the games on Facebook - Algerian Patience Solitare, FarmVille, and FarmTown. I have had some issues with Diva but she is now 19 and I am learning to let go. GFG is doing very well. We are having him tested for an attention deficit - will get the results of a test in two weeks.

[Nancy]

This makes me sad

I have two families of deer that come into my yard every day, one a mom with her baby and another mom with her two babies. The babies are grown now, spots gone, but the moms bring them every day for food. I will be sad when one day one of the moms or babies, doesn't come around anymore.

Nancy

[crazymama30]

Good job Ggf! I am glad they found the deer. Dh's family hunts, I have gone bow hunting. I bet gfg is proud. That is a good sized buck!

[Wiped Out]

I'm glad to hear his first hunt was successful. It was funny that I was just thinking of you today and was going to post a "Where's Andy?" thread and then went to the gm thread and there you were!

[ThreeShadows]

I was against hunting until we hit the 800lbs moose at 60MPH on the Maine Turnpike. Had we been driving a sedan, and the corpse had landed on the roof, our town would have lost 4 mothers.

It's sad but many people have to rely on hunting for their meat, it's also sad that the deer here in the burbs have demolished my veggie garden. They are being driven out by all the development and are very destructive. The most pathetic sight was the buck pc and I saw on a heavily traveled road in CT. He was struggling to get up while traffic was zooming around him, his hind quarters were paralyzed and the look of terror in his eyes is something I can't forget. Truthfully, at that point I would have been emotionally able to slit his throat to put him out of that torture!

Congrats on your son's successful hunt! It's a rural American tradition.

[GoingNorth]

A deer being quickly and humanely killed by a hunter isn't sad. What IS really sad is coming upon a "yarding" area in heavy winter that is full of deer bones. You can look and see how high the deer have stretched to gnaw off the tree bark in the yard.

Fact is that when it comes to deer, we are now the apex predators. We've nearly destroyed the wolves and pumas that nature designed to handle that role for them.

At the same time, logging and farming practices have contribuited to a huge population increase in deer herds.

They're breeding like crazy and there isn't much of a natural control on the populations.

I don't approve of hunting solely for 'heads and horns', but I am in favor of it so long as safety rules are followed, the animals are killed humanely, and the meat is not wasted.

[Andy]

This is a tradition that is strong in our area. The DNR places strict restrictions on hunting so that the deer population keeps in check. No one wants them extinct, however, on the other hand, it is also very unhealthy for the deer to overpopulate. DNR know how many deer can live in one area and their liscenses sold to hunt keep the herds healthy.

True hunters strive to make a quick and humane shot. It is important for them to know where the bullet (or arrow) hit because they do care about the animal. They do not want it to suffer. We were very proud how close GFG's shot came to that mark. That showed that he also is hunting correctly.

We do use the meat as does everyone I know about around here. Part of the tradition is the reason for the hunt - which outside the controlling the population is to use the meat. Venison is an acceptable meat on tables around here.


P.S. Thank you Wiped Out - I have been stuck in FaceBook!

[Nancy]

I said it makes "me" sad and it does. I don't want to get into a discussion on the merits of hunting as an American tradition and I don't really think this belongs here anyway.

I'm glad your son had success, just don't have him come to my neighborhood.

Nancy

[Dammit Janet]

Congrats Andy's gfg! We are huge hunters too. It is what keeps our freezers full for most of the year. Without deer, we wouldnt have much in the way of meat. Or our red meat would be very poor quality. It really helps us stretch that budget.

Nancy...no one is coming into your neighborhood because you dont live in an area that can be hunted. When I lived in Richmond we had deer come in our yards too. Actually once in a blue moon we have them come through our yards here.

[Marguerite]

Congrats to GFG!

We have deer in plague proportions near us. They are beautiful and some people here love them, but here they do not belong and are doing horrible damage to the environment. The herds come into the town and raid our rubbish bins. Aussie bush is not really good healthy food for deer, there isn't much nourishment in it for them.

A five pointer is a good size - the biggest stag we've seen in the streets here is maybe a six or seven pointer.

Hunting isn't publicly permitted here but we do get illegal shooting happening - very dangerous. There are professional shooters that come in to cull the numbers back but it does cause protests (mostly from people who don't live where we do).

Any venison we have, we have to buy and it's farmed. I've got some good recipes if you want.

Marg

[GoingNorth]

Marg, your deer are actually fallow deer right? I'm guessing the Brits brought them over for their own hunting pleasure.

Our deer are natives, though we do have fallow deer on some game preserves.

Oddly, the whitetailed deer that live in the Middle and Eastern parts of the US, came very close to becoming extinct during the days of 'market hunting' as did several species of duck, goose, and fish.

[Marguerite]

No, our deer are Rusa deer. Much bigger than fallow deer. And yes, they were released so the gentry couldride to hounds. They also released foxes for the same purpose. Idiots.

Rusa deer come from Java and other parts of SE Asia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javan_Rusa
and for some pics - http://images.google.com.au/images?h...ed=0CBAQsAQwAA

I'm very much against hunting anything for pleasure. But hunting for food especially if it's also a species needing to be controlled in numbers - it's important to teach responsibility.

Speaking of cute furry things - we dropped in on my best friend this evening (I needed to collect a garden spade of mine) and she's got rat problems. She's dosed it with rat poison, she did notice the pile of rat poison had definitely been eaten. But a large rat (very definitely rat) was lurking behind her TV cabinet. GFG3 & I had a good look at it, the rat definitely wasn't moving very quickly and on further examination, it left clear evidence of being very unwell. GFG3 commented that it looked very cute and furry. My friend was not impressed with that remark.

She said she'll have no trouble removing the corpse (I'm certain it's on its last legs) so I might get a look at it tomorrow for her, try to see if it's likely to have a nest of offspring somewhere which could be adding to my friend's problems...

I'm not going to offer her any recipes for rat, though!

Marg

[GoingNorth]

Marg, that's a BIG deer. It's in the same family as the red deer and American Elk (you might call it a Wapiti as in some areas "Elk" equals what we call a moose) based on physical structure and antler shape and size.

I can only imagine the PITA those things are in an area like yours where there are no controls are allowed and the environment can't support them at all.

Our deer are native to the continent. Where we've run into problems is that we are taking over their native range, AND we've killed off their natural predators.

In fact, a large reason for the populations of wolves and pumas tanking for so many years was that we'd nearly killed off their main prey.

Now, we've got the deer back and then some, but we don't have the predators to balance out the populations.

I've seen starving deer in the winter and it is horrible. DH hunted so long as he was able to sit out with a rifle and pack out a kill. I used to bowhunt, but my days of being able to handle a bow with the sort of power to kill a large game over are long over...plus, with my tremors, I am not confident in my ability to aim properly and hate the idea of causing undue suffering.

For many years, most of our "winter meat" was whitetail deer.

[Nancy]

Actually Janet I do.

Nancy