Hunting

First Roast

/ hsoi

A lot of Wife’s family are coming over to our house today for the annual Christmas season gathering. Should be fun.

I decided one of the roasts from my recent deer hunt would make for a fitting course. I also found some feral hog backstrap in the freezer and since we needed a little more meat to feed everyone, I thought making both would be good.

I decided to try out the crock pot approach.

Simple enough: flour, salt and pepper the meat then brown it in the skillet just to seal things up. Roughly cut up potatoes, carrots, onion. To the venison I added some whole cloves (started sticking them in the meat but it was so tedious I stopped and just put them in the pot). The pork got a mushroom-based broth. The venison a beef-based broth. Both enough liquid to cover everything (meat and veggies). A couple bay leaves in each. Also added a sliced up bell pepper and minced garlic to the pork.

Going to slow cook them for about 8 hours on “low” and we’ll see how they turn out.

It could be great. It could be a big disaster. Either way it’ll be fun to learn. 🙂

Updated: They turned out pretty good.

The cloves with the venison was an interesting twist. First, you have to like cloves (I do). If you do, give it a try. It added a really nice flavor to the venison. Nothing too strong, just a nice and different flavoring. The cloves also made the potatoes taste really cool. I don’t think we’ll use cloves all the time, but certainly it was cool to discover this mix.

The bell pepper made all the difference for the pork. It turned out very tender and just so flavorful from that one large bell pepper.

One key thing to do when serving is to keep all of the liquid the meat cooked in. Put some roast on your plate, shred it, then ladel some of the liquid onto the meat. Mmm.

.223 Remington for hunting?

/ hsoi / 23 Comments

If you bring up the topic of using the .223 Remington cartridge for hunting, invariably strong opinions arise:

“It’s great! Works just fine.”

“Only for varmints; I wouldn’t shoot deer-sized or larger game with it because that’d be inhumane.”

“Anything less than .30 caliber isn’t a real hunting round.”

“If you use it, you better make sure your shot placement is perfect.”

and it goes on.

Of course, some people have no opinion whatsoever because it’s illegal to use that caliber for game hunting in their state. As well, some people use the fact it’s illegal in some states as justification for why you shouldn’t hunt with it (ignoring all the other ways it’s illegal to hunt that could actually be beneficial, like using suppressors). Here in Texas, it’s legal to hunt with .223 and many people have reported successful deer and hog hunts using .223. Of course as well, there are many stories of failures with a .223 and those one or two stories someone has are reason enough for them to say it’s inadequate. The simple reality is any round can fail, no round is a magic bullet (pun intended). Yes you cannot pick your ammunition blindly, but in the end if you pick the right equipment and you do your job — which you should be doing no matter what you’re using, a .22 or a .300 magnum — it can be effective.

This isn’t any sort of definitive piece about hunting with .223 and shouldn’t be taken as such; it’s merely me thinking out loud and presenting things I’ve found on the topic.

Continue reading →

These Dreams

/ hsoi

I wake up this morning from a dream. I figure dreams, at least in part, are your brain sorting through all the things flying through your head recently.

A dream where I’m in an airport. I have no idea where an airport came from.

I recall having a set of Makita power tools with me. I figure that’s from a discussion I had yesterday with someone about buying a new drill. But talk about a strange carry-on. I even wondered to myself how airport security would let someone take a cordless drill and a circular saw through airport security… but of course, not a 4 ounce bottle of water.

Who else is in the airport? Ted Nugent. I can guess why I’m dreaming about that.

And I go over to talk with Uncle Ted. I cannot remember what it was about exactly, but I remember trying to show him the picture on my iPhone of my first buck but not being able to because that’s about when I woke up.

I’ve got hunting on the brain.

I look at various animals now and while I admire the creature in and of itself, the immediate second thought is “gosh, look at the size of those hams… .can you imagine how big that backstrap would be? mmmmmmm.”

I think I’m hooked.

The amusing part? I believe Daughter is hooked too. She’ll sit and watch hunting shows on TV with me and comment about this buck or that antelope and just love it. I do hope to get her to the rifle club this week.

Mounted

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

The rack from my first whitetail buck.

You know, that iPhone camera is OK, but it needs a LOT of natural light to get decent pictures. The above is from my iPhone 3GS, “enhanced” in iPhoto. Good enough to show things, but just not an overall stellar picture. Oh well.

The mounting kit.

The story of the buck.

Ugh

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Two days ago I get the call from the processor: my venison is ready to be picked up.

Crap.

I forgot I need to buy a chest freezer! What with Thanksgiving and family visiting, it slipped my mind. Big thing to slip my mind, I know. I had pretty much settled on something, called the store, they had a floor model I could look at but none actually in stock (too big to keep many on hand). But salesguy said they could have one delivered by Friday. That works. I seal the deal. I call the processor back and explain the situation. It’s a tough call because they need the freezer space so it’s not encouraged for me to keep things around their, but I also have no where to put it. But Friday or Saturday at the latest? No problem.

Today the delivery place calls. Apparently the freezers are out of stock, back ordered, earliest delivery is Tuesday. Uh…. OK, then how come they said there was one in stock… oh whatever, never mind, I’m talking with drones and they can’t solve the problem. So what can I do? Reschedule delivery for Tuesday. Call processor, explain the situation, but the guy that does the game processing is out sick. I hope I can keep a hold of my stuff… maybe pay a late charge, but I can live with that. Plus I’m calling almost every day trying to stay on top of things so it’s not like I don’t care… I’m just stuck.

My only hope is Tuesday doesn’t roll around and they call back with more excuses.

And I was so looking forward to having venison steaks this weekend. *sigh*

Phew!

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

I said that my first buck, I’m going to mount the antlers. I didn’t care what they looked like, it was the distinction of being the first. I’m not really one for dead animals as decor, but sometimes it can have its place (e.g. a mountain cabin setting, sure). And here, some animals of distinction, like my first buck, sure… that’s a keeper.

Finally Cabela’s got these Van Dyke’s buck horn mounting kits in. It’s not the highest quality thing, but it’s Good Enough™ especially for my first. Instructions seem straightforward enough, but it does look like you need a little creativity and to be a little handy with things.

With Wife out of the house for the evening, I commandeered the kitchen and began to prep the antlers. That means boiling the skull cap. Oh lord what a smell! 😯  It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s still not pleasant. Been boiling and trimming off the fleshy bits. Presently the skull cap is about as clean as I can get it, and is dusted with borax and sitting in the garage. I’ll see how it looks in the morning.

Hopefully this will turn out OK and look good in my office. Yes office, because Wife has put her foot down about no dead animals on the walls in the house. She grew up with dead animals as decor, and now that this is her own house with her own decorating style, no dead animals except in my areas (office, garage, etc.). Fair enough. 🙂

I’ll post pictures whenever it’s done.

A shotgun is a lot like a guitar….

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

A shotgun is a lot like a guitar. A lot of wood, a little metal, an element of twang, and damn if I can’t get my dinner with both of ’em.

— Ted Nugent

For full effect, you need to watch and listen to Uncle Ted deliver the above line.

Buck shot with buckshot

/ hsoi

New Jovian Thunderbolt ruminates on the buck shot with buckshot. Implications not just for hunters, but for those that opt for shotguns for self and/or home defense.

The article is not long but the final word is simple: 00 buckshot, not birdshot.

Lessons from the hunt

/ hsoi

On my first deer hunt I learned a lot of things.

What follows is a list of things I learned. It’s in no particular order. It’s probably far from comprehensive. But it is a list of things I learned. And while some things are specific to hunting or shooting, some things are just applicable to anything in life.

Continue reading →

Off to the procesor

/ hsoi / 11 Comments

Just dropped off both of my deer at Johnny G’s. Totaled 100 lbs. of raw meat (and bone), consisting of 4 shoulders, 4 hams, 4 backstraps, and various other bits. Not a bad take I would say. Going to get the backstraps whole but cleaned up, the tenders whole but cleaned up, the doe hams will be steaked, the buck hams will be made into roasts, and everything else ground. The ground is going to be pure deer grind, no mixing with beef or pork or any extra fat as Wife wants to have it pure so she can mix and match it as she pleases. Johnny G’s will let it age a few days but who knows… with Thanksgiving they may not even start on it until Friday. I’ve been reading that aging venison at least a few days is good. Can’t wait!

Thing is, we need a freezer now. We bought a new fridge almost 2 years ago and moved the old fridge into the garage. Both are fairly full, especially in the freezer (what still with all the pork from my prior hog hunts). For some years Wife and I have talked about buying a whole calf or a side of beef, but we never pulled the trigger on the idea. The past couple months we’ve been doing some serious talk about it and have found a few places we might buy from (and keep finding more). Now with all this venison coming, push has come to shove and it’s time for the freezer to be bought. Hopefully we can buy one this weekend and there will be all sorts of sales going on. We’ll start filling it with the deer, then finish it off with some beef.

Meat good. 🙂

Oh yes. Need to finally buy a vacuum sealer too.