Back Deck

Wouldnt have to go far for venision this late season...

Thats veal venison. MMMMMmmm

Looks like your back deck is losing branches, better look into that.

That was cut off the bottom of our Christmas tree. Apparently they like to eat it.

Evergreens keep them alive all winter.

After enjoying some venison, onions and peppers, I'm sitting down with that full belly feeling watching the game. Just came across RW's back deck. Gotta say it makes one proud to be a AMERICAN

freetown fred wrote:Evergreens keep them alive all winter.

FFred, there's a life long outdoor photographer & writer up the road from here, Lenard Rue, that's pretty well known. I read a few of his books on white tail deer and in one he say's he's performed necropsies on quite a few of whit tails killed by starvation. In their stomachs he finds them pretty full up of evergreen brows. Apparently that's a sign they're on their starvation diet plan. He says if you see them browsing on this stuff and you want to keep the heard from starving out, cut down some young understory hardwoods for more nutritious brows. Not trying to step on your first hand knowledge, just sharing

Nope, he's right. I shoulda said in a hard winter like we normally get here on the hill, except last & maybe this winter--if they've been grazing evergreen for a while before hunting season, they taste real, real gamey. Our deer look pretty scraggly after a hard winter, but once them fields come in & corn starts sprouting, they come back nice--coydogs take the weak ones.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense. I've harvested many deer off of the same stand over the years and all but a few have been good except for a couple of very memorable gamey ones. Thinking back, those were late season cold weather deer taken when there was a good crust on the snow. Really turnd the wife off to venison. Never looked in the pouch to see what they were eating.

-coydogs take the weak ones.

I got news for ya. That is an old wives tale told by biologist that prefer coyotes to deer because they are "exotic". They will get the weak first, no doubt, but then all others are on the table as well. They are taking 200+ lb. bucks in Maine in the fall, before winter weakens them. And anything else is a lie and a damn lie. You folks with your big herds are going to find out as these hybrid dogs move south as they were introduced into Maine and did not "migrate" East. They are migrating West. It has been predicted by state biologist to be the biggest challenge to the deer heard in the future South of Maine and New England. Time will tell.

Kevin

I don't disagree with the premise that evergreen will make them taste gamey. but if it is the case, we sould never have had a decent tasting deer in Maine back in the 60's and 70's. They say the deer on the coast and islands taste bad as they eat seaweed and kelp to survive. I can't attest to this as we just found that every now and then a deer would be gamey, no matter where we got it.

Kevin

KLook wrote:

-coydogs take the weak ones.

I got news for ya. That is an old wives tale told by biologist that prefer coyotes to deer because they are "exotic". They will get the weak first, no doubt, but then all others are on the table as well. They are taking 200+ lb. bucks in Maine in the fall, before winter weakens them. And anything else is a lie and a damn lie. You folks with your big herds are going to find out as these hybrid dogs move south as they were introduced into Maine and did not "migrate" East. They are migrating West. It has been predicted by state biologist to be the biggest challenge to the deer heard in the future South of Maine and New England. Time will tell.

Kevin

I kill every coyote I see. They are fun to hunt. But man do they stink. But I believe black bear do a hurtin on the deer as well if not more. At least down this way.

Well, not being all that worldly of a kinda hunter/biologist/ carrier of wives tales, etc, my post stands for my area which is all I can factually speak on.

my post stands for my area which is all I can factually speak on.

And that is what the biologist would have called nonsense local lore/wives tales that has no place in the public domain. Their words now, not mine.
I know that because that is what they called all the hunters in Maine when the hue and cry went up about the sudden "appearance" of the coyote.
They only eat the sick and old they said. Funny, they all got sick with a coyote running them in the snow, or out onto the ice, or into traffic.
One old WWII vet pointed out he had been living and hunting the same area for his entire life, and he had never seen 13 dead deer on all the local lakes, let alone 1!
The black bear is now being called the main reason the herd is not recovering because the fawn mortality rate is extreme in certain areas in Maine. They happen to be the areas where the bear population is the highest then anywhere East of the Mississippi.
My family moved away from poaching way back in the 70's. I cannot attest to the flavor of deer shot in any month other then Nov. as this is the legal time unlike more southern states that can hunt for months. Although my brother formed the only QDMA chapter in the state of Maine and began to pick up road kills for many miles around, year round. Lots were still warm and not damaged, so after removing teeth and checking for fetus's, he would either run them to the butcher or donate them to guys with year round baits to shoot coyotes over. We could not tell one way or the other if it was a buck or doe when we ate them. I have heard all kinds of tales about a "tasty" doe or a rank old buck. So, it is up to each person to figure it out and believe what you like. I have heard about doe's tasting bad in the spring when pregnant, but the road kills we had were just fine. Who knows??

IF your experience runs counter to mine, lets start another thread and compare them. Richard is cracking down on us.

Kevin

uh oh , we got yotes coming from the north,wild boars coming from the south and libtards coming from the east.... Go west young man !