The process beyond the shot taken from the stand

Back when October finally rolled in, we finally made it to the bow stand. Late for us. Life, work, weather – the usual culprits.

We knew that deer walked around the stand area in the late afternoon quite a bit. We climbed into the stand with three hours of shooting light left, finalized our seating, and Josh cocked his crossbow.

We didn’t hunt long, hardly set up, and heard what sounded like a deer approaching. We didn’t see the doe until she stepped into the opening. Josh took the shot and she disappeared into the thick leaves. The entry looked a little high and back for my liking. I climbed down to look for the bolt (crossbow arrow) and didn’t find it. I did find good blood, heart blood.

We waited a half hour, spooked three deer in that time and started tracking. When I hit the fence line, good blood didn’t feel good. I expected to find the deer in this distance. Josh spied a small bit of chewed corn in a good patch of blood. We backed out.

In reality the deer probably didn’t live 20 seconds past Josh pulling the trigger. But it ran 90 yards in that 20 seconds. We stood 30 yards from the dead deer when we backed out. A restless night of sleep followed.

The next morning, we found the deer within 10 minutes. I felt thankful that the coyotes didn’t. We didn’t kill another deer until last weekend, but I digress.

Now the story of that weekend starts. The fifteen minutes of hunting that day, a half-hour of waiting to track, 20 minutes of tracking, followed by a long restless night of sleep rolled into a 30 yard drag. We loaded it into a side by side, field dressed it at the bone pit, hauled the deer home, washed out the body cavity, registered it, and started the butchering process by noon the day after the shot. I started by pulling the tender loins and put them in the fridge. That day started out cool, but now warmed quite a bit, actually reaching the 70’s. Necessitating a trip for ice for a couple coolers. Next came the front quarters, placing them in a cooler, and icing them heavily. The back straps followed, icing them the same. Then the hind quarters, neck, and the grind meat from the ribs. After “quartering,” the deboning starts breaking down the quarters into packageable venison. I started with the loins. I know everyone calls them backstraps, but I grew up calling them “by the correct terminology, by God.” Ingrained you might say, I still call them loins to this day, 36 years after his passing. Then the hind quarters – removing the roast off the bones, removing silver skin, and placing them back into the cooler. Protecting them from water with freezer paper and plastic bags.

By five, the front quarters remained. My hands started cramping. I got a little dehydrated and by the time I finished the last hind quarter my left hand just clinched up. I only need 45 minutes to finish this. This never happened before, but I never attempted the whole process of skinning through wrapping in one day by myself either. I usually skin the night prior.

We cooked our celebratory meal we make after every deer with the tenderloins and heart, onions, mushrooms, and wine – always wonderful.

I finished boning out the front quarters the next morning. I wrapped the venison while making bone broth for the dogs with the long bones. We put the venison packages into the freezer. We took the scraps back to the bone pit. We cleaned our temporary meat room. The hunting clothes need laundering and after drying the de-scenting process started. Just less than 48 hours after letting the arrow fly, we finished the work from that one deer.

All that set up, processing, cleaning, and breakdown put 14 venison roasts and two bags of trim meat into the freezer. In the end almost 40 meals for our family.

That’s part of the story of every deer that goes into the freezer. Time constraints sometimes cause me to take a deer to a processor, but someone still does that work.

Most of us know this. Most of us know that where food comes lies untold in every hunting story.

The bucks are still on their feet and ducks on the wing. Good luck, but please remember, Safe Hunting is No Accident!

THROUGH A

DECOY’S

E

YE

BY

CHUCK K OLAR LOCAL OUTDOORSMAN