Outdoorsman Thread

[philco]

Unk do you process the meat from those hogs ?

[jmh58]

Unk.. That is just Bad Azzzz!!! Congrats!!!
John

[Unk]

Hi Phil, for the most part, no. The meat on the large older ones is not fit to eat. It is not like a commercial / domestic hog. The fat content is much lower, and the meat is tough, stringy, and does not taste good.

On the smaller ones (which is most of them), we take the back straps out, and those are decent eating. It costs $90 to $100 in our neck of the woods to have one processed. No one I know is going to spend that for questionable tasting meat. For the most part we are taking them out because their prolific reproduction makes it difficult if not impossible to control the population, and they cause a lot of damage to fields, crops, fencing, other wildlife, etc. The lease I am on is covered up in hogs. With 10 hunters on the lease, we aren't even making a small dent in the population.

Here's a recent article on their exploding population in Texas, and efforts to control them:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/03/hogs-ru ... oblem.html

[Dinadan]

Unk - looks like a great time at the deer lease! Regarding the wild hogs edibility, seems like just about any male animal gets kind of rancid when it gets old. I am pretty sure my sisters and daughter would be quick to point out that it could apply to me also.

[Unk]

Thank you John.

Mel, I think I'm in that same boat.

[philco]

Unk, thanks for the link. Sounds like those wild hogs are a real problem for you folks. Even if they're not good to eat, I'd still love to hunt them.

[TripleF]

Good stuff Unk!!

WOuld love to go hunting again but they're ruled out the poor folks. Oh well.

[terryl308]

Nice porker unk! I just got back from a doe hunt south of north Platte, ne and got one with my muzzle loader. but the high point of the trip was to get to see two huge elk racks that belong to the state. No one knows how they died but were found dead in a field, probably were wounded and died later or died of old age? Terry

[treefarmer]

Terry,
Congratulations on your doe for the freezer! What big antlers on those elk! Things we don't have in Florida and too all that white stuff you and the doe are in? Great pictures, by the way, what is your muzzle loader?
Treefarmer

[Tony_Wood]

Good work Terry. Fantastic antlers and pics.
Thanks for sharing.

This season is a first for me to try duck hunting. Have been schooled a few sessions by mallards and gadwalls. Wood ducks have been almost impossible to connect with; they fly like fighter pilots done the edge of the trees.

[jmh58]

Kool hunting Tony and Terry!! Congrats on the harvests!!!!
John

[terryl308]

treefarmer, the muzzle loader is a inline Traditions .50 cal. I use a 245 gr power belt bullet and 100gr of Blackhorn powder. It has a scope on it also. Can't see open sights very good any more. It's pretty accurate up to 150 yards. I still have my old Lyman Great Plains rifle but the rifling is suitable for patch round balls only. These modern bullets are much more effective.

[Old Hunter]

Unk, Terry, and Tony, good hunting gents and congratulations on the game. I’m enjoying your pictures and stories. Keep it up!

Ps. Nice cool day here in eastern NC, out for a deer hunt. Hunting out of a Tower Stand looking down a 327 yard lane in mixed hardwood and pine, about 500 yards from the river. Got my essentials with me. OH

[treefarmer]

Now Bruce, surely your essentials include a rifle?
Kill us a big one, brother!
Treefarmer

[Old Hunter]

Got my M88 with me Phil! OH

[Unk]

Good luck, Bruce!

It was 28 degrees and pitch dark when my buddy dropped me off at 6 am on Saturday. I use a little LED flashlight that clips onto the bill of my cap to keep my hands free while making my way through the brush into my stand in the dark. In my backpack I carry a couple of small but bright LED flashlights, rubber gloves, knives, AA and AAA batteries, SD cards and reader, some breakfast bars and a candy bar or two. On this morning I had also thrown in my fleece cap and a neck warmer. I also had an RTIC tumbler full of coffee.

One knife I added this summer has become my go-to knife for taking the backstraps out of hogs and cleaning deer is this Outdoor Edge Swingblaze. I really like the gutting blade. It goes right down the spine of a hog like it has a zipper on it. I can take the backstraps out in about 5 minutes and not even get my hands bloody.

In the bottom pic, you can see my stand in the background. I am sitting in the stand, and there is a dead hog laying on the left side of the picture, and another dead one off camera about 30 yards further to the left. That didn't seem to bother the group that trotted in about 30 minutes later. One of the hogs standing in the picture would be on the ground a couple of seconds after this picture was taken.

[jerryd6818]

[Unk]

Thanks for the photo editing, Jerry!

I am going to enlist the help of my buddy's Polaris Ranger to drag that oil pipeline out of the way next time I am out there. I have had to wait on a few shots to make sure I don't hit it, and it will be a nasty stinky mess if I do accidentally hit it. I can hear oil swishing through it every few seconds while I am sitting in my stand. There are oil pipelines running all over the lease.


So the landowner has oil well royalties, is leasing it to a guy for cattle, and leasing it to us for hunting. I guess he is making money while he sleeps.

[Old Hunter]

Nice knife Mike - haven’t seen one like that before. My old M88 knocked down a good sized doe late this afternoon; 128 yard neck shot on a deer that weighed 123 lbs. That’s a big doe in these parts. Bullet went into the spine and traveled 5” in the spine blowing up vertebrae, then popped through a backstrap and balled up under the hide. OH

[Unk]

Good shooting, Bruce!

[treefarmer]

Love it fellers. Bruce, lots good meat on that doe and Unk, Texas needs a bounty on all them squeelers. That's a mess!
I've been making fry meat out of venison hams this afternoon. Put up 15, 3/4 pound, vacuum sealed bags of sliced, no silver skin, only perfect, ready to season and fry for 90 seconds, venison. All this also gives two other bags of venison to fill, one is the very lean trim for Miss Joy's ground venison, the other is the scrappier stuff, shanks, rib, neck and such junk for sausage later on. Used to be able to muscle bone a whole deer in an evening after work but can't no more. Maybe if I went back to work I could do that again.
Treefarmer

[TripleF]

Y'all gonna be eatin' good!

Thanks for sharing!

[jmh58]

Congrats Bruce!! Jerky???
John

[Unk]

I sliced up some venison on an old Krupps meat slicer and marinated some venison jerky overnight - it's in the oven now.

I made one batch of LEM Backwoods original and one batch of Hi Mountain original.

My first time making jerky - we'll see how this turns out.

Anybody have any preference on what jerky seasoning they use?

[TripleF]

5th Annual Christmas Eve Mission.

19 kids, 3 adults

I kept the boys pretty much occupied making one stick fires. Only a couple were successful.
If you count only 18, that's because one had to go get some thread in his hand.....5 stitches!!