Whitetail POI...... What’s your intended Target?

[Deleted member 115360]

I don't think deer have feelings, anyway, much less a sense of humor. A lot of the happenings surrounding a deer kill are kinda comical, but usually only from the perspective of the guy behind the rifle. It kinda sucks to be low on the food chain, and the vegan thing can put people in the same position as a half-shot deer. I don't even want to talk about the biden issue, since that makes me feel exactly like the deer in your story ..........

I got over those feelings long ago. I do everything in my power to make clean kills as fast as possible. I got to extremes to kill them quickly, but sometimes things happen. Guys with captive bolt guns in slaughter plants can't even always kill them perfectly. There is a margin of error in killing, and there always will be. I had one bullet once, and I was hunting. I was young, maybe 12 or 13, and I hit a small buck in the spine, like the one I described above. He was far from dead, but paralyzed in his back half. I reached for my knife to finish him, but somehow had lost or forgotten it. It was just starting to get dark and I was about 3/4 of a mile from home. I had been watching van Damme and Steven Segall movies, so I decided I would break it's neck like they do in the movies. Well, needless to say, it doesn't work that way, and I can guarantee you that you can spin a deer's head around twice and when you let go, they are mostly unharmed. It almost killed me with those sharp little antlers for making the attempt. It could jump with it's front legs and was trying to get away, so I took out my rope and tied it to a tree while I went home and got my knife. I felt terrible about it, but some lessons come hard..

 

[Betarider]

Amen! Same thing up here in Saskatchewan, two years ago (I think) they changed the big game minimum caliber limit from .243 to make the .223 legal and I for one think that was very unnecessary and ill advised. I know a 22lr and other small rounds can kill big stuff - dad tells me of a long deceased great uncle who fed his family through the dirty thirties with a .22 hornet, including a few moose. That was out of necessity and scarcity. I think that drawing the line at .243 Winchester made all the sense in the world. There is no reason you can't use an appropriate tool for the job. All this talk of head shooting and using a .22 is not out of necessity or scarcity or any of that, it is showmanship, it is stunting, it is juvenile. Just my opinion.

So if you had to feed your family and only had a 22hornet? Would you sell for food one time, keep it and learn what works with your limited energy or just starve knowing you respected that animal to the end!

 

[Deleted member 115360]

So if you had to feed your family and only had a 22hornet? Would you sell for food one time, keep it and learn what works with your limited energy or just starve knowing you respected that animal to the end!

Well, people used to have slaves and sell their children to buy food, so I don't think you can apply today's ethics to the actions of someone a century ago. Attempts to do so are unfair and unrealistic.

 

[Rifleman97]

Informative post.........lot of different ways to shoot a deer and we all have our own methods. Now eating the heart.......thats another story

To be clear, I don't eat it raw. I cut it up, bread it, and fry it like you would fry gizzards. Tastes kinda similar too.

 

[nicholasjohn]

I got over those feelings long ago. I do everything in my power to make clean kills as fast as possible. I got to extremes to kill them quickly, but sometimes things happen. Guys with captive bolt guns in slaughter plants can't even always kill them perfectly. There is a margin of error in killing, and there always will be. I had one bullet once, and I was hunting. I was young, maybe 12 or 13, and I hit a small buck in the spine, like the one I described above. He was far from dead, but paralyzed in his back half. I reached for my knife to finish him, but somehow had lost or forgotten it. It was just starting to get dark and I was about 3/4 of a mile from home. I had been watching van Damme and Steven Segall movies, so I decided I would break it's neck like they do in the movies. Well, needless to say, it doesn't work that way, and I can guarantee you that you can spin a deer's head around twice and when you let go, they are mostly unharmed. It almost killed me with those sharp little antlers for making the attempt. It could jump with it's front legs and was trying to get away, so I took out my rope and tied it to a tree while I went home and got my knife. I felt terrible about it, but some lessons come hard..

Yes, I agree. I like for the kill to be as quick as possible, and hopefully with the least amount of pain for the animal, but it just doesn't always work out that way. Lots of things can go wrong, but we do the best we can. Sometimes the situation is such that we aren't at all happy with the deal, but we always take a lesson from it and try to do it better next time.

As far as spine shots are concerned, they are not always permanent paralyzers. I have had two animals actually get up and run away after dragging their rear half from what I thought was a paralyzing spine shot. Neither went far, because I gave them another round through the boiler room. Both had been hit very high, with shots that almost missed completely. The spinous processes had been hit both times, which is that bony protuberance that sticks out above each vertebra. This probably torqued the hell out of the spinal cord, and temporarily paralyzed everything aft of that vertebra. Well, it didn't stay paralyzed, as the deer recuperated and got all four feet under them again pretty quickly. A neurologist could tell us exactly how that works, but the lesson I came away with is that when I shoot on that shows evidence of a spine shot, I get another shot into the vitals without ANY hesitation. The other thing is that when I think I've broken a shoulder, I do the same thing, since I may be wrong. I may be just another marginal spine shot. Bullets are cheap - if I use another one right away, I won't be sorry later.

I've never tried to finish one with a knife, having always been afraid of taking a sharp hoof to an important part of my anatomy. I've known a couple of buddies who have had "high adventure" attempting that maneuver, and I have no interest in that. Somebody chimed in on this thread about having gotten kicked in the groin by an elk - holy smokes, would that ever spoil a guy's day !!!! No thanks.

 

[nicholasjohn]

To be clear, I don't eat it raw. I cut it up, bread it, and fry it like you would fry gizzards. Tastes kinda similar too.

I've never tried deer gizzards ........ Just kidding, Sir, but I had never made that connection. I think you nailed it, and they do remind me of eating gizzards, in that the texture is somewhat similar. I could power down an entire fry-pan full of chicken gizzards, including that little tendon between the halves. Sautéed properly, that part is a crunchy treat. I wish deer did have a gizzard, because it would probably be about the size of my fist. I'd eat it with the heart, and be in hog-heaven.

 

[Savage 12BVSS]

To be clear, I don't eat it raw. I cut it up, bread it, and fry it like you would fry gizzards. Tastes kinda similar too.

If you lived near me I would keep you in hearts as the season goes on. My Dad used to eat them thin-sliced and panfried. I just don't fool with the heart and liver myself. Cheers!

 

[Calvin45]

So if you had to feed your family and only had a 22hornet? Would you sell for food one time, keep it and learn what works with your limited energy or just starve knowing you respected that animal to the end!

If you read the post in its entirety you'll see that I specified this was out of necessity and scarcity. Obviously if my current situation were somehow between the two possibilities of kill by any means necessary or starve I would find a way to not starve. That is not my current situation and I'm arguing it is not anyone's current situation on this forum. The Great Depression relative I mention did what he had to do (and did it very well) with what he had to do it with. Again, arguing that if it's possible to go with safer bets all around (because your life DOESN'T depend on this) there's no reason to prove something. If I had a 22lr and nothing else and somehow couldn't borrow an appropriate firearm, afford an appropriate firearm, or eat by any other means except shooting big game in the head then yeah I'd be doing that or trying to. If that is honestly anyone's circumstance on here I'd be shocked. If those aren't the circumstances then be more responsible.

 

[rbTanzan]

Yes ..... and because they're so tasty !!!!

Yes. If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?


(OK. It's a joke, not logically watertight. PS: Some languages use the same word for both. In Swahili, animal and meat are both nyama.)

PPS: Both the heart and liver are reasonably good. If I miss the heart I like to keep it for side breakfast meat. As for the liver, in many places in Africa it is the hunters' first portion. Animals are often butchered and smoked in the forest and brought back to a village dried. Sometimes one person in a hunting party will start a fire while the animal is being de-gutted and cleaned. The liver is immediately thrown on the coals and provides a tasty fresh treat. A person just brushes some of the ash off of the liver strips, and takes care not to burn one's fingers. (Hey, some people eat the liver raw, with a little bile for seasoning. Meself--I don't go there.)

 

[nicholasjohn]

Yes. If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?


(OK. It's a joke, not logically watertight. PS: Some languages use the same word for both. In Swahili, animal and meat are both nyama.)

PPS: Both the heart and liver are reasonably good. If I miss the heart I like to keep it for side breakfast meat. As for the liver, in many places in Africa it is the hunters' first portion. Animals are often butchered and smoked in the forest and brought back to a village dried. Sometimes one person in a hunting party will start a fire while the animal is being de-gutted and cleaned. The liver is immediately thrown on the coals and provides a tasty fresh treat. A person just brushes some of the ash off of the liver strips, and takes care not to burn one's fingers. (Hey, some people eat the liver raw, with a little bile for seasoning. Meself--I don't go there.)

In Italy, the first meal from the animal is "hunter's stew," which is entirely organ meat. My old-country relatives taught me all about that. Aunt Carmella used to make this while we were hanging and cleaning up the carcasses. Typically, Uncle Mario would disappear while Santo, Uncle Frank, and I would wrestle with a couple of animals out in the garage, and he'd come moseying back onto the scene about the time we were putting away the garden hose. No, he wasn't dodging the work and leaving it all to us. He had been in the house, prepping the organs for his wife to build a feast. Then we all ate like kings when all that had been accomplished. That woman could cook like nobody I've ever known, and a professional chef would have been green with envy. She put a lot of odd cuts in it, as most people on this side of the pond don't eat stuff like pancreas. ( She called that "sweet-breads" a term which I think is also used to describe other organ meat from a beef or hog.) She told me that she used to put the lungs into the stew, cut into small cubes. She quit doing that since they usually were all blown up by the bullet.

A couple of weeks after the kill, I'd stop by again when it was time to cut meat, and we'd also make the grinding meat into sausage - another culinary delight that makes me yearn for the old days. To this day, though, a handful of my old buddies have a sausage-making party every year, where they all show up with a carcass or two, and they mix up a huge batch of deer sausage. The fancy cuts all get wrapped & frozen, but the sausage-making is the big event - almost as big as the euchre game after the work is done.

 

[StumpGrinder]

To be clear, I don't eat it raw. I cut it up, bread it, and fry it like you would fry gizzards. Tastes kinda similar too.

I braze it in butter, mushroom and onion and serve with black beans and rice.

 

[StumpGrinder]

Yes, I agree. I like for the kill to be as quick as possible, and hopefully with the least amount of pain for the animal, but it just doesn't always work out that way. Lots of things can go wrong, but we do the best we can. Sometimes the situation is such that we aren't at all happy with the deal, but we always take a lesson from it and try to do it better next time.

As far as spine shots are concerned, they are not always permanent paralyzers. I have had two animals actually get up and run away after dragging their rear half from what I thought was a paralyzing spine shot. Neither went far, because I gave them another round through the boiler room. Both had been hit very high, with shots that almost missed completely. The spinous processes had been hit both times, which is that bony protuberance that sticks out above each vertebra. This probably torqued the hell out of the spinal cord, and temporarily paralyzed everything aft of that vertebra. Well, it didn't stay paralyzed, as the deer recuperated and got all four feet under them again pretty quickly. A neurologist could tell us exactly how that works, but the lesson I came away with is that when I shoot on that shows evidence of a spine shot, I get another shot into the vitals without ANY hesitation. The other thing is that when I think I've broken a shoulder, I do the same thing, since I may be wrong. I may be just another marginal spine shot. Bullets are cheap - if I use another one right away, I won't be sorry later.

I've never tried to finish one with a knife, having always been afraid of taking a sharp hoof to an important part of my anatomy. I've known a couple of buddies who have had "high adventure" attempting that maneuver, and I have no interest in that. Somebody chimed in on this thread about having gotten kicked in the groin by an elk - holy smokes, would that ever spoil a guy's day !!!! No thanks.

That's why I always carry a pistol for close finish shots. Just in case.

 

[backwoodsshooter]

For me it's a heart shot or the area up to 3/4 inches above that area.

Haven't lost a deer yet that way.

Though the buck I got I shot a little high in the should but only still ran 10 yards.

 

[StumpGrinder]

I've never tried deer gizzards ........ Just kidding, Sir, but I had never made that connection. I think you nailed it, and they do remind me of eating gizzards, in that the texture is somewhat similar. I could power down an entire fry-pan full of chicken gizzards, including that little tendon between the halves. Sautéed properly, that part is a crunchy treat. I wish deer did have a gizzard, because it would probably be about the size of my fist. I'd eat it with the heart, and be in hog-heaven.

the deer liver on young deer is also very tasty, cut thin , breaded and fried. Quite mild.