I called this buck right up to the barn in which I was hiding! 300 WSM. Dropped like a rock. I was so glad he came 100 yards up the hill. My back was sore just draging him 100 feet to the top!

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
fred d.
Here's my Homepage

Thats a beauty, do you know how much it weighed?

Oddly, I have never weighed a deer. Many of my friends do it but I never have.

I was able to tie a rope around his rack, stand on my tailgate and lift him up into the bed without too much trouble so I'd guess a buck 20. hehe.

I don't know if you can tell but I didn't field dress him. I seldom do. I hang em by the rear legs and skin down. I take hams, back strap and tenderloin. Doing it that way, all the guts stay in the body. If I'm in the mood I'll take the front legs and neck roast.

__________________
fred d.
Here's my Homepage

Congrats on harvesting that fine buck! Gotta love it whenever they run the "right" way!!

__________________
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote
a blank check made payable to "The United States of
America" for an amount of 'up to and including my life.
That is honor, and there are way too many people in this
country who no longer understand it.

1.5 weeks to take one with my new .450 Marlin.......

__________________
fred d.
Here's my Homepage

You can remove the tenderloins w/o gutting? Please explain how that is accomplished. I would never consider not gutting a deer, because of how I usually let them hang for at least long enough for the rigor to relax in the muscle tissue. Do you age your venison in the fridge, like I described in a thread from Davers, a week or two back?

I don't hunt too har from home and I carry a cooler and a hoist with me. The deer don't have time to get stiff before I'm skinning them. When I'm done, I pull the skin back on go check it in. I age my venison in an ice chest and change out the water 2X, then I finish and freeze.

Now to the fun part! How to get that tenderloin out without going into the gut cavity is something I just figured out this year. Once the back strap and the rear ham is removed (and I mean removed to the bone!) you can poke your fingers through the very back vetebra/ribs and feel the TL. There is room to slide your fingers around the ribs/vertebra and then you can feel both sodes of the TL. I do a gross disection (fingers) and slide up and down the TL to get a fell for the size and position. If there are some ligaments you can't bust free, then use a knife and carefully cut them with the gut hook. With a lot of gross disction and judicial use of the knife toward the hips I can get that sucker to slide out in one piece.

I got a doe yesterday and did the exact procedure. Oddly, one side was way easier than the other. The doe had an inch thick of fat covering the rear. If I think of it, I'll take a picture of the extracted TL. The carcass I'm sure is coyote poop by now.

__________________
fred d.
Here's my Homepage

Huh, I never woulda thunk it!

An old huntin' buddy of mine up in WI showed me a method of field dressing that is so easy, I can have a deer ready to drag out 5 minutes after I find it, tops. Like I said, I can't imagine a reason that I would choose not to gut out my deer. Maybe if I was a long ways from the nearest road, but even then I would pack out all 4 quarters, for sure.

In fact, the process my buddy showed me is so fast and easy, I no longer worry about getting them gutted immediately and take the time for some really good in-the-field photos. I've become somewhat obsessed with getting great pictures, actually...but that's another topic!

Good job putting your tag on a nice buck. Consider donating the front shoulders, neck and rib meat to the hungry, through a local food bank. You're talking about no less than 20 pounds of meat, from a buck like the one you shot. It's a shame for that much good red meat to wind up feeding a growing coyote population.

I wonder if you'd be fine to simply check it online as we can do starting last year and really save yourself some time, especially if you are hunting close to home. I don't think I've checked a deer at a check station since '09.

__________________
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote
a blank check made payable to "The United States of
America" for an amount of 'up to and including my life.
That is honor, and there are way too many people in this
country who no longer understand it.

Nice deer you got. Have you had any more luck? All I've been seeing for a while now is does and a few young bucks.

__________________
I live in America. Why do I have to press 1 for English?

Here's a picture of the tenderloin extraction on a deer my son got yeserday on the last hour of the season. His first deer ever!

The check in station is really close and I like the size of the permanent kill tags they give vs 8.5 by 11 paper from the printer... just me....

Attached Thumbnails

   

__________________
fred d.
Here's my Homepage

Looks like you are hanging head down, letting the guts move forward and going in behind the ribs? is that correct?

Yep! I don't usually field dress, I hang and skin leaving all the nasty inside.

__________________
fred d.
Here's my Homepage

Congrats to your son on his first deer!! Looks like it was a buck too...woo hoo! Enjoy that venison!

__________________
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote
a blank check made payable to "The United States of
America" for an amount of 'up to and including my life.
That is honor, and there are way too many people in this
country who no longer understand it.

We very rarely field dress, too. Just too messy. We will (and have) field dressed when a deer is pretty far back in the woods and is a heavy one, just to lighten the load.

We usually make a backpack out of the deer and carry it out. It's much easier to pack them out than dragging but you need to bring extra orange vests and stuff with you (to drape over the deer) when you do that.

And a strong, young back & legs!

Doubt seriously if I could drape a 150 lb plus critter over my shoulders and go more than 10 yds!

__________________
NRA Benefactor Member
NRA Certified Police Firearms Instructor
NRA Certified Range Safety Officer
NAHC Life Member

"Firearms only have two enemies - rust and politicans" author unknown

Ha! That much is true! It's surprisingly not bad, though. Making it into a backpack actually is fairly easy to carry and the deer will carry your gun for you (if someone isn't with you to carry it for you). Whenever you sit down, it sits down, too, taking the weight off. What's really cool is like what's happened with me and my uncle before... just the two of you go and both get one and have to pack them out.