Deer Hunt Eats

[farmertrish]

Exactly. Or if you're a farmer with enough land to be able to cull the herd due to the damage they cause your crops.
Hunting is an expensive addic... err, I mean sport.

I would love to get a nuisance permit for our land. Start thinning the herd in September. Right now hubby wants to keep hunting just for family. I understand, but 2 years ago, when I went into my field at the crack of dawn to pick corn for market, and I jumped 7 deer, 3 bucks in velvet and 2 does and 2 young ones, I was ticked off. Early October, deer just become eating machines. I had a lovely crop of swiss chard, beets, carrots, and spinach, I now have a crop of.....stems. We've had a discussion. He's beginning to realize that maybe we need more than just 2 hunters on the property.

 

[Addie]

I would love to get a nuisance permit for our land. Start thinning the herd in September. Right now hubby wants to keep hunting just for family. I understand, but 2 years ago, when I went into my field at the crack of dawn to pick corn for market, and I jumped 7 deer, 3 bucks in velvet and 2 does and 2 young ones, I was ticked off. Early October, deer just become eating machines. I had a lovely crop of swiss chard, beets, carrots, and spinach, I now have a crop of.....stems. We've had a discussion. He's beginning to realize that maybe we need more than just 2 hunters on the property.

If you were to get that permit, I assume you would take some of the meat for your family. But seven animals does sound like a lot of deer meat for one family to eat in one year. At least to me. Can any of that be meat be donated?

( I have this thing about feeding hungry children.)

 

[farmertrish]

A nuisance permit just allows a land owner to hunt or allow others to hunt out of season, to control the herd to minimize crop damage. Each hunter still has to follow the state regulations. Where our farm is a hunter is allowed to take 4 deer. If DNR (Department of Natural Resouces) determines that 25 deer can be thinned, each hunter is allowed to take 4 deer, anything over that, per hunter, is to be donated or given away. So hubby could take 4 deer, and lets say another hunter could take 4 deer. That's a total of 8, then 17 deer still can be harvested, but must be processed and donated or given away. Most of the deer are given to correction institutes, I don't know why.
When I said 7 deer were jumped, it just means that I surprised them, and they took off running from my corn field.

 

[Mad Cook]

I hauled the Akorn Cooker out into the field on our annual trip to Piedmont NWR last week. I always do the cooking in our camp, But this was a step up from the Coleman stove! One in our group shot a deer so we feel successful. I did Deer Kababs and Brats one night and a deer ham, a butt and a fattie the next. There were hundreds of hunters in the campground. I put up a little banner so some web forum friend that were there could find our camp.

Blimey! You don't mess around when you go camping, do you.

I still have recurring nightmares about a small two-man ridge tent, sleeping bags on the ground (someone forgot the airbed) and trying to heat cans of beans in the open air on a tiny one ring butane burner which had to be watched constantly because it was so wobbly. It poured with rain all weekend and he snored. Did the relationship survive that romantic break in Wales? Did it hell! I wasn't THAT young and foolish!

 

[Addie]

Blimey! You don't mess around when you go camping, do you.

I still have recurring nightmares about a small two-man ridge tent, sleeping bags on the ground (someone forgot the airbed) and trying to heat cans of beans in the open air on a tiny one ring butane burner which had to be watched constantly because it was so wobbly. It poured with rain all weekend and he snored. Did the relationship survive that romantic break in Wales? Did it hell! I wasn't THAT young and foolish!

Maybe he was testing you.

 

[Mad Cook]

I live just down the road from Lyme Park (where Mr Darcy swam in the lake in the Colin Firth television production of "Pride and Prejudice" - Lyme Hall stood in for Pemberley). It's no longer privately owned but there is a herd of about 300 red deer. The park is securely fenced so they rarely get into people's gardens. The deer are culled by the park rangers once a year and the meat is sold in the better butchers in the area but there is no sport shooting there.

The Park is open to the public (with payment to park your car in the grounds) and I believe that horse riders are now permitted in the Park. Lots of nice walks and wildlife to spot.

Visitor information - National Trust

No sport shooting in the UK unless you are rich or have rich friends and get invited to a Scottish (or other area) estate for "The Shooting" - mostly deer, pheasant and grouse and then you don't always get to eat what you shoot although the beaters often do quite well out of the kill.

My cousin sold his business in Nottingham and retired on the proceeds (at 50!!) to Anglesey, North Wales. He was a very keen gardener and one thing lead to another and he ended up working as gardener to a syndicate of 5 local landowners (one was a distant cousin of the Queen, would you believe!). He used to get called in to beat at the shoots owned by these people so for 15 years we were kept supplied with pheasants for the pot.

 

[Addie]

A few years back we had a TV show about the Waban Estate. The Earl and his wife showed what their daily life was like running the estate. Most of the time the lady of the house was in dirty rubber boots and old clothes. Her husband had a stroke, so most of the work was left for her to do. Their one child was an adult and was recovering from a crippling auto accident. When he was well enough, the series ended with the parents turning the whole estate over to him and they took a flat in London. Strange customs. Deer running all around the place because they always had. Certain days for polishing all the silver. And there was a LOT! Cabinet and cabinet. They had a very young 'butler in training.' They sent him to London to learn how to polish the silver. The boy's mother was thrilled that her child was going to be a butler. What better calling for a young man.

So who polishes your silver? Your butler? And do you have a tiara as fancy as the wife of the Earl of Waban?

 

[Paymaster]

Wow! This'n certainly went off the rails!

 

[GotGarlic]

No kidding! From hunting-camp cooking to polishing the silver!

 

[Zagut]

Properly polished silver is needed when serving properly harvested venison.


How could you settle for anything less?