whiskey

I have eaten their summer sausage and it was very good. I have a friend that has been using them for years.

Lincoln and Giles Counties turn out some big deer. Dickson, Montgomery and Stewart counties turn out big deer too. All of these areas are also loaded with Turkeys. Stewart county probably has the fishing advantage being right on Land Between the Lakes (LBL). LBL also offers some of the best trophy opportunities on public land in Tennessee. The closer you are to Nashville, the more pressure the public land gets. To consistently take big deer every year, you need private land that you can manage for trophies. There aren't many hogs in middle Tennessee. There are a few at LBL, with picture proof in a thread below by WD-40. However, there aren't a lot of them. Nothing like Texas or Florida. The agricultural areas turn out bigger deer. The further north you go the bigger the genetics get. Just look at the body size of some of the deer coming out of Kentucky now. If I were moving to Tennessee just to hunt and fish, I would move to Dover, TN. I would fish Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake and a I would hunt LBL and Fort Campbell and Cross Creeks.

I did plan to hunt it this year, but now we are going to Florida for fall break so I guess we will have to wait for Halloween. I would be up for a hunting lease. I have one friend that wants in on a lease too. He and I have been looking a little. We are mainly looking for something to trophy manage and primarily bow hunt. Of course we would want to let the kids gun hunt. Keep us in mind and we will keep you in mind. If either of us runs across something that looks right we can discuss it.

I see a lot of "want to lease" ads on craigslist. I don't see many "land for lease" ads. I have been thinking about contacting a local Real Estate agent to see if they know of someone having trouble making payments on land that would make enough with a couple hunters paying lease fees.

Marinate the 2 inside tenderloins in soy sauce and brown sugar for a couple hours in the fridge. Wrap the tenderloins in bacon and grill to medium. Slice and enjoy. Here is a link to the full recipe: There is a good reason this is the highest rated venison recipe for the past 4 years. Sweet Bacon-Wrapped Venison Tenderloin - 139664 - Recipezaar

I'd like to frisk her to make sure she is packing.

There are some good instructional videos that show "field dressing". There is no magic way that I have found. Seems that every deer has brought new challenges. If you have the right opportunities, you may not have to put a knife to the deer at all. If I am close to a vehicle when I kill a deer and I am able to get the deer in the truck or 4 wheeler and get it to a processor within a couple hours of shooting it then I don't even field dress it. I just take it whole to the processor. I know how to field dress a deer, but that don't mean I like doing it.

I don't have a problem shooting either, so long as the fawn is not a button buck. If I am doe hunting, I do not want to accidentally take a buck thinking it's a doe. By bow season the does are within weeks of chasing fawns off. I have seen early fawns that are already by themselves. I guess there are some late fawns that it would be risky for. Truth is that on my private hunting areas I would not take either right now. Public land I shoot everything that walks.

Saw a doe and a 4 pointer this evening. Too far to drag anything less than trophy quality. The doe ended up spooking and blowing at me. I am still not sure how she winded me, she was upwind the entire time. I guess the wind must have swirled.

Too Cool!

I hope to take a deer with my pistol this year. I have taken deer and hogs before, but this year I plan to leave the bow at home and take the pistol once gun season gets here. I use a Super Blackhawk .44mag with Hornady 300gr XTPs. It was a 7.5 barrel that I had cut to 5.5. I wanted the solid cylinder and large grip frame, but I wanted a 5.5 barrel so I just had what I wanted made. It is the most accurate revolver I have owned. It does kick a little with the 300gr rounds, but it is a good killer. It carries nice and draws quickly too.

That is a sweet bow!

He is already bigger than my daughter was at 9 years old (about 60 pounds) when she started shooting her .243. She was scared until she shot it. I let her keep her head back and not worry about aiming on the first shot so she could get a feel without the fear of the scope hitting her eye. After the first shot she realized it wasn't going to hurt and she shot a sub MOA 3 shot group the next 3 rounds. I will caution against the lighter single shot guns in .243. I bought a .243 NEF superlight youth and it kicked too much for my daughter. I sold it and got a Remington 700 SPS Youth and put a scope on it for her. It comes with a limbsaver recoil pad and it is about like shooting a .223. We hunted from a ground blind last year and she used a shooting stick to help steady the gun. She killed a deer on the youth hunt and is hooked now. We will be in the ground blind again this year.

I never call this early in the season, but I did hear a deer grunt on Sunday morning. I usually wait for the pre-rut to kick in before I call or rattle or put out any scents.

Dave, the icing just helps "wash" the blood out of the meat. I have bleed deer in the fridge for up to a week with good results. I have always just iced wild pigs to get all the blood out. I have been told by the old Florida swamp crackers that I hunted with down there, that the longer it takes for the boar to die, the more hormones he will pump through his body and the stronger the meat will be. I have killed some stinky old boars and the icing always took care of that for me. I have never eaten any boar meat that tasted any different than big sow meat if it were iced. I always just quarter mine and then smoke the quarters. If you have a good butcher, then sausage would be a good choice too.

Hopefully you don't have it in the freezer yet. If you do not, then pack it in ice in a cooler for a few days. Twice a day drain the bloody water off and add ice as needed. Keep this up until the water runs clear. You should not have any bad taste left in the meat, except in the soft fat. Wild boars have bad tasting soft fat, so remove all you can before and after cooking. If you do have it frozen, just do the process above when thawing. You can add a cup of vinegar to aid the process. Just a cup though. If the meat smells ok, then I would eat it. It was cool here last night and if he was still alive at 9pm then I would guess he would be fine to eat. PM me when you get ready to cook it. I have some good recipes. Jason

Thermacell! I don't have one mosquito bite.

Well atleast it was cool and not raining this morning. I did have button buck visit with me for about an hour this morning. He must have eaten 10 pounds of acorns. They were falling everywhere and one hit him right in the head. I almost laughed out loud at his reaction. Wind was blowing my scent into the thicket and I had a doe blow at me around 8:30. I never saw her, just heard her telling every deer in the woods that a stinking human was about.

I saw 4 hours of rain. Actually it did stop raining around 8am. I was hopeful that they deer would move once the rain stopped. No luck. Debating returning for the evening hunt.

My rub would come with making a conscience decision to kill an animal and then being too lazy to ensure the meat was used for food. I have let many does walk because I was too lazy THAT DAY! I try to take a fair number of does each year to fill my freezer. I won't shoot a small buck, period. How easy would it be to post an ad on craigslist before hunting season and get a list of families that would like to have any deer that a lazy, but blood thirsty hunter killed. I don't mean this as a demeaning label. I always enjoy the rush of taking a deer, I rarely enjoy the work that follows. I do it because I could never leave one to rot. We eat ours, but I understand hunters that either don't like the taste or don't want the hassle of cleaning/paying. Keep hunting, kill only does, not the baby bucks, and pass the meat to someone that wants it. Of the deer we put in the freezer last year, I have about 5 pounds of ground meat left. I need to use it soon so it doesn't get old with the thoughts of fresh tenderloin on the horizon.

I started my daughter on a Crickett with the factory iron peep. What I found to work well was to make shooting fun by having a target that was big enough to easily hit at a moderate distance. Soda Cans at 15 yards equals instant gratification. We worked our way up to plastic water bottles at 25 yards and when that was too easy, we started trying to shoot just the lid off the water bottles. Once she could hit the lids more often than not, I put a scope on the rifle. The problem with a scope on these guns is the lack of stock comb. It was not possible to mount the scope low enough for her to get a correct cheek weld on the stock. Once she was good enough with her fundamentals of sight picture, breathing and trigger squeeze I relaxed and let the cheek weld slide for the added advantage of hunting with a scope. She has been shooting for 6 years now and hunting for 5. She loves shooting, but even at 11 she doesn't like to shoot as long as I do. Remember to keep the shooting sessions only as long as she is still having fun. Don't try to push her to keep shooting because you want aren't finished. Sorry for the preaching, I just like to pass along my experiences.

I have hunted with a 30-30, 30-06, 270, .308, 300 WIN MAG, 7mm, .44mag and I final ended with the .243, so if you must have something else, I suggest trying the .308. I like short action bolt rifles, so the .243, 7mm-08 and .308 are usually what I look for in deer rifles. Don't be confused, the .243 is not a kids or womans gun despite what some of your bucket headed buddies may tell you. It does not offer as much margin of error, so I don't blame you for looking at other rounds. The .308 is a popular round. It is easy to buy a variety of ammo off the shelf and lots of guns are chambered in it. The recoil is more, but not so much that you could not get used to it with practice.

Florida or Texas.

I have seen one spray after a head shot. It stunk for a week or more. I would shot them only as a last resort. JM2C.

Well one barrel probably isn't going to do all you want. If you are going to buy a barrel for slugs I would go ahead and get the fully rifled barrel. You may want to look at the Mossberg combo guns. I bet you could get a new gun with two barrels cheaper than you could buy 2 more barrels for your winchester. I have a mossberg combo that I use for turkey and deer. It has the shorter field barrel which is good for turkey, but isn't good for wing shooting. Really to have one shotgun to cover all hunting, you really need 3 barrel. A fully rifled barrel, a shorter 22-24" turkey barrel and a 28" duck/dove barrel. I tried the rifled choke tube and it was barely acceptable at 50 yards.