Recreation & hunting

I am a hunter.  I enjoy being outdoors and providign food for the family.  I killed a small 4 pointer this year (deer weight 120 lbs field dressed).  I use a muzzleloader as it is lighter and more accurate than any shotgun I have used in the past.  It is also cheaper to shoot.  I also hunt small game and enjoy rabbit and squirrel hunting.  

I hunt ferral hogs year round.

Following up on Albert's question: For my fellow hunters out there, do y'all just use the meat, or do you harvest as much as possible from the animal? Furs or hides? To be honest, i never really thought about it until just now, but my dad always took 3-4 deer per season, kept 2 and gave the other 2 to the local orphanage. He always gave the hides away to the processor...

My wife and I came from hunting families.  We hunt alot.  We eat deer, bear, goose, turkey, and small game and fish.  Our freezers get filled this time of year.  Last year my son and I got 9 deer between gun and archery seasons.  5 went into the freezer, 4 we gave to needy friends.  We grind our own burger and process all our own animals.  We can cut up an average size deer from skinning to clean up in 2 1/2 hrs. This year we will can 5-6 cases of quart jars of venison.  That will last about 3 years.  Actually we rarely eat beef unless my wife gets a good deal at the store or we go out.  Some people think we are weird, but the savings are HUGE in our budget, we know what we are eating and its very healthy too.  When people say they dont like eating wild game I laugh because its like anything, you need to know how to prepare it.  It helps that I married a good cook.

Again here we go, time to educate those that have no idea what they are talking about.  In WI there are 1.3 million deer.  In the southern part of the state we have a disease that is spreading called CWD.  Its the equivalant to AIDS but is passed just from close contact among deer due to over population.

I do not understand what your talking about how it hurts the enviroment.  Over population of the herd will be to their own demise.  There is no natural predation, unless you count deer killed by vehicles on the roadways.  During the rut (mating season) our sheriff's dept where I work handles 25-50 car deer accidents per day over a month period.  I have seen countless animals die painfully due to car crashes.

    

Go ahead and eat the beef that is is held in stantions and never leaves a barn and pumped with hormones to grow fast and wonder why your sick.  Wonder why 8 & 9 year old children go into puberty so early?  Keep eating your chicken, beef and pigs pumped with growth garbage and antibiotics just to make sure they get the most weight for the dollar on a corporate farm.  Trust me I live in farm country and grew up on a farm.  But farms that are are owned by overseas interests is where the vast majority  of the meat comes from in the supermarket.

 

Hunters do more to positively impact wildlife than any corporate farms ever do.  Sportsmans Clubs across the country have saved more wet lands, restocked more widlife and fish than anyone knows.  So before you bash hunting and call it wrong, know what your talking about.  Besides I just replied to a thread someone else had an interest in and did not expect to get bashed by an antihunter. 

 

Huck 

Haha, Sometimes John I agree totally with what you say. Here we're going to have to disagree.

johngardner1 wrote:      I'll never believe in hunting and there's nothing you can say that will change my mind.

This sounds like a closed minded statement if I've ever heard one...

JohnGardner wrote: You do not need to kill an animal for food, you can buy dead meat at the grocery store.

Sooooo Exactly what is the meat you bought at the grocery store made of? Last I checked it didn't get created dead. It came from some poor cow that lived his life after being castrated and then pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones to grow big in a few years. Did I mention that they live the vast majority of their lives in what you or I would call horrible conditions? I'm sure that after Huck shoots the deer or whatever it is, which is far more humane a way to die than being herded into a pen where some guy takes a boltgun to it's head could ever be, they're dead meat too.

JohnGardner wrote: Besides, you probably paid more for the hunters permit than the worth of the meat in dollar terms.

I will hunt in both Minnesota and Wisconsin this year. As a police officer I can buy a deer license for the same price as Wisconsin residents, which is $20 last time I checked. SO:

Deer license = $20
Rifle = already purchased, but for argument's sake let's put it at $300
Ammo = $20 Hornady TAP (Works amazingly well on deer)

Now if I shoot a 150 lb animal, I paid right around $2.00 a pound for my meat. Then when you factor in that I probably won't use my entire box of ammo for my one deer and can shoot more than one in intensive harvest areas, also I do not spend the price of the rifle more than once, I can end up spending far less than that per pound of meat. It's far more economical than going to the store and buying "dead meat."

Overpopulation can be handled by different methods rather than killing momma deer so her cubs die of hunger.

Oh really? Like what? Poison? Traps? Deer contraception? I want to hear even one idea.

JohnGardner wrote: Do you know how much it hurts to go hungry?

You make Huck and my point. It does HURT to go hungry. It's hell to go without food. But since there's no predation on the deer, they will overpopulate to the point where nothing is left and then they all starve. I'd say that it'd hurt when they all starve because there's just too many of them for the ecosystem to handle, wouldn't you???

JohnGardner wrote: If someone killed you it would be called murder, and there are 6 billion people in this world that are going to choke to death once the planet's resources are exhausted.

Again you make his point. The analogy that there's just too damn many people, making that many more too many people more than the Earth's ecosystem can handle has eater up all the resources. If deer are left without predation, they'll overpopulate, eat up all the resources, and "Choke to death" once the resources are used up.

JohnGardner wrote: Does that mean they should die?

So are we valuing the life of a deer more than a cow? Exactly what are the criteria that makes a deer more valuable than a cow? Deer have half the intelligence, so we can't use that one. I want you to point out the criteria that makes one more valuable than the other.

JohnGardner wrote: I'm sorry, it isn't the 1900's, the ecosystem is dying. You shouldn't be allowed to hunt or fish until the problem has been rectified.

Soooooo we should just let the wildlife overpopulate to teh point they're starving, further killing the ecosystem because you see a problem in someone shooting a deer.

JohnGardner wrote: ] Then you can go murder and get your meat clean of preservatives and hormones. Bet you catch e coli and/or salmonella anyway.

    
Which is closer to murder? A cow, a Turkey or chicken that's kept cooped in a box, and is then pumped full of everything they're not supposed to be eating, until they're so big and heavy they can't even stand their own weight. Then they're pulled into a terrifying world where someone takes a boltgun to their heads, or broils their feathers off while they're alive, moments before their heads are sliced off? Or a deer that probably led a life in the wild, eating the things they're meant to eat, doing the things they're meant to do, then get harvested by a predator, in this case Huck or myself, and they're used in their entirety. I will take their skin and give it to the needy for leather and clothes, the meat I'll eat, and will give at least half to those that are hungry etc. Can the same be said for that poor cow, chicken or turkey? I think not. More than half of it is recycled back into the food chain, AND IS FED RIGHT BACK TO THE OTHER COWS/CHICKENS/TURKEYS!!! They're forced to cannibalize!

And you have the audacity to call hunting murder while you condone the supermarket style of buying your food. The difference is that you don't know what happened to your "deaad meat" while I know exactly where mine came from.

John, you sound like a city kid that was spoon fed the liberal agenda in the indoctrination camp...er ... public school and took what they taught you as fact. Then you went to college where the indoctrination was further solidified into your standard closed minded, happy hippie world where the deer can laugh and play, with their gumdrop smiles, and rivers of chocolate. Sorry to snap my fingers and wake you up, but your paradigm of what the world is, is very wrong.
    
    
    
    
    

    My response is that cows aren't an endangered species like deer. I'm perfectly aware that cows suffer and can't wait til science invents the replicator like on star trek.

   Well, I've never killed a cute, sweet, blameless little deer and never will.

Turboguy, first I must say I like reading your posts. But, with great respect please, stop with the liberal bashing. I am a liberal, I come here to learn. Not every liberal supports the exact same issues and causes, just like every conservative has different views and opinions. I fully respect gun ownership, some I guns I question, some I don't, but I am not saying you can't own them.
Now for hunting. When I grew up we were poor because of choices my father made. But he was a hunter. If he hadn't hunted I would have gone to bed hungry many more times then I already did. I love venison. I actually went to out local butcher and told them I would pay for their service if the hunter would share their meat. Unfortunetly no one took me up on the offer.
My son wants a gun, but with some of his emtional issues I am saying no. He wants to learn to hunt. I tell him it is not easy to kill something and then clean it. I know I watched my grandmother kill and clean chickens on her farm. I saw my father clean what he caught, but it was way too long ago to remember how to do it.
My hunting question is this. With small game like rabbits, etc. how do you deal with fleas and ticks while you are cleaning it?

    John why not quit whilst you are ahead, you are commenting on a board about HUNTING. Comparing wild life to domestic animals is like describing chalk and cheese, there is no comparison.