2023 Meat Pole

[PatMcD]

Finally tagged one. Not a good shot I'm upset. Tracked him about 100 yards after I waited about 15 to track him. When I got to him he ran.....put another one in him and hit too far back. Gut shot. I did the best I could dressing him out.
Never hit the gut ever. Not sure ehat to expect from this meat.

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It will be fine. You got it cleaned out right away, that's the important thing. I get mine back to the house and usually rinse out the cavity with a hose, too.

 

[Mark from MA]

Kinda suprised he got up after that first shot but it might have been high and forward of the lungs.

It'll be fine, like Pat said, you clean it out with the hose and dry the cavity well, as sometimes there gets some pockets of water in there and it promotes bacteria growth.

I'm sure you did but make sure the Tloins are out and cleaned off.

The smell sticks with you though....never seems to go away fully...LOL.

 

[HorizontalHunter]

Kinda suprised he got up after that first shot but it might have been high and forward of the lungs.

It'll be fine, like Pat said, you clean it out with the hose and dry the cavity well, as sometimes there gets some pockets of water in there and it promotes bacteria growth.

I'm sure you did but make sure the Tloins are out and cleaned off.

The smell sticks with you though....never seems to go away fully...LOL.

This.

Dry it well and take the tenderloins out for supper.

Congratulations on the buck.

 

[peterk123]

Beautiful way to end my season. 15 degrees, little snow and nobody else. Watched 8 does for about an hour. They decided to bed down. Hoping there was a buck nearby but no luck. Looking forward to relaxing, recovering, and living vicariously through you guys as you post here in this thread.

 

[whacko]

Kinda suprised he got up after that first shot but it might have been high and forward of the lungs.

It'll be fine, like Pat said, you clean it out with the hose and dry the cavity well, as sometimes there gets some pockets of water in there and it promotes bacteria growth.

I'm sure you did but make sure the Tloins are out and cleaned off.

The smell sticks with you though....never seems to go away fully...LOL.

time line on this one....

First shot 733am

Tracked.....bumped and gut shot at 809am

Tracked and located at 819am

Guts out by 830am.....damn did that smell...holy shit I pray that I never have this happen again.

Dragged to clearing where Mrs whacko met me at 855am with 2 gallon jugs of clean water......rinsed the cavity and patted dry with paper towels. Finished the drag to the truck

Dropped at the butcher at 1030am


Never gut shot a deer.....is this meat going to be bad?

 

[peterk123]

time line on this one....

First shot 733am

Tracked.....bumped and gut shot at 809am

Tracked and located at 819am

Guts out by 830am.....damn did that smell...holy shit I pray that I never have this happen again.

Dragged to clearing where Mrs whacko met me at 855am with 2 gallon jugs of clean water......rinsed the cavity and patted dry with paper towels. Finished the drag to the truck

Dropped at the butcher at 1030am


Never gut shot a deer.....is this meat going to be bad?

I gut shot a deer once with my bow. I knew right away so I got out of the woods and went back seven hours later. There he was by the edge of the swamp dead. It was not an easy track because I hardly had any blood to go by. I just knew they typically go to water when hit in the gut because they feel sick. Text book result. Gutted him, dragged him out and processed it the following morning. It was perfectly fine.

 

[whacko]

I gut shot a deer once with my bow. I knew right away so I got out of the woods and went back seven hours later. There he was by the edge of the swamp dead. It was not an easy track because I hardly had any blood to go by. I just knew they typically go to water when hit in the gut because they feel sick. Text book result. Gutted him, dragged him out and processed it the following morning. It was perfectly fine.

Good to know thanks. I had this one gutted less than 30 minutes from when it was gut shot. Only thing I didn't really get to do was hose out the cavity just flushed with 2 gallons of water. I'm hoping that was enough.

That said.......someone in the area is baiting......cavity was full of corn

 

[whacko]

Family has 2 deer in the freezer now since I finally filled a nh tag yesterday. It's a good feeling.....I was getting worried....I've been hitting the woods hard this year.....more than any other year in my past.....Plenty of after work sunset sits......all day sat and sun sits during the rut too. Paid off I got one and my boy tagged one 2 weeks ago.

It's good to not feel the "need" to hit the woods at this point. I'll be out helping my brother tomorrow but with the pressure off me I can really just enjoy some time with him.

When you got a good headstart on the freezer filling.....current situation:

 

[Mark from MA]

time line on this one....

First shot 733am

Tracked.....bumped and gut shot at 809am

Tracked and located at 819am

Guts out by 830am.....damn did that smell...holy shit I pray that I never have this happen again.

Dragged to clearing where Mrs whacko met me at 855am with 2 gallon jugs of clean water......rinsed the cavity and patted dry with paper towels. Finished the drag to the truck

Dropped at the butcher at 1030am


Never gut shot a deer.....is this meat going to be bad?

Meat will be perfectly fine the way you handled it

 

[HorizontalHunter]

Meat will be perfectly fine the way you handled it

This.

You won’t notice any difference.

 

[rogerk]

That said.......someone in the area is baiting......cavity was full of corn

No ag fields within 5-8 miles? Not sure which state you’re in, but the bear guys will bait with corn every now and then as well.

I’d like to give hunters the benefit of the doubt and think the corn wasn’t out there with the deer as the target. Nice job finding him, perfectly played

 

[whacko]

No ag fields within 5-8 miles? Not sure which state you’re in, but the bear guys will bait with corn every now and then as well.

I’d like to give hunters the benefit of the doubt and think the corn wasn’t out there with the deer as the target. Nice job finding him, perfectly played

No corn fields near where I was at all. It's nh and I believe baiting is legal if the bait site is registered...i dont bait so dont know the regs on it at all.....my comment wasn't to "rat someone out"......just interesting that there's definitely some corn piles in the area.

Thanks for the kind words. That was a tough deer to find. No blood trail for a long way had to do the box method till I finally found one tiny drop and had a direction to go. His first run was 100 yards....second run after I gut shot him was at least another 250 yards. First time I've ever had to do that. Longest I've ever had one run before was like 50 yards. I admit this deer wasn't my best work......but I didn't give up and found him.

 

[rogerk]

No corn fields near where I was at all. It's nh and I believe baiting is legal if the bait site is registered...i dont bait so dont know the regs on it at all.....my comment wasn't to "rat someone out"......just interesting that there's definitely some corn piles in the area.

There’s definitely some funny business that happens. The worst example was just this week. Someone threw their trophy rack deer bait bags into my firepit. I should have taken a picture of how comical it was. Oh well, all sorts of people in the woods

 

[Mark from MA]

No corn fields near where I was at all. It's nh and I believe baiting is legal if the bait site is registered...i dont bait so dont know the regs on it at all.....my comment wasn't to "rat someone out"......just interesting that there's definitely some corn piles in the area.

Thanks for the kind words. That was a tough deer to find. No blood trail for a long way had to do the box method till I finally found one tiny drop and had a direction to go. His first run was 100 yards....second run after I gut shot him was at least another 250 yards. First time I've ever had to do that. Longest I've ever had one run before was like 50 yards. I admit this deer wasn't my best work......but I didn't give up and found him.

Yeah.....your first shot probably hit nothing vital but maybe the trachea or something he couldn't breathe well. That will produce very little blood.

Main thing is you didnt give up and found him.

Ive hit guts more than once and its never fun......but I generally leave them 6 plus hours after a gut shot. They typically lay down within 100 yds if not pushed. Sounds bad, but I've had meat from those deer and its been fine.

If you push them and they don't bleed much, and you can't find it, its worse than tracking too early. This has been mostly with archery equipment as getting a second shot on a running wounded deer would be nearly impossible.

 

[whacko]

NH in season update shows a slight drop in the deer harvest over 2022. Updated Nov 15. Rockingham County where I'm hunting showed a slight increase in the mid season update but state wide totals are down slightly. Interesting stuff.

 

[HARRYM]

NH in season update shows a slight drop in the deer harvest over 2022. Updated Nov 15. Rockingham County where I'm hunting showed a slight increase in the mid season update but state wide totals are down slightly. Interesting stuff.

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Interesting. The final numbers should be interesting as well. I hunted the final days of ML and the first 4 days of rifle in PITTSBURG and I can say lack of hunters was as low as I have ever seen it and I have hunted up there for decades. This year I saw more rubs and scrapes than I have ever seen from only a few bucks which told me the few bucks are traveling hard to find the does.

Things have changed up there and not for the best.

 

[whacko]

Interesting. The final numbers should be interesting as well. I hunted the final days of ML and the first 4 days of rifle in PITTSBURG and I can say lack of hunters was as low as I have ever seen it and I have hunted up there for decades. This year I saw more rubs and scrapes than I have ever seen from only a few bucks which told me the few bucks are traveling hard to find the does.

Things have changed up there and not for the best.

Hillsboro County had a big drop this year.

The northern zones of nh imo are treated like the western zones in MA. The numbers are down.....and the managers don't seem to care. I mean.....they put the management tools up there in place.....short any deer season....and even end the season a week early.....but it's not enough. The problem is the solution is limiting the pressure on the deer even more.....and the hunters will cry about more restrictions and bitch about low deer numbers at the same f***ing time.

All that being said....I'm a mass hunter that buys non res nh license to hunt the southern nh areas. Loaded with deer.....none of then are record breakers at all...... but I hunt for the freezer I'm not fussy. It's the perfect scenario for me.

 

[HARRYM]

Look at the change in the grafton County numbers 2022 to 2023. Huge increase in harvest there.

The northern zones of nh imo are treated like the western zones in MA. The numbers are down.....and the managers don't seem to care. I mean.....they put the management tools up there in place.....short any deer season....and even end the season a week early.....but it's not enough. The problem is the solution is limiting the pressure on the deer even more.....and the hunters will cry about more restrictions and bitch about low deer numbers at the same f***ing time.

My Brother and I had a lot of success up there over the years and the nineties were fantastic with many deer with several 200 lb + bucks. The winter of 2000/2001 killed 30 to 50 percent of the herd with the 2007-2008 being no picnic either. The rise of Coyotes and Ticks is adding insult to injury as fawns are on the breakfast menu. Sure they shortened the season by a week as well as no doe days but something ain't well up there. Now opening day of rifle and I never heard a single shot. Now you have a new group that just bought a big chunk of land up there and they are gonna close it to logging and use the land to claim "Carbon Credits". As all hunters know an un logged forest is a dead forest.

 

[CulperJr]

NH in season update shows a slight drop in the deer harvest over 2022. Updated Nov 15. Rockingham County where I'm hunting showed a slight increase in the mid season update but state wide totals are down slightly. Interesting stuff.

View attachment 821952

For what it’s worth, the same trend is occurring in Wisconsin. Parts of WI are seen as some of the best white tail hunting in the US, but the number of tags filled out have been steadily falling the past few years. I hunted there this year and bagged a doe and a spike buck. There were seemingly hundreds of cars with deer strapped to them rifle opening weekend. It was awesome!

 

[PatMcD]

It seems there have been a TON of patch bucks shot in Maine this year.
Probably just because a good percentage of them that are shot are posted up on the "Maine Deer Hunters" FB group, so you see a daily parade of huge bucks. It used to be, you had to wait until the Maine Sportsman paper came out in January before you saw the list.

 

[HorizontalHunter]

Connecticut does the same for archery and puts out a yearly summary but the numbers were so dismal that they stopped publishing the tracking this year.
https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DEEP/hunting_trapping/pdf_files/ReportedDeerHarvest.pdf

I haven’t found the summary from Mass yet………..as if.

 

[Mark from MA]

My Brother and I had a lot of success up there over the years and the nineties were fantastic with many deer with several 200 lb + bucks. The winter of 2000/2001 killed 30 to 50 percent of the herd with the 2007-2008 being no picnic either. The rise of Coyotes and Ticks is adding insult to injury as fawns are on the breakfast menu. Sure they shortened the season by a week as well as no doe days but something ain't well up there. Now opening day of rifle and I never heard a single shot. Now you have a new group that just bought a big chunk of land up there and they are gonna close it to logging and use the land to claim "Carbon Credits". As all hunters know an un logged forest is a dead forest.

Sounds a lot like Central/Western MA as well. Except we haven't shortened the seasons, we lengthened them, and we allow more doe permits as well.

Good deer hunting is getting to be an urban thing.

 

[Mark from MA]

Connecticut does the same for archery and puts out a yearly summary but the numbers were so dismal that they stopped publishing the tracking this year.
https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DEEP/hunting_trapping/pdf_files/ReportedDeerHarvest.pdf

I haven’t found the summary from Mass yet………..as if.

View attachment 821965

View attachment 821966
View attachment 821967

Yikes......that's fxing ugly. I haven't hunted down there in a few or talked to landowners. But the herd was definately stabilizing when I left....and COYOTES were starting to be seen regularly on cameras. I know MA wildlife thinks they dont have an effect...but this data says otherwise. What they also don't mention is what towns are picking deer off with sharpshooters at night and throwing deer in the dump. That leaves a dent.

Jesus H.....7 deer in New Canaan? I remember when my father and I took that many by October.

They really need to shitcan the 4 tags thing in archery season and unlimited does in that zone...but they won't.

 

[JGreen]

Last Friday 4pm in zone 9. I watched him cross a stream 30 +/- yards from my tree stand. He stopped with his body showing through the "V" of a tree. I was hoping he was going to turn right towards me. The moment he stepped left, I released the arrow as he was quartering away. I backed out because I didn't hear a crash and couldn't see him. Went back with my son and the dead sled 90 minutes later and saw that beautiful green glow not 50 yards from the kill spot. The 100 grain Ramcat Hydroshock pivoting broadhead is my go to with a Lumenok arrow nock. Going with a euro mount on this one.

 

[HARRYM]

Last Friday 4pm in zone 9. I watched him cross a stream 30 +/- yards from my tree stand. He stopped with his body showing through the "V" of a tree. I was hoping he was going to turn right towards me. The moment he stepped left, I released the arrow as he was quartering away. I backed out because I didn't hear a crash and couldn't see him. Went back with my son and the dead sled 90 minutes later and saw that beautiful green glow not 50 yards from the kill spot. The 100 grain Ramcat Hydroshock pivoting broadhead is my go to with a Lumenok arrow nock. Going with a euro mount on this one.

 

[HARRYM]

Sounds a lot like Central/Western MA as well. Except we haven't shortened the seasons, we lengthened them, and we allow more doe permits as well.

Good deer hunting is getting to be an urban thing.

I know, my wife can't wait for me to get back from Pittsburg so she can tell me how many deer she has seen in the back yard.

 

[Mark from MA]

Last Friday 4pm in zone 9. I watched him cross a stream 30 +/- yards from my tree stand. He stopped with his body showing through the "V" of a tree. I was hoping he was going to turn right towards me. The moment he stepped left, I released the arrow as he was quartering away. I backed out because I didn't hear a crash and couldn't see him. Went back with my son and the dead sled 90 minutes later and saw that beautiful green glow not 50 yards from the kill spot. The 100 grain Ramcat Hydroshock pivoting broadhead is my go to with a Lumenok arrow nock. Going with a euro mount on this one.

Jon,

Beauty of a buck. Congrats!

 

[Reeg]

Her first deer

Hope there's no plastic and metal in those loins...

In two days of drives we saw dozens of doe at my club in PA. Lotsa jerky and chili this winter.



Back from the butcher, they netted out at over 65lbs of meat.

 

[whacko]

2023 Nh totals in the link. Slight decrease from 2022.

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www.nhfishandwildlife.com

 

[Lucus]

Beautiful way to end my season. 15 degrees, little snow and nobody else. Watched 8 does for about an hour. They decided to bed down. Hoping there was a buck nearby but no luck. Looking forward to relaxing, recovering, and living vicariously through you guys as you post here in this thread.

View attachment 820443

My daughter lives in South Dakota and loves it out there. Massachusetts has become so over crowded, the traffic is brutal and the prices are ridiculous I don't blame you for moving..