Should I stick him in the freezer?

Oldcountryboy · #1 11/03/12, 09:27 PM

I have a young buck hanging around in my backyard garden!!!

He looks to be probably a 6 pointer. Probably dress out around a 100 - 105 pounds or so. I've seen him once in the daylight, which was yesterday morning. He caught me by surprize, wasn't expecting to see a deer in my backyard. He just slowly trotted off as if he wasn't too scared. Since I've seen him twice more with a flashlite. Once early this morning and again just a while ago. Still hanging around in the backyard garden.

I like the ideal of having a buck hanging around in my backyard, but I also need more meat in my freezer. I have tags so it would be legal. But I think it would be a nice scenery to watch a buck deer feed around in my backyard.

I wonder if he was a fawn deer that was raised around here last spring? I haven't been seeing any does which is what I usually see in my backyard.

Oldcountryboy · #2 11/03/12, 09:30 PM

I wonder if I started feeding some sweet feed to him for a while and then throw him in the freezer. He might taste purty good by then. But then, my cuz who lives across the creek from me will probably see him and shoot him out his bathroom window before I get him sweetened up.

pheasantplucker · #3 11/04/12, 05:36 AM

Once the rut starts, and hunting season progresses, his behavior will change and the likelihood of your seeing him again will be less probable. If you want him, and have the tags, and he presents you with a legitimate shot, I'd say take it.

big rockpile · #4 11/04/12, 08:00 AM

Hey quit playing with your food and put it in the Freezer

big rockpile

Oldcountryboy · #5 11/04/12, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by big rockpile

Hey quit playing with your food and put it in the Freezer

big rockpile

LOL

Well I cant seem to outsmart him. He's wisened up since I jumped him the other morning. He will only come out of the woods and into my backyard garden during dark hours. I can shine the light out my back door and see his eyes at the very edge of the woods but I can't seem to sneak close enough to find him in the heavy brush. He'll scare before I realize where he is.

Tomorrow I'm gonna hang my deer feeder up and pour some sweet feed in it for him to nibble around on. Sweeten him up for a few days and hopefully come conventional deer rifle season I'll throw him in the freezer.

Big Dave · #6 11/04/12, 09:49 PM

Bow hunting is in season yes?

Paquebot · #7 11/05/12, 01:57 PM

Never too small or big, young or old, to convert to venison. As you already know, if you don't take him someone else probably will. Since my legs tell me that my deer chasing years are over, I've placed an order for a deer for Thanksgiving. Younger generation now see to it that my freezers and pantry are never without venison.

Martin

Oldcountryboy · #8 11/05/12, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paquebot

Never too small or big, young or old, to convert to venison. As you already know, if you don't take him someone else probably will. Since my legs tell me that my deer chasing years are over, I've placed an order for a deer for Thanksgiving. Younger generation now see to it that my freezers and pantry are never without venison.

Martin

Wished I had a young hunter or two who would think of me. I was getting some venison from a BIL who is married to my ex-wifes sister. So since I'm divorced now, not so sure if he'll be bringing me any or not. He likes to hunt but he don't like to eat wild game. Or fish!

Well today I hung up the feeder and cleared out some small saplings so I could have a shooting lane. I need to run to town tomorrow or wednesday and get a sack of feed. I'm wondering if I should go with a sweet feed, whole corn, chopped corn, or rabbit pellets?

Last time I bought sweet feed all I could find it in was a pellet form. The deer didn't seem to like it too well. Years ago I would buy sweet feed in the granular form and place it in a homemade cattle type feeder and after a couple of weeks I couldn't keep enough feed in it. Deer, raccoons, coyotes, and all other kind of critters were coming in to feed on it. I could put a 50 pound sack in it and it would only last a couple of days. I would have no problem filling my tags tho.

They don't seem to go after whole corn very well unless that's all they can find. I wonder how chopped corn would work?

Paquebot · #9 11/06/12, 01:27 AM

I feel your pain. For years, I could be a one-man driver who knew almost every square foot of an entire township and what the deer would do when they saw me. I also had the fullback legs to get it done. Often it meant a long circle route to come in behind deer which were originally only a few hundred yards away. If it didn't result in the deer running directly in front of a friend, I would find the deer watching where I originally started from. More than once I took a careful aim and then said: "Here I am!" A deer would turn to look at me and I pulled the trigger and dropped it. That's what you may have to do if the deer has become accustomed to you being in a certain place. If you want to hunt by stalking, change your system and come in from the opposite direction but only after starting out as normal.

In the case of younger generation helping out, it's payback for all of the help in the past. The younger learn from the older and although some are now pushing 50, we hunted together when they were still teenagers. They are not my children but those of several cousins. "Uncle Marty" helped them get a lot of deer in his younger days and now it's payback time. Since my last hunt in Nov 2002, I've twice been presented with a big buck on my birthday which is the 24th. Expecting something a little smaller this year but will accept whatever extra happens to be hanging that day.

Martin

Oldcountryboy · #10 11/11/12, 09:51 AM

Well apparently he's moved on. Found him a girlfriend or something. Maybe he got tired of me shinning my flashlite out the backdoor at him. I don't know. I was throwing some vegetable and fruit scrapes way out toward the back of the garden where I hung the feeder and he (or something) was eating on them, but for the last few nights, nothing! Nothings even bothered the corn I put in the feeder. It might be the weather cause I'm not even seeing any squirrels around the place. It's been windy as all get out around here. Today we're having torrential rains. I'm just settin here wishing I could go out in the woods to do some scouting.