Any hunters in the community?

I’ve recently been granted an intense interest in hunting. I’ve been curious about it since the first time I saw a deer hung up in my grampa’s garage as a kid but at the time I was a pretty liberal, anti gun, anti hunting kid due to family pressure and influence. As I got older and I switched to the dark side, I’ve had a slowly building interest and eventually a desire to do some hunting.

It all really took off when I started a new job that would let me use headphones throughout the day and needed a new podcast to listen to, and started listening to the MeatEater podcast after discovering the folks from the show, namely Steven Rinella also has a podcast covering a lot of the same concepts with a healthy dose of biology and conservation.

I won’t be able to hunt this year most likely as I’m expecting to get my ship date for basic training and will most likely miss the hunting opportunities of interest in my home state of Washington, between basic and shipping to my first duty station. But I intend to start making plans for next year once I find out where I’ll be stationed to try my hand at nabbing my first harvest of game meat, most likely either deer or wild hog. I need to work on my marksmanship anyway so it should work out nicely.

Just curious if there are folks who hunt or who have hunted, and would love to hear stories about good hunts or how you got into hunting, or your favorite game meats and meals!

Disclaimer: I’m not interested in debating firearms or the ethical questions of hunting. Hunting is a massive part of conservation of wildlife in our country and does a great deal of good at protecting our wildlife and wilderness areas. And it’s a heck of a lot more humane than the vast majority of animal products consumed by the population. That’s as far as I’m interested in going in this thread! Anyone trying to derail will get at most a response from me pointing back to this statement.

I grew up hunting pheasant, turkey, and deer - the latter with a compound bow. As an adult I don't do too much hunting, the community is a little gross (no offense). I believe in the conservation aspects as seeing a group of starving deer (due to over population ) is terrible but you end up finding quite a few gross dudes who just love to kill things and that's it. Also, I'm a pro gun control super liberal so I feel a little at-odds with the hobby in general hah.

It sounds like you are getting into it for the right reasons though, respect the animal and respect the environment - some of the most peaceful sleep I've ever gotten was propped up next to a tree in the middle of the woods, hah.

I'm also a newer hunter who had grandfathers who were both avid outdoorsmen. It definitely skipped a generation though, as my parents didn't really get into it, so it didn't really get in my blood either. In my twenties, after both grandfathers had passed on, I re-discovered fishing which is something I used to do when I was a young kid with one grandpa.

Now in my 30's I have began hunting turkey and deer. It's funny because like you OP, I also got into it through the passion and knowledge of Steven Rinella and his various media outlets. He's got a great mind for that world and his philosophy and ethics are easily explainable. Friends had been pestering me for years to give hunting a try but it took Meat Eater to inspire me, and package the ethics and passion for cooking (which is my biggest hobby outside of games) to provide the right context for me.

I went on my first turkey hunt in spring 2017 and first bow deer hunt in fall of 2017. No luck on turkeys yet (2018 too), but I did get a wonderful 190lb buck with my bow. The feelings of remorse, respect, anxiety, sadness, and pride that all sort of wash over you simultaneously is something that I can't describe. I suppose if you're one of those "let's go kill shit" hunters that give the pass time a bad rep you probably don't have those complex emotions when taking an animal's life, but at the end of the day I got great free range organic meat that was taken quickly. The joy wasn't in the drawing back of the bow on a wild animal. The joy is in the whole process of sitting, listening, learning, self discipline, and of course cooking that fresh backstrap when you come home.

From what I've eaten in my life I would say Elk meat was the best game meat I've eaten. I really do enjoy whitetail deer venison though. That's really all that's available here although a limited Elk management program does exist here now. Ground venison chili is a must. Tenderloins are great seared on a hot cast iron with plenty of butter and some Montreal steak seasoning for a basic crowd pleaser. Trim it well - a lot of "gamey" flavors some will complain about actually come from the silver skin and fatty areas.

Wild turkey is excellent and does well when brined for 24hrs and then smoked.

Good luck out there!

@foejoe: Makes me happy to know I’m not the only one he and his converted over haha. Definitely agree that his simple take on ethics and conservation as well as his passion for cooking wild game were a big part of what really stoked the fires for me on hunting, as well as the discussion around really arduous hunts he and guests had gone on. I hope some day I’ll be fortunate enough to go on a big trip somewhere like Alaska to tough out a long, hard hunt.

Do you only hunt with a bow? I plan on beginning with a rifle just because I already have a decent bit of experience and soon will be getting a whole lot more, but now hunting sounds like a hell of a time and I plan on getting into archery for a couple years and eventually taking it out in the wild to grab some game. Especially if I end up in a state where that helps bad out limited hunting opportunities.

Elk definitely seems to be a favorite of a lot of folks so I’m looking forward to getting an elk someday and trying it in a non jerky or similarly processed state. My plan is to start with deer and maybe Turkey seasons and after a season or two and then come back home with a close friend of mine for a good back country elk trip.

@yothatlimp: There for sure are people who have a questionable motivation, but as long as they hunt legally they are generally doing good. If not that responsibility is shared with the state or federal agencies that oversee the activity. Literally paying for conservation every time they legally harvest a critter or directly making a positive impact on the ecosystem. It’s something I wish was out there more: in a decently managed state or federal space, legally hunting is good for our wilderness and our wildlife. Hunting is fun, and if done legally it’s very difficult to produce waste. Even if you yourself don’t eat the meat etc, every bit of that animal does something for the ecosystem.

I see hunting personally as equal parts pleasure and practical. Depending on the game and the wilderness they inhabit that ratio may skew one way or the other. But I know when I pay for a license, tag, or even buy ammo I’m contributing to conservation as well as enjoying American wilderness and the art of the hunt. I don’t get super judge mental about why people hunt. Critters like to hunt as well so I feel uncomfortable personally making the judgement on motivation behind a reasonable, legal hunt. Just my two cents, not wanting to derail into discussing it further. We need more hunters or we need to find funding elsewhere because declining hunters is a big threat to conservation right now.

@opusofthemagnum: I've only hunted deer with a bow so far. Both of my unsuccessful turkey hunts were with a shotgun. I have no problems with gun hunting, just wanted the challenge of discipline that comes with a bow, I guess. And it's a separate deer tag where I live, so another opportunity to fill the freezer.

I don't hunt anymore due to lack of time and folks to hunt with. But I'll give you a wall of text anyway.

Deer can be very clever if they've lived though a couple hunting seasons. If you are stalking one it will get a bit ahead of you and then circle around behind you and follow. Once we were stalking and could not figure out where it went. We did a wide search and found a row of low brush. We saw where the deer bed down and then some odd drag marks. We figured out that when we passed the deer low crawled in the opposite direction we went.

I can't stress enough that you always need to be thinking safety. Know who you are hunting with. We mostly would hunt using portable stands for morn/dusk and would stalk/drive during the day. We would know where everyone was and would know our safe firing zones. I personally hated driving corn fields. A hunting buddy brought a "new guy" in for one day and the moron actually fired into the corn because he thought we were further back. Like I wrote above...know who you are hunting with. We never let that guy hunt with us again.

Know your gun and ammunition. Sight in and practice. You could always hear the gomers on day one of the season firing 5 or 6 rounds quickly. We would joke that they must have been hunting a Sasquatch. We would hunt with shotguns using slugs and it only takes one round to kill a deer. Don't be "cool guy" and go for head shots. I was so pissed when I found a deer that had starved due to its lower jaw being shot off because of "cool guy".

In Minnesota and Wisconsin the DNR monitors deer populations and will give out license tags according to the harvest numbers they want. There is a lack of large predators so deer populations can rise quickly. This can lead to starvation and disease. So controlled hunting does help. DNR also collects data on the deer when you bring it in to have the license tag checked. Plus some of license money does go state wildlife programs. When you do decide where and what to hunt be sure to look up that states hunting rules. Its been awhile but I would get a booklet at the same place I would get my hunting license. States will have zones for times/dates to hunt and what firearm types are allowed. You do not want to be making a mistake and be accidentally poaching. Some states will take everything away from you including the vehicle you are using. Minnesota DNR was fairly laid back when we would get pulled over. DNR will drive around and will pull you over if you have a deer in the bed of you pickup. Wisconsin DNR was always hardcore. We would be told to exit the vehicle and stand away. They would inspect the deer, license and grill you where you shot it. Then they would check the guns by taking them out of the case and racking them to make sure they were not loaded. I guess I can't blame them....crazy S'conies.

I was lucky to find a group of guys that wanted to hunt for the meat. We would butcher the deer ourselves. Steaks and mixing for ground meat, jerky and sausage. Meat would be shared with family and the rest would go into the deep freeze. Would use it throughout the year for grilling and such. Other than learning to hunt, learning how to process the deer to get the most out of it was just as fun.

Finally be respectful of other hunters. If you are on public land you will run into other hunters. Be aware of where they are trying to hunt and give them a wide berth. I was in a stand one time and I literally had a group of 4 guys walk right under my stand while talking loudly and drinking coffee.

What I really meant to say was get outdoors and have fun.

@foejoe: Cool! I’m looking forward to getting into archery and eventually doing some bow hunting. Thanks for sharing!

@bored_ming: I’m definitely going to be careful of who I hunt with. Only guy I would go with at the moment is a childhood friend who I regularly go on extended shooting trips on. I trust him 100% around firearms. I plan on doing most of my hunting solo and trying to get out to more remote spots when I can, but I’m always aware. We generally go shooting on public land so I’m used to keeping an eye out for folks and the like. Thanks!

Hunting is the best. There's nothing like getting out into nature, and seeing proper game management/conservation efforts pay dividends over time is the coolest thing. I mostly bird hunt, although I occasionally guest at an MLD ranch and take one or two cull deer per year. I'm a meat hunter, not a horn hunter when it comes to deer. Dove hunting is probably my favorite, followed by quail and turkey.

The bird lease I'm on was down to roughly a half-dozen coveys of quail about five years ago due to a massive drought in the area that nearly killed off all the birds. We protected them by doing some significant predator culling, in addition to planting a bunch of seed to recreate lost cover. It slowly started to pay off each year, and now we're covered up with quail again. It's really satisfying to sit in the front yard of the ranch house and just hear them calling each other from every direction now. Love it.

I did some Spring turkey hunting a few weeks back, with great success. I got a bearded hen, and then later a big tom came in strutting around like he owned the place. I hadn't previously seen one in the wild all bowed up and strutting before, so that was awesome. It was really exciting to bag him.

For cooking, I generally bacon-wrap the doves, and brine and bake both quail and turkey. I have all my venison processed into chorizo, hamburger, pan sausage, or chopped steaks, with the exception of tenderloins and backstraps, which I grill. Venison tastes fan-fucking-tastic and is lean enough to be really healthy to eat, so I consume a ton of it.

I can't wait for dove season in the fall. I'm best with a shotgun, and making those tough shots on birds going 50+ mph is always great. We've got a good number of Eurasian collared doves up there, too, which have no limit or season and are comparatively huge, tough birds. They are a true challenge to bag, as they're far smarter than mourning/whitewing doves. I can stealth my way in range of a regular dove, but Eurasians won't let you get near them. It's a bonus everytime I get one. They don't freeze as well as regular doves, but eat just fine shortly after being harvested. I'll stop because I could talk about hunting all day, but suffice it to say that I greatly enjoy hunting and I'm glad to see some other duders do as well.

Not really. The Cabela's type of games tend to just focus on the killing part of it and cheapen the whole thing. There are a few that have done a decent job of representing tracking, attractants, etc., but nothing really approximates the nature aspect of it, and game-ifying the hunt requires shortening it into a fairly unrealistic depiction. Sitting in a real-world blind for hours can be fun, but that doesn't really translate to the virtual space. Most hunting games are basically shooting galleries, and the way a bunch of them glorify slaughter, horn hunting, et al. is kinda gross.

I will say that Big Buck Hunter is the right kind of dumb to make for a fun video game, though, albeit a horrible representation of actual hunting.

@notnert427: @dudeglove: Oregon Trail? It is a shooting gallery, but at least there's a sustenance element and you can go hunting in that game and only see one rabbit.

I did appreciate the fact that even if you killed 23 buffalo, you could only carry a few pounds of meat back. Few hunting games actually make a point about using the meat and not wasting it.

@notnert427: There are also consequences for coming back empty-handed. You could easily lose characters in that game to starvation without hunted meat. Not that the consequences are really the same for most modern sport/ hobby hunters, but it certainly made for an effective simulation of a bygone era.

For some reason this reads sounds like somebody is trying to get a bunch of hunters to a remote location and hunt them. Then once it is down to the final hunter, the OP reveals himself to be a) a werewolf and B) Calvin Lockhart. The final hunter then reveals that he is pre-cgi Peter Cushing..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klfE_nescX0

My brother used to hunt when I was in middle and high school until he actually got a deer and then realized, as we was carrying it out of the woods, that he was horribly allergic to deer musk. He stopped after that. Now he just goes ice fishing (or as he jokingly puts it, ice drinking) a couple times every year.

My boss does both deer and moose hunting (if they get a permit).

I have never myself hunted, but hunting pretty much was always background noise to my growing up. I had a neighbor nicknamed Wimpy who hunted and I remember going to his barn during the fall and seeing a deer hanging from a rope when I was maybe 4 years old. It was just a part of growing up in Maine. Most people either hunt or live next door to a hunter, so I saw a lot of it and learned a lot about it without actually doing it. I think most people I personally know have a healthy respect for the hobby and the laws that govern it. They all use appropriate permits, etc. I also see the other side, since I work at a local court, where we get the people who do things like use bait, night hunt with spotlights, all stuff that is illegal. They get hefty fines and sometimes jail time if they do something especially egregious.

Long story short (kind of) I respect the good hunters even if I don't think I could ever shoot an animal. It would be really hard, but I don't begrudge anyone who does it legally. It's important too for population control, which we always hear a lot about in Maine through local news stories and stuff like that.

I would hunt a duck or wild turkey. My uncle who went duck hunting wanted to take me; but by the time get got around to it his emphysema was so bad he stopped hunting. We had other fun experiences though, so it "is" what it "is".

There are a lot of wild turkeys on Cape Cod, but they march through neighborhood so it would be illegal to hunt those. Say, what was the children's book about a boy who lived with his dad in a gypsy wagon; they created a scheme to 'poaching pheasants' with sleeping pills hidden in raisins? I could do that.

@monkeyking1969: The book is called ‘Danny the Champion of the World’ written by Roald Dahl in 1975.

@dudeglove: the best example I’ve played was theHunter. While it had some awkward and not super consumer friendly stuff in it, it did a decent job of letting you just walk around a great big wilderness area, and would let you do tracking and stalking, calling, and baiting. And I sort of appreciated the pay structure for permits and upgrades because it encouraged me to spend a lot of time practicing skills before spending money on a permit for some of the larger game animals or grabbing a new gun.

It had some issues especially with draw distance, you couldn’t get the experience of glassing elk 2 miles away but it was a pretty decent hunting game.

I only hunt the most dangerous game.