Does, Venison Procurement!
Larry Weishuhn
“Venison procurement? I like that!” said Luke Clayton. “That’s exactly what we’re doing!”
David Cotton smiled as did his dad, Edgar!
“When I was growing up I didn’t know what venison was. If the meat came from a deer, we called it “deer meat”. Wasn’t until I was in high school that I heard anyone called deer meat, venison. When I was young my family was in the chicken, pork and beef business. Calling it “deer meat” separated it from the other meat we ate on a very regular daily basis. Growing up I can remember counting on one hand the days when we did not eat some kind of meat, even when we had fish. Frankly during my “still at home” days, we rarely ate fish. I suspect our not often eating fish was because my mother came along during the Depression of the early 1900’s. Quite often the only thing they had to eat was fish they had caught in the nearby creek. I strongly suspect she had her fill of fish when she was growing up.”
“During my student years at Texas A&M University, my wife, Mary Anne, and I ate fish a lot and often, which we caught ourselves. The same was true when my daughters were young. At the time I was a state-employed wildlife biologist. Salaries to be kind, were minimal, barely enough to pay for rent, car payments, gas, insurances and clothes for ourselves and our two daughters. Little money was left over for food! Hunting and fishing provided meals!
Things got a little better financially and food-wise after both of my daughters graduated from college and had gotten married. Even though we ate a lot of it, thankfully neither my wife or I ever lost our taste for venison. Todays it remains a staple food item for us.
My wife’s instructions before I had left home to head to the Cotton’s ranch, “We’re out of backstrap, make certain you bring some home!”
The week before heading to the Cotton property I had spent time on the Choctaw Hunting Lodge (www.choctawhuntinglodge.com) hunting black bear and a couple of mornings hunting whitetails inside their high fence property where I could use my Taurus Raging Hunter .454 Casull handgun. Doing so I had taken a couple of does and two management bucks. The venison from those four deer was properly taken care of and then provided to the Choctaw Nation’s elderly and tribal members who were/are in need of food.
Now I was hunting for my larder, not fill it, but at least feed it! Whenever possible I try to put at least one or two does into the freezer as early in the hunting season as possible. There are personal reason for wanting to do so, but also biological/management reasons for doing so.
By the first hunting seasons, at least in Texas, which generally starts the first of October fawns are old enough to survive on their own if they are not already weaned. And with the seemingly more occasional droughts, which limits natural deer forages, it is a good idea to remove “mouths” early so there is more food for those remaining. This not only benefits the deer, but all wildlife that lives on the property, including songbirds and nongame animals.
On the Cotton property because of our long-term wildlife management program based on total deer population density, buck to doe ratio, fawn survival rate, current and long-term range conditions, I had suggested we need to remove a minimum of ten does this coming fall, and, fifteen would be even better. The local Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist agreed and approved the ongoing management plan and thus once again approved the property to be included in Texas’ Managed Land Deer Permit (MLDP) program, as well as our harvest recommendations. With this program, the State of Texas issues landowners a number of both antlered and antlerless tags which can only be used on the property they are issue to. And, with these a tag from your hunting license is not required, matter of fact you cannot use a license tag on a deer taken on MLDP program land. The benefit of this program is hunting can start with the first legal Texas season, archery and continue through the end of February.
One of the things I enjoy about the MLDP program is the fact I can take more deer than the normal number allowed under State regulations and I can hunt deer, specifically in my instance, does with numerous firearms including handguns, rifles and even crossbows if I wish. I mention crossbows because I do not personally hunt with traditional, not including compound, archery equipment. This is simply a personal choice.
I particularly like to hunt does with handguns especially my Taurus Raging Hunters in .460 S&W Mag, .454 Casull, and .44 Mag. Occasionally I will also use .45 Colt, which can be shot through both my .460 S&W Mag and .454 Casull. Whatever handgun I shoot, I use Hornady ammo, either Handgun Hunter, FTX LEVERevolution or Custom loads. I have used all three on whitetail does in particular with great results. My various Taurus Raging Hunters seem to really like Hornady ammo in terms of accuracy. Topped with either a Stealth Vision Red Dot sight or a vintage 2.5-7×28 Simmons or Thompson/Center long-eye-relief scope from a reasonably solid rest I can keep all my shot within 2-inches at 100-yards.
While I have shot at the 500-yards steel plate target on the Cotton’s ranch and elsewhere, and, can usually hit it with simple hold-over sighting with my Taurus Raging Hunters, I limit my shot at deer to 100-yards or less. My .454 and .460 are producing sufficient down range energy at farther distances to quickly and humanely put down a deer, but only on very rare occasions will I shoot at a deer with those handguns beyond 100-yards. That said I have shot coyotes and hogs with both a bit over 200-yards distant. As I have often said when addressing hunting and shooting handguns, the bullet goes where the barrel is pointed when the trigger is pulled just like a rifle or shotgun!
I had just enough time to write the above before I want to leave for the deer woods. Luke, David and Edgar say it’s time to go hunting!
If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be heading out the door with my .454 Casull very shortly. Got to grab my Stealth Vision binos, Wraith and a few other deer hunting essentials.
I’ll let you know how my “venison procurement” hunt goes in a few days.
