2020 Hunting Success Thread

[Irving]

Anyone putting animals down this year?

As usual, I see plenty of bucks in my usual muzzle loader area, until I actually have a buck tag.

This year wasn't great, but I did get a little buck down. I actually passed on this buck a few days before hoping to find something bigger. I did find bigger bucks, but botched the opportunity because they showed up while I was sleeping. Taking a shot with a muzzle loader within five seconds of being asleep isn't a recipe for success. Anyway, two days later, I actually found this little guy again, and since it was my last night hunting, didn't hesitate in taking him.

The first couple of animals I ever took were extremely lucky circumstances and gave me a level of confidence about hunting that I didn't really deserve; and a few years of tag soup have really been bringing me down to where I belong. It's been painful. So even though I got myself a small buck this year, it wasn't ideal. I took a shot at about 30-35 yards and completely missed. I started tracking him, only to find him only about 20 yards away. I got him with the second shot. He was quartering toward me and it ended up being a gut shot. The gut shot turned out to be not that bad, but my lack of my usual preparation for this season left me a little less than prepared and I kind of fumbled (in my opinion) the field dressing job. There are a few cuts of meat that I'll be wary of because of my struggles in the field. To top it all off, his brother hung around within 20 yards the entire hour and a half it took me to quarter him up. It was like being haunted by a ghost the whole time in the dimming light. Not in a scary way, in a sad way. I did get exactly what I wanted though. To take a big game animal in the woods, all by myself, use my fancy pack, and get it packed out alone. At least this year was a bit of a learning experience. In the end, I'm glad he was as small as he was.

Here are the underwhelming photos. Two days before, he was velvet. He had scraped that all away since I'd seen him last.



Got to use my fancy Mystery Ranch Pop Up 28 I bought myself last year. Got everything in one trip and I was only maybe half a mile from the truck. I'm glad he was small for my first real pack out.


Got him home and have started working on processing him. I was going to start a kind of how-to thread for breaking down an animal, but since this is only my second time doing the processing, I figured I'd leave that people with more experience.


There is an excellent MeatEater podcast with a meat scientist that talks about everything from which plastic wrap to use (Saran wrap), to bone-in vs bone out, to aging meat, animal stress, etc, if people are interested here: https://www.themeateater.com/listen/...227-red-cutter

Post up your successful (or not) hunting stuff in here. I've got a few more hunts this year coming up. I'm not counting on landing more animals, but if I do I'll be sure to post them up in here.