Well it was a hell of a year. One of the coldest and snowiest on record. Couple of younger guys got some real nice trophies. I shot all does this year. My freezer is full. I was pretty selective and let some nice bucks go that ended up getting shot by younger fellas.

The best buck that was shot was a 180 class that you would have to see to believe. It is a main frame 14 with a lot of junk. The unique thing about this buck is it is still in full velvet. After some checking we were told it is because a. it was an escapee from a game farm and has been casterated( still had his equipment) or b. freek of nature that is not producing enough testosterone. Will never loose its velvet and the antlers will grow for their entire life span. Not eligible for the books but a real unique trophy.













This is another nice buck. We where driving around and getting ready to do a push on some timber. Myself and Radar(My good friend Steve, he is Radar and I am Vern) spotted this dandy going into about 12 rows of standing corn. We got the group together and it was decided I would walk in from the west(North wind) and try and get him to go either south or east. If he went north or west I would try and get a shot. Otherwise we set up some kids where we thought he would go. Well he held up really tight in the corn. I walked right up to him. He ended up going straight east where we had a young fella waiting for him at the end of the corn. For once something worked out just like planned. First decent buck for this young man. He could not stop grinning. Real nice 10 point will probably go in the 130 to 140 range.













Well we did a lot of hunting in some bitter cold. Tuesday and wednesday it was in the 15 to 20 below zero range. A little pic of me with my mustache ready to fall of of my face.













Did a lot of hard hunting mid week. Did not end up seeing any bucks I wanted to put a tag on. We filled a few doe tags and did a lot of walking. Did I mention we had a lot of snow. In the timber was not bad as long as you could stay out of the bottoms. Some spots up to your waist. We earned every deer we got this year.

On friday we did a huge push on a 2 by 1 mile section. Myself and Radar went in on the east side of the river at about the middle of the section. Wind was out of the north. The group pushed it from the north to south. 2 mile walk. Glad I got to sit on this one. We saw a pile of deer but once again nothing I wanted to put a tag on. And there was no way I was going to wack a doe in there and have to drag her out. Well the walkers got up to up and we walked back to the truck to get to the south end. We just got back to the truck and we got a call that they thought a nice buck got past the walkers and we needed to get back to our spots. So back we went. We waited for about an hour and nothing. Win some you lose some. We got back to the truck and went around to the north end. Radar noticed that there were 5 does laying out in the corn stalks. I asked how far out he thought they were. He guessed 275 yards. I told him to stop and let me out. I crawled thru the ditch into some brush and started setting up for a shot. I will say this right off. I am very comfortable taking shots out to 250 yards with my shotgun at a stationary target. I practice a lot so I thought it was an ethical shot. As I prepared to take the shot a couple of the other trucks from our group stopped and they were all watching. I aimed about 6 inches over her back and squeezed one off. I was aiming at a doe all the way to the right of the group since Radar and I agreed she looked like the largest. I saw the shot fall short thru my scope. I hollered *&^*$##!@# I am short. Radar hollered back, bullshit Vern you killed her. I walked out to where my slug hit the chisel plowing. 285 yards. I then walked another 80 yards to the doe where she lay dead. Slug went in just below the jaw line and caught her spine. One on my cleanest kills ever. She was a huge doe. Not a fun drag, and we had a heck of a time getting her over the fence. I got a lot of crap from the group for not calling the skip shot. I was happy because a lot of young men got to see what those slugs do even after they hit the frozen ground. I can only credit there not being any landmarks at all just a sheet of white snow for being so far off on my yardage. Maybe instead of shooting so much I need to start working on ranging deer sized game. Or start carrying my range finder.

Well saturday was our last day of hunting. Couple of kids that could not get out of school during the week rejoined the group. I ended up filling my other tags with does. This nice 8 walked right past me. Ended up walking right to where they had the kids posted and we had another happy young man.













Another young man had a decent 8 and a doe walk to him as well. We made to nice shots to fill his tags.













All in all I would have to say it was a super year. No one got hurt and a lot of kids shot some nice bucks. I have a lot of meat in my freezer and I had a wonderful time. Here a few pics of the meat processing we do. One of Radar doing the skinning.













Old Crow (Fred) making steaks.












Vern(me)​ doing some trimming












Radar's son Alex doing some grinding












Deer carnage












More carnage












Venison goodness












Make sure you do a good job on them loins Radar












Deer assembly line












Well that is about it. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. Looking forward to seeing how the rest of you did with deer "09".

Todd

Nice, look like you guys had fun, BTW, isn't it a bit messy to skin the deer inside? I know it's cold outside, but the blood, stomach, guts....

No guts, they are usually rolled out wherever the animal happens to go down. At the end of every day all the deer are taken back to the shop and cleaned out with a Hotsee. Inside and out. Then they go into a reefer at about 34 degrees. About noon the day before we start cutting up they go back inside the shop. North end of shop is dirty end. Skinning, burn off remaining hair, power wash and knock off the front hooves. Then they go to another hoist next to the band saw. Take out the loins, knock the front shoulders off, cut the ribcage out and split the rear 1/2. All goes into the meat saw to make them manageable sized pieces. Then someone from the clean end takes it all to the table to be processed. Actually pretty nice little setup. We did 14 deer in about 9 hours. That is completely processed, including stuffing some sausage. All tied up in neat little packages.

Wow, great story's and great deer pics! I would love to be a member of a hunting club/group of like minded individuals who love the same things I do and have similar morals/values. When I was a teenager, I went a couple times to hunting camps like the one you described. They are still some of my fondest memories. The boys in that group will carry on the traditions once you are all gone!

That slug shot is probably a record! Good on ya.