# 2018 Hunting Trip and Processing!



## tallbm (Oct 31, 2018)

Well my big yearly meat hunt trip has concluded and all processing is done!

We brought back 10 deer and 1 little hog.

*The Deer*
We shot 8 does an 1 really messed up horned cull buck.
The meat of a trophy buck was given to us by another hunter on the ranch who only wanted the animal for mounting.

We hunted on a Texas MLD-3 property which means we use the property's tags rather than our own.  They are regulated differently than an average joe hunting in TX so we get to use whatever tags they allow for us to use.  This is how we got to bring back so many deer.
In TX hogs are not considered game so you can hunt them year around with no real restrictions... if you want to hunt them with the bumper of your truck or a rifle or any other means then it's basically fair game lol.

I don't have a pic of the 4 does I shot.
Here are the pics of the 6 animals taken before I got in on the action (Top).  The picture on the bottom is of our first time hunter and the 4 deer she took.  I am very proud of her first hunting effort and how well she did.  She took 3 does and 1 funky horned cull buck.







*Processing*
10 deer, and 1 hog (about 40 pounds) yielded just over 205 pounds of meat that was ready for grinding or vac sealing.

Each hunter (3 of us) had 68 pounds of good clean meat a piece!

The exceptions for our processing are that we don't debone shanks but instead leave them intact with the heal muscle for braised style dishes.  We also left about 35 of about 45 pounds of backstraps untrimmed/uncleaned as I give them to my brother in trade for equal amounts of other meat.  I like to have a lot more grind and sausage and I don't fry up too much food where he lives on a diet of like 90% fried food so the trade works for both of use... since fried backstrap is the best :D


Processing this year went:


My Brother
44 pounds Venison backstrap
24.5 pounds Venison grind for Hot Breakfast Sausage, Hot Italian Sausage, and Sweet Italian Sausage (30.5'ish pounds of sausage once we added store bought Pork Back Fat to his Venison grind meat)

Me and the ol' Lady

Totaling just over 136 pounds of meat total
10 pounds Wild Pork (he was a liiiiiiittle porker)
126 pounds Venison

10 pounds of Wild Pork meat (5 pounds pure grind, 3 pounds shanks, 2 pounds ribs)
32 pounds Venison Grind for Brats (pork fat added for 40 pounds V. Brats)
24 pounds Venison Grind for Pastrami (Beef fat added for 30 pounds V. Pastrami)
25 pounds Venison Grind for pure burger (no fat added)
8 pounds Venison Breakfast Sausage (pork fat added for 10 pounds V. B.Sausage)
8 pounds Venison Kabob meat (cubed up roast meat we forgot to grind hahaha)
5 pounds Venison Back strap
24 pounds Venison Shanks



Each year I make Pork Franks and again this year I had to buy pork meat so:
10 pounds Wild'ish Pork Franks - 5 pounds Wild Pork + 4 pound Pork Butt, 1 pound extra pork fat (online frank seasoning recipe - meh on the flavor)
30 pounds Farm Raised Pork Franks - (30 pounds pork butt and LEM Backwoods Pork Frank seasoning - best ever!)


40 pounds Pork Franks total

Venison Brats were stuffed in natural Hog Casings
Wild Pork Franks were 90% in Sheep casings and the rest in Hog casings (used up what was left of a hog casing on the tube from brat stuffing)
Farmed Pork Franks were 50/50 Sheep Casings and Hog casings (ran out of sheep casings and no crying from me as hog casings are so much easier to work with)
Venison Reg & Hot Breakfast and Hot and Sweet Italian sausage were all bagged in 1 pound grind bags
Venison Burger (pure) grind was also in 1 pound grind bags
Venison Pastrami is ground but not mixed with ground beef fat or seasoning yet and are all stored in gallon freezer bags and fat in vac seal bags
Everything else is stored in vac sealed bags if it hasn't already been eaten!

Most of it fit into my 5.8 cubic stand up freezer (top), the rest fit in 3 shelves of my inside fridge freezer:












OutsideFrzr



__ tallbm
__ Oct 31, 2018


















InsideFrzr



__ tallbm
__ Oct 31, 2018






Processing and clean up took all of 6 days, about 9 hours a day, with about 1 3/4 people doing the work.  My brother was the 3/4 help as he was drinking the entire time so his productivity wasn't always as good as it could have been lol :)

*Conclusion*
I'm proud of the ol' Lady on her first ever hunting success and the time I got to spend hunting with her and my brother.

The processing is always a beat down and I think no matter what I'm drawing a hard 10 animal limit on processing in one go from now on.

I'm happy it's over with.  We produce a FAR SUPERIOR product compared to any wild game processing outfits I've ever encountered (though Wild Game Processing in Lindsay, TX does a damn fine job) so in hind sight it's always worth the effort.

I'm blessed to have these experiences and opportunities and that I get to share them with all of you! :D

Best of luck to all of you hunters and processors out there right now and be safe. :)


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## chef jimmyj (Oct 31, 2018)

Very impressive. ..JJ


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## indaswamp (Oct 31, 2018)

Nice haul!!! I'm keeping the wild hog train rollin. My cousin and some of his firefighter buddies got an invite to a private lease in Mississippi that has a severe hog problem. They will be hunting with AK's and laying the lead to the hogs when they come out to the feeders at dusk. I told my cousin to keep all the 60-100 lb. hogs he thinks the guys can clean. I'm sending 2 ice chests with him on the hunt. I;ll be doing a big processing day soon as well...


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## tallbm (Oct 31, 2018)

chef jimmyj said:


> Very impressive. ..JJ



Thanks! We worked hard at it :)


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## indaswamp (Oct 31, 2018)

Looking at that cull buck, I suspect that deer got hit by a vehicle and that damaged his skull enough to flip the antler down, and it healed up that way....


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## tallbm (Oct 31, 2018)

indaswamp said:


> Nice haul!!! I'm keeping the wild hog train rollin. My cousin and some of his firefighter buddies got an invite to a private lease in Mississippi that has a severe hog problem. They will be hunting with AK's and laying the lead to the hogs when they come out to the feeders at dusk. I told my cousin to keep all the 60-100 lb. hogs he thinks the guys can clean. I'm sending 2 ice chests with him on the hunt. I;ll be doing a big processing day soon as well...



Thanks!
Keep the pork a flowin!  
My brother went to a deer lease of some of our friends this past weekend because he said they have a major hog problem there as well.  Him and 2 other guys missed on a bunch of hugs numerous times but 3 other hunters knocked some down some hogs so my brother brought those hogs back skinned and quartered in a large cooler.  

We were all done with our processing before he left for that trip so when he came back he just dropped the meat off at processor along with pork backfat we had and asked them to grind the meat and fat in an 80/20 ratio.  We'll see if they follow instructions but I'm not holding out too much hope.

In any case we have some more pork coming we will turn into various sausages and might have access to a deer lease in the TX pan handle with all the wild pork we can handle :D

I would love to get a whole ham or two off about a 300 pounder and smoke them for the holidays :)


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## 73saint (Oct 31, 2018)

Impressive.  I’ve hunted my entire life and can’t even wrap my brain around having that much meat to process!


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## tallbm (Oct 31, 2018)

indaswamp said:


> Looking at that cull buck, I suspect that deer got hit by a vehicle and that damaged his skull enough to flip the antler down, and it healed up that way....



You could be right.  There's no telling what these deer to through in their short lives.  It's going to make a cool European mount thouh




73saint said:


> Impressive.  I’ve hunted my entire life and can’t even wrap my brain around having that much meat to process!



It's an undertaking for sure.  It's nice to have it all done and to know how to do it for sure.
I generally don't have to buy beef all year unless it is brisket or steaks.  I'll be eating on it all year with a god amount to share :)


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## motocrash (Nov 1, 2018)

Stackin'em like cord wood!Mmm sausage...
Is that a scout rifle the ol'Lady's holding? What cal?


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## SmokinAl (Nov 1, 2018)

Well I guess your set for a while!!
Al


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## crazymoon (Nov 1, 2018)

TBM, Sounds like a great hunt !


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## chopsaw (Nov 1, 2018)

Nice shot placement on those . If I can't get that behind the shoulder shot , I wont take one . 



indaswamp said:


> Looking at that cull buck, I suspect that deer got hit by a vehicle and that damaged his skull enough to flip the antler down, and it healed up that way....



Most deformed antlers are caused by bone trauma . Usually a broken leg or a gun shot wound / hit by a car . Right side trauma on the body affects the left side of the rack . Calcium that was growing antlers is now directed to healing a broken bone .


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## link (Nov 1, 2018)

That is awesome. I want to process my own but have yet to do it. There is a guy within 3 miles of where I hunt that processes it for 65 bucks (I think that is a good price) and does a really good job. The only thing stopping me from trying to process it myself is the lack of running water on the property.

Anyway nice job, very impressive.
Link


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## chilerelleno (Nov 1, 2018)

Nice hunt, some fine animals taken.
My respect for all the hard work put in cleaning those critters and processing all that meat.
When I process two or three by myself, it takes a full day. But I don't grind anything, the most I do is stew meat.

Our rifle season opens on the 17th.


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## tallbm (Nov 2, 2018)

motocrash said:


> Stackin'em like cord wood!Mmm sausage...
> Is that a scout rifle the ol'Lady's holding? What cal?


Yep we stacked em good!

That is not a scout rifle but not a very large one either.
It was an inexpensive Savage Axis .223.  I made it a 300 Blackout by putting a 16 inch 300 Blackout barel on it.
I also found a guy who manufactured 10 round magazines out of the factory 4 round mags the rifle came with so I have that little addition going with it as well.

It's a nice little bolt gun that I can really load up to knock down hogs with since it is 10 round capable. 
I also have the muzzle break on it that works with my quick change suppressor.  I have those quick change muzzle devices on a few of my rifles.
Shooting subsonic suppressed out of that bolt action rifle with Red Dot handloads is RIDICULOUSLY quiet!!!  It makes the same sound that you hear when you put the hose on your car tire to air it up a quick "pshhhhht" and that's it!
I have some good pig erradicating stuff setup... I just can't consistently get into pigs hahaha





SmokinAl said:


> Well I guess your set for a while!!
> Al



Yep, I'm fully stocked up again :)



crazymoon said:


> TBM, Sounds like a great hunt !


We had a great time!



chopsaw said:


> Nice shot placement on those . If I can't get that behind the shoulder shot , I wont take one .
> 
> 
> 
> Most deformed antlers are caused by bone trauma . Usually a broken leg or a gun shot wound / hit by a car . Right side trauma on the body affects the left side of the rack . Calcium that was growing antlers is now directed to healing a broken bone .


Yeah I worked with her on shot placement quite a bit to make sure she was ready.  She performed everything almost flawlessly.  I'm proud of her :)





link said:


> That is awesome. I want to process my own but have yet to do it. There is a guy within 3 miles of where I hunt that processes it for 65 bucks (I think that is a good price) and does a really good job. The only thing stopping me from trying to process it myself is the lack of running water on the property.
> 
> Anyway nice job, very impressive.
> Link



Thanks!  Yeah processing is a bit of an ordeal.  If you just want to debone the animal all you need is a big cooler of ice with the quartered animal in it, a table, a decent boning or butcher knife, cutting board, and a meat lugg/tote/tub.
Oh and trash can & bags and such to put the stuff you throw away.  At this point you debone and break down into roasts and scrap/stew meat.  Meat off the front arms of our deer is never beg enough to be a roast so it is all scrap/stew meat that I grind for sausage.  If you don't grind then you are left with stew meat and roasts :)

I usually get 5-7 animals a year so at $65-75 a pop it really adds up.  We had 11 animals this year :o
Also we really enjoy the quality we get out of it all :)



chilerelleno said:


> Nice hunt, some fine animals taken.
> My respect for all the hard work put in cleaning those critters and processing all that meat.
> When I process two or three by myself, it takes a full day. But I don't grind anything, the most I do is stew meat.
> 
> Our rifle season opens on the 17th.



Thanks chili :)
Yeah it seems you intimately understand the effort involved :)
When I do 5-7 alone it takes me 6 days over 12 hours a day where I usually only get help on sausage stuffing day.  It's a beat down for sure!

I don't often end up with stew meat but I did this year because I missed about 8 pounds of meat we were going to grind.  It was in a giant ziplock bag in a shelf in my garage freezer.
We ran out of space at some point and had to bag the meat separately and lost track of it hahaha so I have like 8 pounds of stew/kabob meat this year :D


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## ab canuck (Nov 3, 2018)

Looks and sounds like you had a great trip. Congrats on your hunting haul. Looking forward to some end products out of the smoker.


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## motocrash (Nov 3, 2018)

tallbm said:


> Yep we stacked em good!
> 
> That is not a scout rifle but not a very large one either.
> It was an inexpensive Savage Axis .223. I made it a 300 Blackout by putting a 16 inch 300 Blackout barel on it.
> ...



Cant beat a Savage action for ease of re-barreling and finite head space adjustment.Some of my best shooters are 110 actions.Sounds like you have a great setup,maybe go thermal? $$:eek:


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## GaryHibbert (Nov 3, 2018)

That's a great haul!! you shouldn't run short of meat for quite some time.
Gary


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## tallbm (Nov 3, 2018)

ab canuck said:


> Looks and sounds like you had a great trip. Congrats on your hunting haul. Looking forward to some end products out of the smoker.


Thanks!  It was a great haul and hopefully i'll get to smoke some franks to have them ready to reheat and warm up but it may be a little while before I get to it.  Gonna practice and prep for thanksgiving and christmas smoking.  I told some buddies of mine to bring me 2 large feral hog back legs and I would smoke 2 hams and give them one.  They said they are covered up on feral hogs right now at their deer lease so I may be busy with turkeys and hams shortly :)




GaryHibbert said:


> That's a great haul!! you shouldn't run short of meat for quite some time.
> Gary


Thanks! I should be set until next year's big hunting trip :)




motocrash said:


> Cant beat a Savage action for ease of re-barreling and finite head space adjustment.Some of my best shooters are 110 actions.Sounds like you have a great setup,maybe go thermal? $$:eek:



Yeah that was the major reason I went with the Savage.  So easy to work on!
I would love to go thermal but you're right the $$$ is just too much for me to justify.  IF I were to get into a steady feral hog situation I would really consider it.  Instead I built a DIY night vision camera that I can mount on top of my rifles that have rails :D
I have yet to use it in action but it is good to about 100yds with an IR light so I'll have to live with that instead.
I built it using a 3.5 inch screen for car reverse cameras, bought the camera card and lenses and such and assembled all of that, I have it all attached to a quick detatch ring and housed in a little project box.  It runs on a recharable 12V battery that I velcro taped to the side of the project box, though the pics show it just rubber banded at the time I was working on it hahaha.  Total DYI night vision :)

See below for what it looks like on my SBR 300BLK hog rifle though the SBR has a new scope in a different config atm.  I can always quickly detatch and go to this setup though at any point :)
Images 3-5 show it on the rifle.  Images 1&2 show it working mounted on the rifle.  Images 10-16 show it detatchd in "hand held" walk around mode for night tracking purposes :)


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## motocrash (Nov 3, 2018)

Wow man! That is great.What's limiting it to 100 yds,the camera,the light, or a combo of both?


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## tallbm (Nov 4, 2018)

motocrash said:


> Wow man! That is great.What's limiting it to 100 yds,the camera,the light, or a combo of both?



The camera and IR light night vision range.  The rifle with handloads would be good to 150yds no problem.  The 300BLK caliber is great within 150yds even with a short barrel.  You start going beyond 150yds and you have to do some things to keep performance going well for hunting applications.  I wouldn't go beyond 225yds though.  The good thing is I've never had to take an animal at that distance so 100-150yds is good go to.  If I need to reach out further the 30-06 has me covered :)


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## motocrash (Nov 4, 2018)

I meant the imaging/scope setup when I was asking of the 100 yd limit,I know the 300 BLK is no long ranger but certainly capable of more than 100.Though with anything subsonic,my buddies AR 300 BLK upper keyholes @35 yds.Thankfully there are no wild hogs here...yet,it's one hell of a catch 22.Would be nice to eat pork without "paying" for it but the damage they do is insane.


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## tallbm (Nov 5, 2018)

motocrash said:


> I meant the imaging/scope setup when I was asking of the 100 yd limit,I know the 300 BLK is no long ranger but certainly capable of more than 100.Though with anything subsonic,my buddies AR 300 BLK upper keyholes @35 yds.Thankfully there are no wild hogs here...yet,it's one hell of a catch 22.Would be nice to eat pork without "paying" for it but the damage they do is insane.



The camera chip's night vision capabilities seem to be the main factor on the 100 yd night vision limit.  The IR light gets me to 100 yds.  At the time I built it I couldn't find a particular camera chip so I went with one that seemed to research as comparable but in the end was not really as good but what I have should work if I ever get the opportunity to really use it :)

The subsonic keyholing is an indication of an unstable load.  I wouldn't fire that through a suppressor.  If he handloads he can extend the COAL or lower the powder charge and maybe a few other things to play around with to try and prevent that from happening.  I had keyholing when trying to figure out a subsonic load with Red Dot powder for that bolt gun in the picture.  Pressure was too high for the load.  I reduced the charge and things settled down.  Red Dot isn't so forgiving it seems like other powders can be.  It's tricky figuring some of that stuff out with so little published info and the fact that the caliber may be one of the most versatile out there.  Subs with heavies 190gr+, subs with light 88gr+, supersonic with bullet weight ranges 110gr-220gr, cast lead bullets, etc. etc. etc.  It's crazy fun to tinker with :)

Those pigs tear up everything.  I may be able to get into them more regularly but we'll see.   Maybe I'll get to try that DIY Night Vision on them soon but who knows, sometimes they just disappear on you since they are not territorial.


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## Bearcarver (Nov 5, 2018)

Nice Haul, Tall !!
Wow---20 Hind Quarters & almost 50 pounds of Backstrap & No Venison Dried Beef in the Plans!!!

They all look small in the Pics, but it's hard to tell in a Picture. About what weight do they dress out at?

Bear


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## motocrash (Nov 5, 2018)

tallbm said:


> Red Dot isn't so forgiving it seems like other powders can be.


I've all but given up on Red Dot for anything but pistol and shotgun.Its acute pressure curve has a very small window in anything else,it's also filthy when it's not in that small window and not so clean otherwise.


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## HalfSmoked (Nov 5, 2018)

Nice haul and a full freezer well stocked for a long winter. Could use stew meat in chili instead of burger I hardly ever use burger in chili. I'm sure you are going to let the smoke roll also.

Warren


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## tallbm (Nov 5, 2018)

Bearcarver said:


> Nice Haul, Tall !!
> Wow---20 Hind Quarters & almost 50 pounds of Backstrap & No Venison Dried Beef in the Plans!!!
> 
> They all look small in the Pics, but it's hard to tell in a Picture. About what weight do they dress out at?
> ...



I only kept a small amount of backstrap myself.  I'll see if it becomes dried venison or not.  My brother gets the big backstap haul which is nice in the fact that he just takes them without any cleaning so that saves lots of precious time of not fooling around with 45 pounds of meat with all the other processing that has to take place :)

Size wise they were all likely within the 90-110 pound range of what we shot.  This ranch we hunted at was very lax about collect the weight and other metrics :(   Texas deer don't seemed get very big bodied like the colder climate deer do.  I've never seen or heard of anyone shooting a 200 pounder or heavier.  Now the pigs eat everything so they can get huge even for being lean and wild!  Our feral pig was like 40 pounds and looks bigger due to being stretched out in the pic but there was only 5.6 pounds of deboned meat on him that wasn't ribs or shanks hahaha



motocrash said:


> I've all but given up on Red Dot for anything but pistol and shotgun.Its acute pressure curve has a very small window in anything else,it's also filthy when it's not in that small window and not so clean otherwise.


Oh yeah Red Dot is not to be trifled with.  I still haven't finalized my Red Dot subsonic load for the 300BLK.  It is a bolt action or single shot load only since Red Dot could never cycle an AR.  The 300BLK uses pistol, shotgun, and rifle powders depending on the application of the load.  It is truly a handloaders playground cartridge :)



HalfSmoked said:


> Nice haul and a full freezer well stocked for a long winter. Could use stew meat in chili instead of burger I hardly ever use burger in chili. I'm sure you are going to let the smoke roll also.
> 
> Warren



Thanks Warren!  I definitely could do that with the meat for chili.  I need to cut it down a little bit more as the chunks are big but nothing stopping it from being used that way.  I'm positive it will get put to use in some good creative ways.  I've already marniated and grill kabobs  on it :)


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