# 2022 Hunt and Processing Finished w/QView



## tallbm (Oct 14, 2022)

Well I'm glad to report I finally got back to hunting and have some goodies to share with everyone.
Previously my last hunt was 2019 and the pandemic squashed hunting for 2020, and 2022 for me.  Glad to be back at it.

*The Hunt*
I don't have pics of the hunt or the animals since we had so many to deal with on a warm day.
Since 2011 I have started hunting meat animals at trophy hunting ranches.  These are usually 5,000-10,000 acre private ranches that participate in being regulated by Texas MLD (Managed Lands Deer program) so we use the tags the state issues them instead of our own tags.  They have a ton of tags based on the herd information they report back.
These trophy ranches have an abundance of does ands spikes that they want removed every year for various reasons so that is what we hunt.  That and any other exotic deer, wild pigs, or anything else they want off the land.

For you hunters, this year I used my 6.5 Creedmoor, Savage 110 Tactical model (heavy threaded barrel and AICS mag make it "tactical") with handloads of 127gr Barnes LRX (yep, non-lead) with H4350, Hornady Brass, and CCI Large Rifle Primers.

*The Haul*
I bagged :

2 Does
1 Antlerless male (didn't present knobs or bumps or discoloration of any kind on the head so looked like a doe to me hahaha)
1 Feral Hog (Sow)
My brother bagged:

1 Doe
2 large Feral Hogs (Boars, 300 pounders or so)

Unfortunately we lost a considerable amount of hind quarter meat on the 3 hogs due to some scavenger animals getting to the butts by the time we left the stands and came back with a truck to pick up the pigs. Oh well, nature's gotta eat too.

Once deboned we had (no trimmed pork backfat added for sausages in the numbers below, just our animals):

7 pounds of Venison Shank meat
16 pounds of Venison Backstrap + Tender Loins
40 pounds of deboned Venison meat for grinding (sausage and 100% pure Venison grind)
2 racks of Venison Ribs for my father (yes he's nuts lol)
4 pounds Pork Shanks
35 pounds of deboned Ground Pork (easily lost 50+ pounds of meat we could not/would not attempt to mess with)
6 Racks of Pork Ribs
Additionally I had about 40 pounds of ground beef brisket and ground pork butt I was saving for this time to turn into my TX Hot Links.  When processing, may as well do it all when the equipment is out and help is around :)


*Processing with some Pics:*
I didn't take may pics as I'm largely a 1 man show processing all this meat but I did have some really good help from my brother for 2 days and some help from my wonderful ol' lady when it came to bagging, vac sealing, labeling, and cleaning.

Work went from M-Wed 9am-7pm each day, and Today (Thursday) I spent about 10am-2pm doing some final vac sealing of smoked sausage, clean up, and putting up things.  I have my garage back finally!  The house still needs a good sweeping, mopping, and uncluttering after the processing week.

Here's the pics and QView I have:

























Main stand up freezer all full!!!!
Top to bottom: (Venison Shanks, Ground Brisket white bags and 100% Ground Venison in clear bags, Wild Pork Franks, Venison Brats, Smoked Beef/Pork TX Hot Links)






In all I'm glad to get back to hunting and it is refreshing to once again get back to amazing home field to table self processed food.  I'm grateful I can do this and share it with my loved ones and also with all of you knuckleheads here on SMF.

Anyhow, I hope some of you find this entertaining and enjoy it.  Ask any questions you have, I love talking about this stuff.  To all you hunters, good luck this season and I hope you have good, clean, successful hauls! :)


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## tbern (Oct 14, 2022)

Sounds and looks like a great season for you, congrats and thanks for sharing it!


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## indaswamp (Oct 14, 2022)

Glad for you to be able to get back in the field and fill your freezers! Everything looks great! How long did it take to finish 40# of sausages in your smoker?


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## tallbm (Oct 14, 2022)

tbern said:


> Sounds and looks like a great season for you, congrats and thanks for sharing it!


Thanks! So far so good :)



indaswamp said:


> Glad for you to be able to get back in the field and fill your freezers! Everything looks great! How long did it take to finish 40# of sausages in your smoker?


Thanks, I'm glad too!
Well like 8-9hrs but could have gone longer. I pulled when IT was around 144-150F.
As you can see in the pic my a couple of my dowels were bending... well I came back one time and a dowel bent and fell and the sausage was laying on the rack so i fixed it and rotated the dowel so it was straight again.
Later towards the end I came back to find that same dowel had bent and fell.  The dowel behind it freakin broke hahaha.  I pulled it all at that point.

Today I bought 1inch oak wood dowels from home depot, cut them, scorched em, and the problem of bending dowels is now solved hahaha.

If you are curious about smoker performance and such, my smoker had no issue with that much meat at all BUT I run a rewired MES with PID controller so it rarely has a problem :)
You probably noticed I attempted 3 chain link sausage linking techniques to get it all to fit.  It did fit but was too much weight for my little dowels haha :)


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## Winterrider (Oct 14, 2022)

Awesome hunt and good work. That gets to be a lot of meat to put up.


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## SmokinEdge (Oct 14, 2022)

Nice hunt and nice haul, sausage looks great. The English braid on links is a space saver for sure, cuts some smoke off the links but works well. The oak rods are all I use, they are good.


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## indaswamp (Oct 14, 2022)

tallbm

I remember the days pulling my hair out when I use to smoke sausages in my old MES GEN1.....most I could do in a timely manner was around 12.5#....took me 4 days to do 50#!!LOL!!! That's when I knew I needed a much bigger smoker and built my smokehouse!


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## Danblacksher (Oct 15, 2022)

Fantastic! I had early success as well this year and got the meat all wrapped and put away. Just been too busy with work and cooking for other things to process it. Mine was a doe and will yield about 25-35 pounds of deboned meat. Been saving all my brisket trim to use as the fat for sausages and hot dogs as well. How do you cook the venison shanks, and have you made venison hot dogs before? Just wondering what percent of fat to use for Hot Dogs. Looks fantastic and it feels so nice to have a full freezer!


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## smokerjim (Oct 15, 2022)

Looks like some good eats.


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## hoity toit (Oct 15, 2022)

tallbm said:


> Well I'm glad to report I finally got back to hunting and have some goodies to share with everyone.
> Previously my last hunt was 2019 and the pandemic squashed hunting for 2020, and 2022 for me.  Glad to be back at it.
> 
> *The Hunt*
> ...


Good job ! I feel your pain bc it is a lot of work by yourself. You are set for a while now.


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## tallbm (Oct 15, 2022)

Winterrider said:


> Awesome hunt and good work. That gets to be a lot of meat to put up.


Thanks! yeah I aim to fill that freezer each year.  It was empty before the hunting last weekend :)


SmokinEdge said:


> Nice hunt and nice haul, sausage looks great. The English braid on links is a space saver for sure, cuts some smoke off the links but works well. The oak rods are all I use, they are good.


Thanks! Yeah I was trying to maximize the amount of meat in the smoker.  My oak dowels have now been upgraded to 1 inch since those failed me.  Had hoped the thinner ones would hold out but no luck.  Problem solved though now :)


indaswamp said:


> tallbm
> 
> I remember the days pulling my hair out when I use to smoke sausages in my old MES GEN1.....most I could do in a timely manner was around 12.5#....took me 4 days to do 50#!!LOL!!! That's when I knew I needed a much bigger smoker and built my smokehouse!


Yeah for the amount I do my MES40 with the sausage "mods" and doing things like chain linking the sausages get it done for me... when the dowels don't fail.  Solved that problem with 1inch dowels from now on :)


Danblacksher said:


> Fantastic! I had early success as well this year and got the meat all wrapped and put away. Just been too busy with work and cooking for other things to process it. Mine was a doe and will yield about 25-35 pounds of deboned meat. Been saving all my brisket trim to use as the fat for sausages and hot dogs as well. How do you cook the venison shanks, and have you made venison hot dogs before? Just wondering what percent of fat to use for Hot Dogs. Looks fantastic and it feels so nice to have a full freezer!


Nice!!!  
I cook braise the venison shanks (along with the heal meat) in the oven with wine, tomatoes, onions, etc.  It's may be my favorite part of the deer once I learned to do this.  It's outstanding!

I have made venison franks before with trimmed pork back fat.  They were good but not as good as the all pork franks.  I use Lem's cured franks seasoning and it makes the best franks ever!  I have it figured out by weight as the by volume (tablespoon) measurements from the package instructions don't scale well but my weight measurements are spot on.
I do my franks at 80/20 meat to fat.  All my sausages are basically done this way and come out great each time.  I also don't immulsify the meat.  It gets nice and smooth from grinding and mixing.  Its inbetween a courser grain and an emulsion and I love the texture.

Yep feels good to fill the freezer with wild game again :)



smokerjim said:


> Looks like some good eats.


Thanks, sure is!


hoity toit said:


> Good job ! I feel your pain bc it is a lot of work by yourself. You are set for a while now.


Thanks!  Yep it sucks as a 1 man job, you get it hahaha.  Yeah I'm glad im set but may go take another 2-3 pigs off my cousin's deer lease.  They are overrun with feral hogs and I love the franks I make from them :)


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## jcam222 (Oct 15, 2022)

Great results both in the field and kitchen!


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## SmokinAl (Oct 15, 2022)

AWESOME!
The heck with inflation when your getting your own meat!
Wanna send some down to an old guy in Florida?
Al


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## tallbm (Oct 15, 2022)

jcam222 said:


> Great results both in the field and kitchen!


Thanks!


SmokinAl said:


> AWESOME!
> The heck with inflation when your getting your own meat!
> Wanna send some down to an old guy in Florida?
> Al


Hahaha yep, this helps manage the inflation quite well when it comes to eating :D

I may still go and remove some wild hogs from my cousin's hunting property and at that point I may have so much extra meat I can send some lol :D


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## Winterrider (Oct 15, 2022)

tallbm
, can residents basically go out anytime and dispatch nuisance hogs or is it season only?


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## indaswamp (Oct 15, 2022)

Winterrider said:


> tallbm
> , can residents basically go out anytime and dispatch nuisance hogs or is it season only?


It is an open season because they are feral, but you still must have landowner permission to hunt them.


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## indaswamp (Oct 15, 2022)

Night vision, trapping....pretty much anything goes.....


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## tallbm (Oct 15, 2022)

Winterrider said:


> tallbm
> , can residents basically go out anytime and dispatch nuisance hogs or is it season only?


Feral hogs are not designated as game so the are unregulated and not protected.  They are treated as though they are pests.  Hunt em with anything.

You just need a TX hunting license and a place to hunt them.  95% of all hunting land in TX is privately owned land.  Hunt em anytime of year, day or night :)


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## Winterrider (Oct 15, 2022)

Thanks, would be fun !


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## indaswamp (Oct 15, 2022)

Can even hunt them from a helicopter!


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## Winterrider (Oct 15, 2022)

I've seen that before.
I would think it would be fairly easy to acquire permission beings they cause such a problem or are the landowners looking for the green like they do up here for hunting?

Sorry 

 tallbm
 , didn't mean to hijack your thread.


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## indaswamp (Oct 15, 2022)

Guess it depends on the rancher... I know the farmers that have crops hate them and would probably be more willing...

They are all over in the swamps here around home. I get calls from people that offer them and get 4-5 every year. It is good meat if you know how to handle it properly.


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## tallbm (Oct 15, 2022)

Winterrider said:


> I've seen that before.
> I would think it would be fairly easy to acquire permission beings they cause such a problem or are the landowners looking for the green like they do up here for hunting?
> 
> Sorry
> ...


No need to apologize, I don't feel its hijacking at all haha.

It's kind of of funny in the state.  Landowners complain nonstop about the feral hogs but then on the other hand they don't want to let anyone come shoot them.

The issue comes down to letting people on your property with firearms. There's just so many careless people and so many nuts that treat the situation like a game rather than treating the situation with the seriousness needed when a firearm is involved.  Land owners are very aware of this and don't want to risk people shooting on their land.

It's a shame because the responsible hunters get ruled out because of the non-responsible folks.
If you have connections then definitely find someone that will let you hunt em and remove as many as you like!  They eat well :D


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