First one of the year

[richhodg66]

205412

Kansas does a 2 day, pre-rut antlerless season which is this weekend. Good time to put meat in the freezer. I used a .45-70 with one of my Dad's Lyman 457122s and 30 grains of 5744.

[Beagle333]

Congrats!!! Those things sure are good eatin'.

[richhodg66]

Yes, and I decided to butcher this one myself, so work is cut out for me today. We use mostly stew meat and ground, and I like the way it turns out better when I do it instead of a processor.

I've been deer hunting with my cast bullets a few years now, even with relatively small bores. We put my folks in assisted living and cleared out all Dad's reloading stuff and I got a whole lot of cast bullets I've been using in various things. I wanted to hunt with his this year, and Dad was never much of a hunter, just an avid target shooter and plinker, so he cast things a whole lot harder than I tend to. In most things, he used round nose or pointed designs too, but there were a lot of these and they have enough of a flat point and with a big bore, I figured it wouldn't matter. I highly doubt that bullet expanded or deformed at all as it went through.

[white eagle]

good job
should provide for you and your family
congratulations

[4719dave]

great job..wont be hunting this year its breaking my heart :sad:

[pworley1]

Congratulations. It is bow season here now. Gun season is still about a month away.

[phonejack]

Similar season starts for me next Saturday, I plan on being out there.

[OnHoPr]

Congrats on the viddles. I can hear a cast iron skillet sizzzzlin now.

[Hawks Feather]

Congratulations on some fine eating.

[richhodg66]

Our archery season is on now too. It now starts on the same day as muzzle loader in mid September and basically runs to the end of the yearThey have this two-day gun segment that stops it and then the 10 day general rifle season that starts the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. I say it stops the archery season, but you can still bowhunt, just have to wear blaze orange which many bowhunters find distasteful.

If you want to tag a trophy, the smart money is on bow season here. But there's a lot of opportunity to hunt.

Always amazes me how fat the deer get here, especially in early season like this. The public land I hunt is farmed a lot under some agreement with the state, but where I shot this doe is adjacent to both a large soybean and a large corn field. They pretty much live in a grocery store. One of the reasons they taste so good here.

[CastingFool]

Congrats! Fresh venison is always good!

[SSGOldfart]

Hey 66 what part of Kansas are you in???
I spent some time in Geary and Dickinson county's after being stationed at Ft. Riley three times.

[Smoke4320]

Congrads .. nice freezer deer..
Our BP season starts OCT 27th for 2 weeks then gun season for 7 weeks .. can't wait

[richhodg66]

Hey 66 what part of Kansas are you in???
I spent some time in Geary and Dickinson county's after being stationed at Ft. Riley three times.

Lived in Milford for 20 years and still own ahouse there. I'm in rural Chapman now. Virtually all my deer hunting is done in Clay county on the north end of Milford lake.

[Brad Cayton]

Congratulations on some good eating!
I know what you mean about the processor. I quit using one quite a few years back and have much better tasting deer. I'm not sure I got the deer that I took in a few times. I also quarter mine up and hang them in a refrigerator for a week before I process them. Fine eating!

[Thumbcocker]

Can some stew meat. You wont regret it.

[richhodg66]

We have a couple of freezers. I cut up a lot of stew meat and am a lot more particular than most processors about cutting off fat and sinew. I freeze it a pound at a time, wrapping it up first in plastic wrap and then freezer paper. I've had it last over two years and still be fine.

I also like to grind it pure, I don't mix any beef fat or anything with it. Seems hard to find a processor who understands that, they have mixed mine with fat a few times even after I asked for it to be pure. I rarely ever make jerky or sausage out of it, I just like it as meat. Venison is really the only red meat we keep in the house.

[firebyprolong]

Nice to see you have a good start on this years freezer load, and with cast no less.

Figured I needed to say hi as we're practically neighbors, I'm down I'm marion co. I've fished Milford before but never hunted it. I'm glad hear you found some walk in that wasn't trampled by to orange mob yet. All the yahoo's from Wichita turn the hunting around marion lake into a good way to get plugged. I've killed exactly one late season doe off of wiha in the last two years, just too many folk around for me to be comfortable.

I have as of yet to actually hunt the early season. Every year it comes and goes and I'm not even close to ready to rifle hunt. Used to be I was hunting from muzzle loader to the end of the doe season. Just to busy anymore to put that kinda time in.
How are deer numbers up by you this year, I'm just not seeing nearly as many this year.

[rking22]

Good shootin , and good eats! I agree on the processing, I've done my own for almost we years. Wife won't eat it due to a processor screw up when she was pregnant with my daughter, still can't get past it after all these years. I like my ground deer all deer too, think folks just go along without ever trying it straight.
Got pheasants on all that public farmland? Never hunted them but sounds fun, and cold!

[richhodg66]

Nice to see you have a good start on this years freezer load, and with cast no less.

Figured I needed to say hi as we're practically neighbors, I'm down I'm marion co. I've fished Milford before but never hunted it. I'm glad hear you found some walk in that wasn't trampled by to orange mob yet. All the yahoo's from Wichita turn the hunting around marion lake into a good way to get plugged. I've killed exactly one late season doe off of wiha in the last two years, just too many folk around for me to be comfortable.

I have as of yet to actually hunt the early season. Every year it comes and goes and I'm not even close to ready to rifle hunt. Used to be I was hunting from muzzle loader to the end of the doe season. Just to busy anymore to put that kinda time in.
How are deer numbers up by you this year, I'm just not seeing nearly as many this year.

Around Milford and Tuttle Creek, there is a lot of public land owned (I guess) by the Corps of Engineers with a good many tracts of public hunting land, not WIHA. There's actually a lot of good WIHA up in Washington County, and I hunted a big, good tract of it north of Atchison when I was stationed at Leavenworth.

I see a lot of deer this time of the year. In the first hour or so I was on stand, I had two fawns and three adult does come within shooting range and I didn't stay much longer than that (I should have) I got this one that evening, so yeah, I saw a lot of deer.

The only time that public land has been bad is generally on the weekends during the general firearms season in December. I can hunt the whole muzzle loader season and very rarely encounter another human being. I'll run into the very occasional bowhunter. I honestly see more duck hunters the past few years than anything else. Usually I just see them at the parking point and let them know generally where I'll be, but they're never close enough to be a problem. Opening day of pheasant season used to have a lot of people, but now, not so much.

I will take a day off from work to be in that honey hole stand on opening day, always the first Wednesday after Thanksgiving. Most guys won't take it seriously enough to miss work and I've had a pretty good track record of killing one on opening morning. I won't even go out on the first weekend, too many idiots out there. I'll try to get out on a few week days, and might go out the second weekend, by that time most of the clowns have had enough and stay home. The extended antlerless season they do New Years Day is great. Not a soul out there and the deer are less spooky by then.

Some years I take the additional actions to hunt Fort Riley. They have a four day season after Thanksgiving and their general season comes after the Kansas Season. Bottom line, I can get a lot of gun hunting in a season if I play it right, but when Kansas legalized cross bows, I swallowed my pride and bought one of the rule beating things. I don't like it much, has no character or soul, but it allows me to hunt the rut and if I just wanted to fill the freezer, I could do it in one weekend pretty easily then. Last year I killed two does real early and didn't need meat, so I antler hunted the rest of the archery season and held out for a pretty good one.

I am truly blessed in that I love where I live. I am exactly where I want to be. This place is a big play ground for a guy like me, and I love the people and the values here.

[RugerFan]

Nice! I load 5744 in my Guide Gun as well.

[richhodg66]

It's the best thing I've tried in .45-70 so far. I haven't worked with a lot of powders and loads, though. I've always stayed well within Trapdoor levels for my .45-70 loads and seem to get an awful lot of unburned powder with nearly everything else.

[RugerFan]

I've also had decent luck with Varget.


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[35 shooter]

Nice start for your season!! I'm with you on the ground deer meat...can't beat it, except for maybe fried backstrap.

I only took one deer last year and ground the whole deer except for the straps. One deer was not nearly enough lol.
Now go get you another one!

[Prodigal Son]

Congratulations it's a great feeling to harvest game with something you or someone who mean so much to you cast bullets and they worked like they have for hundreds of years! Meat on the table!