How many have you eaten?

[Elroy]

I never kept track of how many I killed,but I have killed a lot. I have ate ,or ate off of more deer than I have killed, because my Dad,and Brother also hunted . I usually only kill 2, or 3 a year now, and give away as much as we keep.

[firebyprolong]

This got me thinking and I did the fuzzy conservative math in my head and I’m at about 80 give or take a few over the last 20 years. Thats not including my wifes deer. They really are an amazing resource when you think about it. For 11$ a doe tag while I was in college they kept my roommates and I in meat and later myself and my wife. We still eat a lot of deer at our house, but it’s a bit more relaxed now that not filling all our tags doesn’t equate to no hamburger for a couple months next fall. I probably wouldn’t be the rotund fella I am today if wasn’t in country crawling with deer as a younger man.

[megasupermagnum]

weve found about 30 lbs of meat total out of a 90-100lb doe. Now i dont fool with ribs but do take flank meat to grind. I basically keep the loins and tenderloins for steak. most of the hind quarters go to roasts and cube steak with the trimmings off the hind quarters, flank meat and front shoulders go to burger and summer sausage making. I make probably an average of 300lbs of sausage and the rest goes to burger. Probably 2/3s of the sausage is given to family and friends. Keep in mind too when i say we average 50 deer a year thats two of us. Best year was a 121 deer worse was last year with 15. This year was 62. 39 i shot and 23 the buddy shot. But we split it all even. Keep in mind too that a 100lb doe is a good sized doe here. We get a few bigger and a few smaller but most are in the 90 lb range. Thats gutted weight.

I chuckle at those alaskan shows where they claim they have to shoot a deer for the winter meat. They have to about be vegans! Costs us 20 bucks a day for gas and then add all the work involved and we need to average a deer every other night to make it worth while. Get a slow year like last year when we went sometimes 3 days between deer and we would have been better off buying beef. If it got to the point where i knew it would cost me money id quit in a heartbeat. Dont get me wrong we have alot of fun and get the opportunity to test guns and loads but bottom line is i do it to get meat period.

This year was a real good one because we got 62 which was far from our best but were both getting old and dont go every night like we used to. We blew off many days this year because after cutting up 3 deer in the morning we were just to beat to do it again that day. so even though it was the best number it was probably the best we did with venison obtained vs cost of gas. You also have to factor in the wear and tear on you truck driving it a 100 miles round trip and oil changes ect. I can see it comming to an end soon. Im not getting younger and my buddy is borderline right now in not being able. For the most part i have to do the gutting, dragging and then skinning and quartering the deer. He is to the point he shoots and his wife butchers his. He takes so much pain med that he cant even drive back and forth anymore.

Is any of this real? 39 deer you shot this year yourself... in Michigan... driving 100 miles every day you go out... and you eat those 39 deer in a year?

My oh my, I can put down some food myself, but I've still got a couple packages of bear I shot in September, and I gifted plenty of it to family. Other than the odd hamburger, just about all the meat I've eaten the last three months has been bear, duck, and goose. If I really loved deer, I could probably put down 4-5 a year. It would be hard enough just to get 5, being as I would have to travel to multiple hunt zones just to legally shoot that many.

[missionary5155]

If you back up in his tale a bit he wrote he gives away 2/3.

[bowfin]

LOL, there were nights that the wife and I quartered and boned out four deer in one sitting. I have a brother who keeps getting Antlerless Only permits in Nebraska and he doesn't keep a single one. I think 12 has been the most in one year that I have cut up and eaten in the 43 years of my deer hunting career. If I had to guess, I would say somewhere over 200.

Here in Nebraska, if you buy a Season Choice Antlerless Rivers Permit, you can shoot two does or yearling with a $14 permit. You can buy them until they run out...and they haven't run out of them in years.

[KCcactus]

If I include my son's deer, we're at about 30. Feral hogs are more like 70. Most of the hogs have been in the last 4 years since I started running my feeders year round. No limits and any time on feral hogs here in Texas. I stopped trying to trap them after I caught 14 at once. I haven't run the trap since then. I prefer to clean them 1 or 2 at a time. We've been processing everything ourselves for the last 20 years.

[trapper9260]

I did not keep track how many deer I ate and shot , not as many as most of you , I came into getting my first deer in my 30's, I also eat other wild game and fur bearers , and birds and what ever else I feel up eating. Also eat fish and snapping turtles and crayfish beside what ever else I feel to eat. I know that I like eating deer and I got my self 2 this season one with the muzzle loader and one with the crossbow . one came out with out the leg bone of 70lbs of meat and the other to 76 lbs . It works for me .

[curiousgeorge]

Started deer hunting at age 25 in 1983. Here in KY back then, not a lot of deer, but I had good places to hunt. Now at 62, just wife and me but raised 3 kids along the way, mostly on deer meat. Tried to count them all, but can't. Somewhere close to 50 that I've taken and all eaten by me and family, including grandkids. None wasted.

[green mountain boy]

i am 72 and started hunting whitetails when i was 11-12 in vermont. i have never counted the total but on one big hill here in wyoming the last 41 years i have shot 36 bucks in the national forest, its bucks only. and passed two years...2 years i didnt find a buck. several bull elk and dozens of antelope have fallen to cast boolits. i hunted 9 days this year and drew a blank, ya cant shoot what ya cant find.

[Norske]

We've eaten between 65 and 70 whitetails, dozens of pheasants, and are burned out on walleye. The odd thing about the deer is that my least accurate game rifle (a '76 Ruger M77 257Roberts) took 43 deer with 43 shots. It was used the most often because for most of my hunting life, because it has been the lightest weight rifle I own, so if hiking/carrying was involved, it was chosen.

[Traffer]

I quit hunting in 1985. Moved to Boston. Moved back to Wisconsin in 2011. I used to get a lot of venison from friends but that source has dried up. So I guess I have eaten about 10.

[dale2242]

I`m a month away from 79 years old.
Having been raised a loggers son here in SW Oregon winters were sometime tough on the family.
I have eaten venison as long as I can remember.
There has been many a winter we had eaten more than one deer.
We eat it every year so the count would be a wild guess.
It would be a lot .

[ravelode]

Considering antelope elk one moose whitetail mule deer, at least 120+, some years they had extra tags & I'd harvest 7 animals a season. MT since 1978.

[ravelode]

We've eaten between 65 and 70 whitetails, dozens of pheasants, and are burned out on walleye. The odd thing about the deer is that my least accurate game rifle (a '76 Ruger M77 257Roberts) took 43 deer with 43 shots. It was used the most often because for most of my hunting life, because it has been the lightest weight rifle I own, so if hiking/carrying was involved, it was chosen.

Similar my M96 6.5x55 is my Rifle of choice just because it's 1.5 lbs lighter than my 30-06.

[gbrown]

I have hunted deer since I was 24. 1st year I got one. I've probably gotten 150+, never kept track. Dad killed several hundred in his 85 years. I would love to get back, but health issues have limited my activity. Hoping to recover and get back in it. My first deer, I dropped off at a processor. Thought my Dad was going to have a stroke or beat me half to death. Lesson learned. He taught me how process and get the maximum yield. I butcher/process my deer and other meats. Today I processed a pork loin into chops and 2 small roasts.

[35 Whelen]

Well...al of them that I've killed over the last 35-40 years, couldn't begin to count them. When all four kids were still at home, we'd eat four deer and still run out of venison before season opened again.

35W

[DeadWoodDan]

I'm with 35W. I've never counted and know its a high number. Both my kids and now grandchildren consume. I was HUGE into archery a few years and could count on one hand the number of days I missed hunting in one season. I feel very fortunate for that still today, those where more simple years even though I thought money could make it better, and have lived long enough too know it hasn't. I'll trade it all to go back to paycheck to paycheck AND to spend every day in the woods. I've been crippled for two years now but still have family and friends that helped stock my freezer. Have enough burger ground and even some being made into salami as I right this. Best part is I've learned to harvest better, not taking young ones, and be patient. I even have to laugh b.c. my daughter stoped tonight and took a salami!

[gunseller]

When I started deer hunting in Iowa there were few deer. In the 50 plus years I have been deer hunting I know I have averaged over 1 per year. Even got one while in the army. Used government issue rifle and ammo. M16 will kill a deer at 300 meters with a 55 grain fmj. If it is leagle to kill it in Iowa I have eaten it, except fox and coyote. Actual deer count from my guess is over 100. I know that is 2 per year. This would include those killed with bow, handgun, shotgun, muzzle loader, car and truck.
Steve

[PositiveCaster]

The majority of the deer I’ve eaten were Kodiak Island blacktail. In the 27 years I lived in Alaska I hunted Kodiak at least 18 times. The bag limit varied from 4 to 7. I seldom took a limit each year, not because I couldn’t but because I didn’t need/want 7 deer a year. So maybe 60-70 total, I seldom gave meat away, Kodiak venison is....the best.




.

[Drm50]

I’ve hunted deer in several states and Canada. The best deer came from farm country where they were grain feed. Smells like canned corn when you gut them. The worst deer I ever shot came from scrub woods along Ohio River bottom. Terrible. Depends a lot on what they eat. Mountain deer that fend of nature’s food aren’t bad but not as good as those raised on corn. I have no idea how many deer I’ve shot. I was tag filler ever since I was a kid. The most I shot in one day was 14, the most I shot in one flurry of activity was 9, with a 5 shot rifle. All were tagged and most ended up being taken for processing. I always cut my own.