Deer Hunting 2017 Opening Weekend

Good Evening everyone, you have Kevin here with the annual Opening of Deer Season Weekend report. Just a quick note, there are some pictures of dead deer at the end of the blog so if you rather not see them I will let you know when the post is done and the pictures are coming.

The hunting party this weekend consisted of myself, Kurt, Kori, Dad (Rollie), my brother Kent, my nephew Kellen, cousin Tim, Tim's son Nick, and friends Mike and Luke and Luke's kids Grace and Sammy.

We knew this year was going to be different, we were seeing a lot of deer every day out in the fields and this year our hunt area is Hunter Choice, which means you can harvest any deer, antlered or antlerless. 

Opening day everyone saw at least 3 deer, but Kori took the record sitting in her stand. She tried to recall how many deer she saw and her best guess was twenty.  I came in second with 10, all walking in a row in front of me. The weird thing is we have not seen any bucks except for the one Kori shot opening morning, and his antlers were so short, we had to call him anterless  The DNR say a buck has to have at least one polished antler 3" long to be a legal buck. Her buck only had about 1 to 2" antlers. She thinks it's kind of cute. There is a picture of it at the end of the post.

 The rest of the deer shot are all anterless, which is really strange, with so many does around there should be a few bucks but we haven't seen any.  So after the first weekend, out of 12 hunters we have filled 8 tags. We have never had so much meat hanging in the garage as we do right now, which is the other picture at the end.

So just a couple of other little things.  All 3 of Dad's grandchildren who are hunting shot a deer this year, with Kellen, Kurt and Kori all shooting deer. Kellen also did all the messy stuff on his deer, with tips and guidance from Uncle Kevin. He did a great job. It just so happened that all the deer shot today were by the youth, as in 14 and younger, so this evening we had a grand ole time with the next generation helping out with the skinning and splitting. Some were more enthusiastic than others, but they all helped a lot. They do seem to like running the Sawzall, who doesn't like using power tools? Nick got the messiest deer prize this year so far, and it will take quite a feat to beat it, he shot his deer at about 20 yards and his bullets sure did the job.

At our place, we skin the deer the same day they are harvested. I know there are many schools of thought on if the hide should stay on and how long they should hang before cutting, but for us, skinning the same day works great because the hide come off so much easier and when you have a bunch of youth helping out, it goes much better. It was really lots of fun to have everyone out helping and nobody got cut, which is always a bonus.

So now if you don't want to see the pictures, be well and have a great week everyone. If you would like to see a picture of a buck with itty bitty antlers and a garage full of hanging meat, continue to scroll down.

Next picture

See you next time