Meat in the Freezer

In our house, we don't tend to buy red meat from the grocery store. We get our beef from a local farmer and we eat quite a bit of venison. We do still buy some pork and chicken at the store, only because I haven't found a cost effective way to get good chicken directly from the farmer. Getting good chicken isn't hard, getting the cost down is tough. We are still looking for a solution to that issue.

Since we supplement our beef with venison, that means I hunt. Last year was rough. I didn't get out as much as I would have liked, and the deer were playing hide and seek. I wasn't able to get a deer until the very last day of the late season. Luckily, it was a pretty good sized deer and it yielded quite a bit of meat once I processed it. Yes, I process my own deer.

This year, I made a better plan. I scheduled days off so I would have time to hunt. Not only did I plan for deer season, I planned for bird hunting as well.

The first week I took off was for bird hunting. The plan was to take Boomer out pheasant and grouse hunting a couple times during that week. Unfortunately for him, I got really sick on the weekend and wasn't feeling well until about halfway through the week. By then, other things had come up and we weren't able to get out but once.

The week I took off for deer hunting was the opening week of Michigan Firearm Season. I planned to go to the Estate and spend a few days hunting to try to get at least one deer early in the season. Then, there wouldn't be as much pressure to get one at the end of the season. Well, with the mouse nest issue in the camper, staying there was iffy at best. I had decided to have a backup plan for heat by purchasing a propane heater, the kind that run off the 1lb disposable bottles. If I keep a couple windows cracked, it would be perfectly safe to run it indoors. It's a good thing I did. When I arrived the camper didn't smell too terrible, but there was ANOTHER dead mouse in one of the traps. That told me, we did not get rid of them. I turned on the furnace and discovered the propane tank was empty. That was strange, since I was just there a week prior and it was nearly full. No worries, I had the backup plan. I started up the little propane heater and all was good.

The first day was foggy and drizzling. Not what had been forecast. I made it out to my blind and got se up for opening day. Well, it was a long sit. Nothing was moving and it kept raining on and off all morning. I called it about noon and came back to the camper. I took the empty propane tank into town and got it filled and grabbed a snack. When I got back to the camper, I discovered why the tank was empty. The hose that connects the tank to the regulator switch had started to leak. It was right at the fitting, but on the hose. No problem, I swapped the already empty second tank to the side with the leaking hose and put the full one on the side that didn't leak. I turned on the gas and sprayed some soapy water around the fittings to verify there was no leak on this side too. All was good. I went into the camper, started the furnace and quickly discovered that the mouse smell was not gone. It wasn't as bad, but it was still too much to live with. I started the small heater and took a quick nap.

The afternoon sit was not great either. I didn't have any deer come to the food plot. While hunting, I had been texting with my buddy who has land about 45 minutes away. He said he was seeing deer everywhere. He's hunting for a big buck, but told me there were doe's all over. He said I could come hunt there the next day if I wanted. I told him I was planning to hunt at the Estate in the morning, but if nothing happened, I would be up for the afternoon.

Guess what? Nothing happened in the afternoon or the following morning. I told my brother in law he and my nephew could hunt the Estate in the afternoon if they wanted, I was going to my buddies place. They would be able to spread out and cover more of the property and increase their chances. As it would figure, my nephew shot a nice spike from the same blind I had been sitting in that same night.

I drove up to my friends place and we set out to hunt that afternoon. I sat in a tree stand at the edge of a pine swamp. The deer had a well worn trail in the area, so we knew they were coming around. At first, there wasn't much happening, except the squirrels fighting and rolling in the leaves. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. As I turned, I saw that it was a small deer. I watched it at about 65 yards thru the pine forest as it came closer. On this property, usually, if you see one deer, there will be more. They seem to travel in groups. I was waiting to see if a larger deer was coming up behind this small one. Nothing seemed to be following, which was strange. The deer came closer and I could see it was a small doe. As it came to the clearing, I was scoping it hard to make sure it wasn't a button buck and decide if I was going to shoot. After watching it for a bit I decided to take the shot. A small deer in the freezer is better than a near empty wild game freezer, which I have now. After I shot, my buddy texted me to learn what I got. I told him it was a small doe and that it went down not far from me. We decided to wait a bit to see if any more came thru was well. About 5 minutes after I shot, my buddy shoots a medium sized spike.

Before anyone get on us for shooting small bucks or doe's, this area is very populated with deer. In fact, the farmers around the property want to have quite a few less deer. It's not uncommon to see multiple herds in fields of 30+ deer. I had one year where I took 4 large doe's off this property.

Anyway, we finally called it before it got too dark to track our deer, if we need to. I get out of the stand and look for mine. She went about 20 yards and that was it. As I walk up, I notice she is smaller than I thought. Well, she'll be that much easier to drag out of the woods. My buddy shot a pretty decent spike, so he was happy. We dragged both deer up to the house and got them cleaned and rinsed out.

The next morning, we went out for the morning but there wasn't much going on. We packed it in around 10:30 and had breakfast. He wanted to get home and so did I since I had a deer to process. We made plans to meet up again in a couple weeks to try to get another deer or two.

I got home and got right to work with my deer. It was 50 degrees outside, but I had packed my deer with ice at the first gas station I found. Before I could start processing, I had to make room in my garage. My wife bought me a really nice 5ft long stainless steel table for deer processing a couple years ago, but it was buried in the back of the garage. After about 45 minutes, I was ready to start.

I've processed many deer. I've done my own deer as well as a few for friends. I have a pretty good system to get the animal broken down pretty quickly. I was able to get this deer completely broken down and deboned in about a hour. This was expedited by the fact that I had not had the best shot placement and lost a good bit of meat due to contamination. This is really bad on an already small deer.

Fresh Ground Venison Burger

Making Venison Stock Using the Leftover Bones

Since this was such a small deer, I decided to make it all into burger. We go thru a lot of ground venison, so having a bunch will be a good way to start out. When I grind venison, I always use pork fat or pork trim. I grind it at 80/20 (80% venison/20% pork fat). This makes excellent burgers and is a great base for other uses. We vacuum pack it in 1 lb bags and freeze it flat so it thaws very quickly. I also keep some of the bones to use in making stock.

While this deer didn't yield as much fresh meat as we would have liked, it will certainly not go to waste. My family loves venison and this will supplement the beef we buy from the local farmer. There is still a lot of time left in the season here in Michigan and I will be out again. One small deer isn't enough for how much meat we eat in a year. I would like to have at least 2 more, larger ones in the freezer by the end of the season.

Good luck out there deer hunters! And, be safe!