My brother would shoot 10 to 15 deer and take them to the free processing points to go to people that needed food when the chronic wasting disease containment cullings were in place. He used mostly a rifle, but he does bow hunting too. The recipients of the meat were very grateful. Otherwise it’s about 2 or 3 deer a year for personal use.
One guy that taught my hunters safety class said he was driving up for a weekend of hunting and hit a deer on the way up there. Deer was gravely injured though not yet dead. So he pulled it away from the road, pulled out his handgun, shot it, dressed it, tagged it, threw it in the back of his truck and drove back home. 
Surprised that no one has said “with my car”. I almost bagged a nice buck last week, and a herd of four the week before. I try to stay off the roads in November. Too hard to see them, until there’s some snow on the ground.
ETA: How did I miss This_Just_In’s post?
Just general information relating to deer hunting. I don’t know much about it, but it a popular topic at work. I also like to learn about the various weapons that fellow board members own.
I’m part of a local hunting team.
We hunt deer and moose so I use an old Mauser M98 with a .30-06 barrel and sighted scopes.
Some deer are shot at dusk or dawn when we sit and wait for them to come into the fields.
Sometimes we use a dog or we split up the hunting team to walk through the terrain and push the animals towards a line of posts.
All animals are skinned and cut up by the hunting team and the meat divided in equal parts. I share maybe half of the meat with my relatives and friends. We are not allowed to sell any of the meat.
With my car. But they actually seem to be asking for it. A large buck stepped out in front me Saturday night.
I hunt deer on my land. Around these parts, we are not allowed to use rifles for hunting deer. Slug guns are common.
It’s illegal to sell game meat in Idaho but we share with family and friends.
We always butcher our own meat, it’s fun and satisfying. We used to grind our hamburger with suet - beef fat, but now we just buy a chub of ultra-cheap hamburger. We ground up a cow and a big bull calf this year and used 25lbs of 80% fat hamburger - filled 2 freezers.
I usually hunt with a Remington Model 7 in 7mm-08 - basically a necked-down .308. I’ve taken deer, elk, and bear with it, very handy brush gun. My folks got me another Model 7 in .300WSM and I’ve been hunting everything with that for a couple of years just because it’s new. I’ll probably go back to the 7mm-08 for deer next year since it’s lighter and shorter.
We do a lot of hiking and rattling for deer, hiking and bugling for elk. We put the 4 wheeler in the back of the pickup and road hunt between hiking and riding spots. It’s nice to mix it up. We also have a little 1 acre food plot with a nice tree stand up behind the house.
Hey! That’s how we hunt moose in New Hampshire.
Can I tag on a dumb question about hunting deer?
Hunting deer seems really easy. I mean, whenever I drive around the northeast they seem to be everywhere, and they seem pretty easily killable. They just sort of stand there stupidly.
Now, I’ve never done it, so I’m guessing there is something that I’m missing, but shooting a deer (at least with a rifle) doesn’t seem to be much of a challenge. What am I missing?
I use a vintage Savage Model 99 lever action rifle chambered for the nearly defunct .300 Savage cartridge. I hunt the same area in PA that I’ve hunted since the mid-70’s. I have a pretty good idea of the deer’s habits there. I get out well before sunrise and am generally back with a deer before 8:00. Sometimes I do my own butchering, sometimes not.
Most years, it is over with so little fuss that it really is more like harvesting than hunting.
When I hunt White-tail in the Texas Hill Country I use a Ruger M-77 in a 22-250. It’s a fast bullet with a flat trajectory, so very accurate with more than enough knock down. I’ll take a field dressed deer to the processor for steaks and sausage and have extra freezer room at home.
If I’m in Colorado though they require a larger caliber, plus the Mule deer are bigger, so I use a Ruger #1 in a 7mm mag. We usually process this into steaks ourselves. I’ll eat what I can but often give much of this to family and friends.
Good question. Away from the din of the highway, deer are exceptionally stealthy and they spook and bolt very easily. A single squirrel moving across fallen leaves makes a ton of racket compared to four deer walking along the same ground.
If you don’t score a solid kill shot, you will have to track a wounded deer for a good long ways - sometimes miles. This is a lot more common in bow hunting in my experience, but it does happen in every season.
Though I don’t do it, I think some hunters inadvertently make the hunt more difficult by holding out for a trophy buck. They pass up shots on smaller bucks and does that are often sure things. If you’re out there with the goal of harvesting venison, it’s not terribly difficult provided you’re in a good area.
Technically, it’s not that hard. Scout terrain for deer sign, practice at shooting range, set up stand, put out scent, wait. So it is a fair amount of preparation. Also, sitting in the cold for hours every weekend and not seeing a deer is pretty irksome and does happen. And if you’re waiting to see a big buck and passing up other deer, it can take longer.
But it’s like any hobby, you do it for the enjoyment and can get as into it as you want. It’s a good time to be alone, enjoy nature, relax and detach from the stress of the day job.
When I was in Memphis, you could ask the butcher to donate any cuts you didn’t want to the local charity (MIFA). Kind of a nice thing.
I apologize for the hijack - what’s the philosophy behind making it illegal to sell game meat? Are they worried about professional hunters doing it for the money and driving out the casual hunters who do it for the hobby?
“Gee, I’m poor and need money and there sure are a lot of deer around…”
If you could make a profit killing deer people would do it illegally and any notion of responsible management would go out the window.
There are always going to be poachers but banning the sale of meat helps keep the poaching marginal.
I wonder too if they’re afraid that monetary gain might encourage an unscrupulous few to harvest deer that might be suffering from mass wasting, or that have been processed without much concern for sterility of equipment, proper refrigeration, etc. Regulating the safety of all that could be beyond problematic.
I do not hunt, but we love venison. We have a deal with some guys at the local feed store. My gf and I make some apple pies and trade them for deer steaks/chops roasts. Everyone involved thinks that they made out big time.