Bow season opened here last weekend too. But, we have so many other seasons, especially exclusive seasons, I'll just wait. We have several for antlerless on private property. A couple for youth and old dudes like me. Bow. Rifle. Black powder. Basically, if you are over 16, you can take 10 legal deer in my neighborhood. I believe that 100 yards east of me, in Virginia, my friends can take even more.
Our deer regularly walk the Virginia/West Virginia border ridge about 100-150 yards outside our kitchen window. The state lines are at the top of a ridge between our property and the farm adjacent to ours in Virginia. I have no idea how many deer were in the herd that passed by our garage this morning, but there were a bunch of them. Probably between 15 and 20.
The good bow is in the corner of my office. I wasn't even tempted. Not a single deer looked the least bit worried. They either know my skills, my schedule, or both. They were passing by about 7:30 AM as I was having my coffee. I had an appointment 20 miles away at 9:00 AM this morning, and didn't have time to skin and quarter any for the cooler or cold room.
Unfortunately for me, I could tell that they were seriously surveying my fall garden and the innards of my greenhouse -- which won't get fully closed in until we leave for PB-V.
These deer have already gotten my beet tops, my bird-egg beans, and my green beans. Something else got my fall broccoli, and something chewed the strawberries off below ground level.
For the past couple of months we've been without a dog. And, although "Igor" our Siberian Forest "rescue" cat looks and sounds really vicious, he is a real pussy! He is even afraid of our chickens. The other cat refuses to go outside except under perfect conditions. The chickens like every living creature they see, either as friends or a snacks.
Anyway, we've got lots of deer on the property again this year. Between our place, and a couple of friend's places, we butchered and divided 14 deer last year. I think we'll get quite a few more this year. I was looking at the regulations this morning. My wife, my son, our daughter-in-law, and I can all legally take 10 deer each. My two oldest (twin) grandkids are 17, and they too can take 10 deer each.
The deer in this area are in serious need of thinning, plus we have CWD in our county and the adjoining county, so this thinning is really important.
If you come to the PB-V conference, I'll have a little bit of my venison pastrami that has not yet been spoken for!
(Whatever you do -- please don't anybody steal ESSHUP's venison pastrami allocation this year! Yes - that happened at the last conference! If you do, please provide at least a $1000 donation to the SDSU Pond Boss scholarship fund, and let me know. I'll make more, and send it to both parties.)
If you want to sample some, you better get there Wednesday evening. A pound or two is usually consumed in less than 30 seconds.
