Faulkner
Member
On opening day of modern gun season while hunting with my father and my two sons (oldest just out of college and youngest in high school) I killed a nice 8 point whitetail deer. It was only about an hour after daylight, I saw where the buck dropped and I'd seen a number of does earlier so I just sat tight. After about 30 minutes a light rain started so I sent a text message to my youngest son, who was closest to me, to come on over so we could drag this deer out to the trail.
After he hiked over from his stand I pointed out where the deer lay and he went over and found it. I climbed down and we dragged it out to the old logging trail, then he went back to where we'd left our ATV and rode it back so we could load up the deer and haul it back to our deer camp.
Once we got to camp, we hung the deer from our skinning post, and commenced to skin the deer, then quarter and cut it up for the ice chest. My oldest son and dad came in as we were skinning the deer and fixed breakfast. Later that afternoon, my oldest son killed a 9 point buck and when he got it back to camp, he and my dad skinned and dressed it while my youngest son and I fixed a dinner of pan fried potatoes and venison tenderloin from my buck.
I've deer hunted with my dad as far back as I can remember, and I've been bringing my boys to deer camp in south Arkansas to hunt with me and their grandfather since they were about 6 or 7 years old. It's a tradition we look forward to every year.
At the end of the weekend hunt I took the big ice chest with the two deer to a buddy of mine, Steve, who is a meat processer. He does a good job and he processes hundreds of deer every season and I've been doing business with him several years. This year I told him to fix me up with some jalapeño and cheese summer sausage, venison and pork breakfast sausage, venison polish sausage, venison bratwurst, hot links, teriyaki snack sticks, Tex-Mex snack sticks, and then leave me some sliced up so I could dehydrate my own jerky. He said he was pretty loaded up and would call me in about 10 days or so when it was ready.
He called me first thing the morning after Thanksgiving and said it was ready, so drove over mid-morning to pick it up. I backed up to his loading dock and went inside and paid him. As we were loading it in the back of my truck another pickup backed up to the dock beside me. Out from the cab stepped out three young men in their 20's who'd obviously been out hunting that morning. I glanced over into the back of the truck and there were five does in the back. None of them had been skinned or even gutted. I've never deer hunted anywhere other than Arkansas, but you must have your deer duly tagged and reported when you take it to a processor or he won't accept it. Fortunately, these boys were all legal and had their tags and confirmation numbers from the Arkansas Game & Fish.
One of the boys looked at me and said, "Good morning Deputy Faulkner."
It took me a moment, but I finally recognized him as a boy who'd played on the same Little League baseball team as my oldest son a few years back. "Hello Josh. Looks like you boys had some luck."
"Yes sir, but we didn't see any bucks."
Just for grins, I had to ask, "do you boys not know how to skin a deer?"
They looked over at me and one of them replied, "No sir. We just always bring them here and drop them off."
"You're kidding?" I said. I looked over at Steve and asked, "how much do you charge for that?"
"$65.00 if they bring 'em in with nothing but a bullet hole in 'em."
"Boys, I don't want to take any business away from my buddy here, but do you realize that you could save over $300.00 if you just skinned 'em out before you brought them here. I could skin all five of these in not much more than an hour once I got them hung up. You boys aren't scared of a little blood and guts are you?"
"No sir."
"You guys seem like fine young men and I'm certainly not one to tell you how to spend your money, but there's more to hunting than just shooting animals. I bet $300 is a day and a half to two day's pay for you guys and that sure seems like a lot to pay for somebody else to do something that a young man ought to know how to do himself. Surely with all the internet skills young folks have these days you could find a YouTube video that shows you how to do it."
As we loaded the last of my deer in the truck, Steve laughed and told me that about a third of the deer he receives were brought in just like those the boys brought. He said a lot of folks these days just don't know how to field dress a deer. I find that amazing.
After he hiked over from his stand I pointed out where the deer lay and he went over and found it. I climbed down and we dragged it out to the old logging trail, then he went back to where we'd left our ATV and rode it back so we could load up the deer and haul it back to our deer camp.
Once we got to camp, we hung the deer from our skinning post, and commenced to skin the deer, then quarter and cut it up for the ice chest. My oldest son and dad came in as we were skinning the deer and fixed breakfast. Later that afternoon, my oldest son killed a 9 point buck and when he got it back to camp, he and my dad skinned and dressed it while my youngest son and I fixed a dinner of pan fried potatoes and venison tenderloin from my buck.
I've deer hunted with my dad as far back as I can remember, and I've been bringing my boys to deer camp in south Arkansas to hunt with me and their grandfather since they were about 6 or 7 years old. It's a tradition we look forward to every year.
At the end of the weekend hunt I took the big ice chest with the two deer to a buddy of mine, Steve, who is a meat processer. He does a good job and he processes hundreds of deer every season and I've been doing business with him several years. This year I told him to fix me up with some jalapeño and cheese summer sausage, venison and pork breakfast sausage, venison polish sausage, venison bratwurst, hot links, teriyaki snack sticks, Tex-Mex snack sticks, and then leave me some sliced up so I could dehydrate my own jerky. He said he was pretty loaded up and would call me in about 10 days or so when it was ready.
He called me first thing the morning after Thanksgiving and said it was ready, so drove over mid-morning to pick it up. I backed up to his loading dock and went inside and paid him. As we were loading it in the back of my truck another pickup backed up to the dock beside me. Out from the cab stepped out three young men in their 20's who'd obviously been out hunting that morning. I glanced over into the back of the truck and there were five does in the back. None of them had been skinned or even gutted. I've never deer hunted anywhere other than Arkansas, but you must have your deer duly tagged and reported when you take it to a processor or he won't accept it. Fortunately, these boys were all legal and had their tags and confirmation numbers from the Arkansas Game & Fish.
One of the boys looked at me and said, "Good morning Deputy Faulkner."
It took me a moment, but I finally recognized him as a boy who'd played on the same Little League baseball team as my oldest son a few years back. "Hello Josh. Looks like you boys had some luck."
"Yes sir, but we didn't see any bucks."
Just for grins, I had to ask, "do you boys not know how to skin a deer?"
They looked over at me and one of them replied, "No sir. We just always bring them here and drop them off."
"You're kidding?" I said. I looked over at Steve and asked, "how much do you charge for that?"
"$65.00 if they bring 'em in with nothing but a bullet hole in 'em."
"Boys, I don't want to take any business away from my buddy here, but do you realize that you could save over $300.00 if you just skinned 'em out before you brought them here. I could skin all five of these in not much more than an hour once I got them hung up. You boys aren't scared of a little blood and guts are you?"
"No sir."
"You guys seem like fine young men and I'm certainly not one to tell you how to spend your money, but there's more to hunting than just shooting animals. I bet $300 is a day and a half to two day's pay for you guys and that sure seems like a lot to pay for somebody else to do something that a young man ought to know how to do himself. Surely with all the internet skills young folks have these days you could find a YouTube video that shows you how to do it."
As we loaded the last of my deer in the truck, Steve laughed and told me that about a third of the deer he receives were brought in just like those the boys brought. He said a lot of folks these days just don't know how to field dress a deer. I find that amazing.
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