To perhaps harvest some tasty venison with either a rifle or a shotgun, any skin or antler is just a nice bonus, here.
I have harvested one, been in on the field cleaning and butchering of 3 more (MBtGE dropped them) and dined on tasty chili, stew, and ternderloin. I have not gotten any hides or antlers. Why? Well, none of the 4 HAD antlers. All 4 were yearling bucks eating and damaging our battlefield parks and adjoining farms. Probably could rop 40 of them a year and not make a dent in the over population. Nothing but button bucks.
So what about a hide? MBtGE would have let me have the pelts of all 4. If he had kept the pelts of all the deer he had shot in his humting career he could carpet the house, wall to wall. So why don't I have one? Why? It's hard to process a skin. And neither of us has done it before. So that's that.
Probably a skill I should investigate further. Just cuz. All that scraping, smearing of deer brains, alum, salt peter, what have you...
Lots of good info out there for either hair on, or hair off depending on what you want to do with it
ReplyDeleteremoving hair
http://www.ehow.com/way_5759502_fast-remove-hair-deer-skin.html
With or without removing hair
http://www.ehow.com/how_7628402_easiest-tan-deer-hide-beginners.html