rstodd
Well-Known Member
I would try and hunt farther away from Hardeman county. Leave Ames behind, before I gave up hunting all together.
Hunting in a CWD world
- Thread starter fairchaser
- Start date
This x1000! If y'all are having to dump them in a hole! Wasting animals just to hunt them is ethically and morally wrong! It wouldn't take much time at all to quarter it and put it on ice in a cooler. Then freeze it and wait on test results. Here's the way I read it. You dumped the deer in a hole before you had the test results. It didn't matter by then whether it was negative or positive you threw 90 percent of the deer away.
Here's the cold hard truth, with cwd and all the other things going on we are going to have to learn how to process our deer ourselves. Or practice trigger restraint. The only time a whole deer should be wasted is after they test positive and the hunter doesn't want to eat it. IMO
It just stinks. I just hope twra does not make it worse. I kind of wish we were still unaware but I see there is a problem with eating positive deer. Deer numbers in my area seem down this year. I'm wondering if it is all related. Just stinks.
Hard to do that when it's rotting in a hole in the ground. Unless I read it wrong you cut the backstraps out and dumped the rest before the test results came back? I'm not picking on you and if it comes across this way I apologize. Just trying to understand.
fairchaser
Well-Known Member
There were no processors open to take the deer. The one that takes deer for donations would not be open for several weeks. I had no place to store the meat in the interim. My fault.
I'm hoping the spread is a long ways off for East Tennessee and especially in my area. This is my "theory" of why I tell my wife that it may be a while or it may never get to our area. First are deer density is NO WHERE near that of west Tennessee. Secondly I'm on a mountain and the areas I hunt are not so easily traveled for human or deer. There's not herds of deer that travel together. That's all out the window if someone hauls a positive deer and dumps it's carcass out but natural spread I hope is decades out from this area.
Sasquatch Boogie Outdoors
Well-Known Member
I'm on the outside looking in so dont stone me...on hot days, debone and put in ice cooler, drain and repeat for a few days ( wet age). As for cwd I'm in east tn. Not an issue here yet but I say kill what you want, eat what you want. If it has cwd wasnt it going to die a gruesome suffering death. I'm not offended if you take a deer with all intent of eating but discard due to illness. Now if your just killin to be killin, I hope you take up golf.
There's a lesson in all this and hopefully someone reading can learn from it. There's more hunters and less processors than there was 5 years ago. IMO. Learn how to process your game or call your processor ahead of hunting to make sure he can take your deer. There's been a few times I've had a deer in my sights but decided against it because I really didn't have the time to deal with it
AT Hiker
Well-Known Member
The cold hard truth is this; those deer have to be killed whether we eat them or not.
Chiflyguy
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2019
- Messages
- 5,209
What we are told here in Illinois as long as no spinal fluid or brain matter is on the meat even if it's positive it's safe to consume.
We have to take in every deer during gun season and they pull a sample out of the deers skull.
I have a friend who harvests 3 -4 deer a year and has never gotten sick.
We have to take in every deer during gun season and they pull a sample out of the deers skull.
I have a friend who harvests 3 -4 deer a year and has never gotten sick.
Sure let's kill em all. The sky is falling. If they had done that out west nobody would be going elk hunting anymore, or deer hunting in Texas. Do you and your group kill every elk you see out west because they have to be killed?
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Ive been an avid deer hunter for more years than I can remember anymore. This whole cwd mess is about to push me out of deer hunting. Back in December a neighbor approached me and made a to good not to sale offer on my TN farm. When looking for a new place I ended up in KY( a state i've leased and hunted in a good bit). I bought with CWD on my mind.
I looked hard in TN and every time I thought I found a place it ended up being a county next to CWD counties or in cwd counties and I let it drive me away. I don't think for one second that CWD meat will affect me in anyway! But I do unfortunately think it will have a impact on the sellabilty of my farm should it become part of the area in KY that is now being tested. Being a cancer patient sellablity is something i considered for my family's benefit should either of my cancers progress.
If I was alive and healthy and my farm was found to be in a CWD zone i would just hunt and not change anything on the farm regardless of cwd but due to that fact of worrying about being able to dump it, as its biggest value is hunting, it's hard for me to enjoy it wondering if ky will have the same kill them all mindset.
There is zero doubt they will find a case or several in the new SZ of ky that happened as a result of the doe positive in henry county and that in the next year or two my county will likely be in the new SZ area, maybe not but very likely.
Im just not sure deer hunting is worth it anymore in the aspect that I enjoy and the way I think. That is if states continue to have the kill to test and eradicate mindset. I enjoy food plots and everything to make the habitat better and processing my own deer and taxidermy of my own deer but the day im in a cwd zone is likely the day im done hunting whitetail deer especially the way I love doing it now.
I looked hard in TN and every time I thought I found a place it ended up being a county next to CWD counties or in cwd counties and I let it drive me away. I don't think for one second that CWD meat will affect me in anyway! But I do unfortunately think it will have a impact on the sellabilty of my farm should it become part of the area in KY that is now being tested. Being a cancer patient sellablity is something i considered for my family's benefit should either of my cancers progress.
If I was alive and healthy and my farm was found to be in a CWD zone i would just hunt and not change anything on the farm regardless of cwd but due to that fact of worrying about being able to dump it, as its biggest value is hunting, it's hard for me to enjoy it wondering if ky will have the same kill them all mindset.
There is zero doubt they will find a case or several in the new SZ of ky that happened as a result of the doe positive in henry county and that in the next year or two my county will likely be in the new SZ area, maybe not but very likely.
Im just not sure deer hunting is worth it anymore in the aspect that I enjoy and the way I think. That is if states continue to have the kill to test and eradicate mindset. I enjoy food plots and everything to make the habitat better and processing my own deer and taxidermy of my own deer but the day im in a cwd zone is likely the day im done hunting whitetail deer especially the way I love doing it now.
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I'll be glad when cwd finally kills the herd off in west Tn. It's amazing how horrible all these other places are that's had it for years and years.
AT Hiker
Well-Known Member
That wasn't my point.
My point was hunting is a management tool. If we dont kill them somebody will have too at some point.
Gotcha. My post was about wasting deer. There's a difference in hunting for conservation and wasting antlerless deer to earn a buck tag.
Sad
woodsman04
Well-Known Member
I don't like wasting meat, but it sounds like you did decent and did what you thought needed to be done.
I've gotten to where I won't go hunting if I know it will be too big of a hassle to deal with a dead deer if I kill one. Only peak rut and/or perfect weather days do I break my rule, because if I can get a big buck I'll deal with the inconvenience haha
I've gotten to where I won't go hunting if I know it will be too big of a hassle to deal with a dead deer if I kill one. Only peak rut and/or perfect weather days do I break my rule, because if I can get a big buck I'll deal with the inconvenience haha
Jowens
Well-Known Member
I think @fairchaser did what he thought was best. He saved a deer from dying a terrible death. I'm sure he would have done some things different in hindsight (wouldn't we all?) but I don't think we need to be casting stones. We need to stand together as hunters.
