I am a business and outdoor writer who has been publishing materials since the 1970s. Backyard Deer Hunting: Converting deer to dinner for pennies per pound is the best known of my 18 books. It is designed to take someone who has never hunted through all of the steps necessary to find, kill, process, cook and serve deer and other wild game to feed a family as inexpensively as possible.
"Create Your Own Job Security: Plan to Start Your Own Business at Midlife" is my flagship business title which will enable a person with no business experience to select, start and manage a modern web-based business that they love, can finance and physically do. My own new business is Hovey's Knives of China that is based in Sandersville, Georgia. This company makes a variety of new cooking knives based on ancient patterns from China the world. It is also a test case for my business-generation booklet, "Ideas for New Businesses: Finding Ideas for Starting Your Million or Billion Dollar Business."
"Create Your Own Job Security: Plan to Start Your Own Business at Midlife" expands many of the concepts expressed in "Ideas for New Businesses" into a 200-page book. My thoughts in writing the book were, " If a person can buy only one business book in their entire lives, what should be in that book?" I think that I have accomplished that objective. See if you agree.
Selection of optimum tree stand sites is the key to deer hunting success.
The optimum time to put up deer stands is well before season so that the deer can get use to them, and you can also start trimming out shooting lanes without leaving recent signs of disturbance and changing the ambient scents in the area.
If there is a truism, it is that in deer hunting nothing works all of the time. Locating deer stands should seek to maximize your possibilities of seeing deer by being located near where a deer can find food, water and social interactions. If there is a persimmon tree near a waterhole next to a cedar tree that generations of deer have scarred, that would be an ideal place.
I think you get the idea. Try to locate where at least two of the three things that are listed above are happening. If you are inventive, you can even make an artificial branch that the deer can hook and play with even if there was not one there before. If this is located near a travel path he will hook and thrash the branch to scent-mark it and make a scrape beneath. If nature does not provide some things a deer need in the way of food and water, you can – even to cutting a clear path through some thick stuff that was not there before.
Always put up several stands so that you have the option of rotating between them and also to take advantage of prevailing winds that might favor one stand over another. When time comes to hunt take a seat cushion with you (if your stand does not have one) so that you can sit for six hours or more at the time.
Very often the reason hunters do not kill deer is because they were not on stand when the deer came. If you are not there you cannot kill deer, regardless of how well the stand was positioned.
Rather than being about the increasingly common communication devise, this post is really about blackberries – the kind that grow on thorny vines. Each year I look forward to having at least one meal of blackberry-Bourbon pancakes, and the hound dogs and I go a’picking.
Many people don’t appreciate that a dog’s diet normally includes some greens and fruits along the meat and bones that they love so much. My dogs go berry picking with me. There are sometimes snakes among the vines too. Snakes don’t eat the berries, but they do eat the small rodents that come to feed on the dropped and low-lying fruit.
Once the dogs see me pick, they do too, pulling the berries off the vines with their teeth. One of my dogs found that it was much easier to just graze out of my bucket, instead of risking being pricked by the thorns. I was more amused than mad. He got mildly scolded, and we all resumed our gathering and eating.
If you want to put blackberries in your own pancakes, add about half-a-cup to your mix and mash them fairly well. About a teaspoon of Bourbon is appropriate – just enough to flavor. These pancakes will still be a little soft even when they are done, and might tend to stick a little more, so use a little butter in the bottom of the pan.
Blackberries freeze very well. There is no need to do anything except wash them, put them into plastic bags and freeze them. They also make a fine cobbler, or if you really have lots, even a wine as well as the blackberry pies that will tempt almost anyone.
In the deep South we have been largely deprived of blackberries for the past several years because of a prolonged drought, but this year’s rains have been more abundant, and these will bring us plenty of blackberries throughout the Southeast. Happy munching.
This deer was struck and died in a front yard. After seeking permission, I removed and ate it.
The first comment about Backyard Deer Hunting was submitted by Jilie and posted on the blog “Fresh Basil” on May 7. She ran into my recipe for Road Kill Deer Stew which I submitted to National Public Radio (NPR) in response to their request for meals that would feed a family of four for under $10. This is what Julie had to say:
“NPR is asking for readers to submit meals that will feed four that come in under $10. There are over 300 recipes submitted so far! (This radio event is now over, and no more recipes are wanted.)
“Many of the recipes contain rice and beans — the cheap pantry staples — but some are so creative and fun. Sweet potato kale quesadillas, brined pork with strawbetty chutney, Moroccan chicken tagine, and on and on.
“An entry from William Hovey Smith takes us way beyond rice and beans with a recipe for Road Kill Deer Stew. Luckily for us, William (I go by Hovey) has a book coming out soon: Backyard Deer Hunting: Converting deer to dinner for pennies per pound! I think I speak for everyone, William: Thank you for this amazing gift to literature.”
Thank you Julie,
I am not so sure about the book’s value as a piece of literature, but it certainly will be valuable to those who are out of work and need good, inexpensive food. It is also a fun read, or so my editors and book designers tell me. They are working with it now and are the only ones who have had a chance to see the entire manuscript. I am told by mid-July you should be able to judge for yourself.
I am eating Road Kill Deer Stew for my Sunday dinner today. The meat came from the same animal I show being butchered in the book.
Africa's ostrich is among the world's largest fowl and is a good-eating bird.
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Besides hunting deer and bowfishing, I also have been known from time to time to take on the world’s large fowl with muzzleloading guns. I regularly hunt ducks, geese, turkeys and swan (quite legally in North Carolina where there is an annual regulated harvest). Well, this year I was in Africa during Georgia’s turkey season, and it appeared to me to be particularly appropriate to also hunt their largest fowl, the ostrich.
Earnst Dyason, my professional hunter and the owner of Spear Safari, had never hunted ostrich, although he had grown up with them and there were some on his brother-in-law’s farm. These were wild birds and quite unlike the ranched ostrich that are raised elsewhere in South Africa. This farm was also covered by very thick brush, which made hunting them much more of a challenge than shooting one at 200 yards across a pasture.
We found ostrich all right, the problem was getting the one adult that we wanted away from a bunch of cows. He was quite happy to live among them, and would not leave them. We stalked him three different times, but could never get a safe shot. There was also a hen and a young male, but they left never to be seen again. This was well, as we would not have shot them anyway.
We found another in a separate part of the farm well away from any domestic stock. It was also in thick brush, but he wanted to stay on a road where it had a good clear run. Run he did. We could not approach within a 150 yards of it, too far for a shot with my muzzleloader. We tried a couple of loops around through the brush, but with its excellent eyesight, very long neck and equal facility with its long legs, he avoided us.
Finally we repositioned our truck along a road and made another half-circle around through the brush to intersect it. Being a quarter-century older than Earnst and also lugging a 13-pound gun, I could not keep up with my long-legged PH or the ostrich. By the time I got to the road the ostrich had proceeded in the other direction.
He saw the vehicle, reversed his direction and came running back towards us. I took a shot at 30 yards. The fowl just shook under the impact of a 444-grain bulled propelled by a 150-grain powder charge and remained on its feet. He absorbed some 2000 pounds of energy, as the projectile did not exit. He reversed his direction and we followed him up. Another shot through the body downed him.
Wow! This was a huge bird. It weighed something over 125 pounds, had at least four feet of neck and unlike any fowl that I had ever seen, only two toes. It had a large claw on its toes, like the raptors in Jurassic Park. These birds can kill people, and they do.
Now what? Neither Earnst nor I had ever cleaned one. It got plucked,
Plucked it can be appreciated that most of the meat is in the legs, thighs and neck.
and it had no breast meat. All the meat was in the leg-quarters and neck. The leather, feathers and meat were salvaged. When cooked, the meat was quite tender. The neck meat is often used like ox-tail to make soup. The taste of the meat is more like a mild-tasting veal than chicken or beef.
My trip to Africa lost me two weeks of Georgia’s turkey season, but I got a good fowl anyway. I will certainly never forget my hunt for Africa’s real big chicken.
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Carp and gar provide excellent eats from the outdoors.
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Although not discussed in my book Backyard Deer Hunting, but completely covered in Practical Bowfishing; carp have almost started to come into spawning mode where I live in Central Georgia . As temperatures warm in regional lakes, they will start to spawn there too. This is the time to bowfish carp and either put them in the freezer, canning (making salmon in common speak) or smoking them. It does not take elaborate equipment to bowfish carp. An old recurve bow, boat and trailer such as I use can do the job very well. They may be also be shot by wading in the shallows. May is a prime month for taking carp in most of the country.
These six carp and two gar were bowfished one day, and one of them became my dinner the next day. The others are now in my freezer. I like to use carp for baked fish and then make a fish salad with diced pickles and mayonnaise of the remainder.
Gar are dressed by cutting off the tail and cutting straight up the back with a pair of tin snips. Then use the snips to cut down both sides and remove two “ropes” of boneless meat, like removing the backstraps of a deer. This may be cut into 1/2-inch sections and fried with Chinese vegetables like scollops. The meat has a very mild taste and is good fried, baked or even grilled. One precaution is that the roe of gar is toxic. It will kill you. Any meat that is contaminated with roe products must be cut away and discarted. On huge gar I grind the meat, (make a paddy by mixing in salt, pepper, an egg, and dill weed) flour the paddies, coat with a flour-egg batter and deep fry it in canola oil. This will make the best fish sandwich that you ever had.
Practical Bowfishing may be ordered from me by sending a check for $17.95 to Wm. Hovey Smith, 1325 Jordan Mill Pond Rd., Sandersville, GA 31082. This book not only contains information on gear, fish that may be bowfished but also has recipes for cooking carp, gar and other fresh and salt-water fish.
This book is about providing information on how to find, kill and ultimately eat deer and other game animals that live near your home. North America. The information is also applicable to wild hogs, bears and other big-game species.
Low costs minimalist or homemade equipment is recommend for backyard deer hunting.
My objective is to explain how to put meat on your family’s table as inexpensively as possible. I used deer in the book’s title because whitetails are the most frequently seen big-game animals in
Although outdoor writing may appear to be a glamorous profession; it is more often an obsession, rather than a vocation. Writers are paid little, late, have their work as often rejected as accepted and may spend hundreds of hours producing materials that never see print. I have often fed my family on deer and other game shot a few hundred yards from my house. I have drawn on my experiences in feeding a family when my income was sharply reduced. You can do the same. This book is designed to take someone who has never hunted through every step required to kill, clean, process and cook big game.
I have done everything that is described in this book. I have salvaged thrown-away hunting clothes from a Dumpster, drug road-killed deer off the roadside and safely consumed them. I have used nearly every knife, gun and crossbow that I have described. Where expedient items can be used or adapted, I have recommended them. Although in some categories it is impossible, most of the products that I have recommended are American made. I have concentrated on the least-expensive really workable items of their types that are available.
This book is not about looking good, owning fancy gear, impressing anyone or putting trophy heads on the wall. This book is about killing deer, wild hogs, bears and other meats-on-the-hoof and eating them. Although born in Georgia, I have spent significant parts of my life in Arizona, Alaska and Minnesota and have commonly hunted elsewhere. These experiences have been used to provide much of the information in this book.
I have always felt that my books should consider topics that were not beaten to death by other authors. My two previous outdoor books, Practical Bowfishing (Stoeger, 2004) and Crossbow Hunting (Stackpole, 2006), have been noted for their complete treatment of the subject and the inclusion of information on game processing and cooking. Backyard Deer Hunting follows the same format.
You, the reader, will be frequently addressed in this book, and I will offer my best guidance on a given subject expressed in simple language. Does this mean that I know everything about everything? No. However, I have hunted all of my life, lived in many parts of the country and mostly eaten things that I shot. I almost never buy meat, but live off the deer, hogs, wildfowl and small game that I hunt. I have published 13 books and thousands of newspaper and magazine articles. I have accumulated in some 67 years a great deal of knowledge that I am more than willing to share in as straight-forward a manner as possible.
Some photos in this book show big-game animals being killed and butchered. If you are going to kill and clean animals, you need to be prepared for the results. I will attempt get you ready to do these necessary tasks. I have seldom met people that I could not teach something to or learn something from. You should adopt the same attitude in using information from this book.
You can also learn from other hunters’ experiences to add to your store of practical knowledge. Grandpa or even Great Grandma may also have useful information about wild game from a time when much of the meat on the family’s table was killed by the same hands that served it. It is proper that this should be so. It does honor to the animal that gave its life and to the hunter who killed the animal to provide food for his family. This is a practical demonstration of the eternal cycle of life, death and renewal that is much more realistic than the plastic-wrapped packages of meat at the butcher counter.
Women can hunt too. Although hunting is often considered a “guy” thing, women can be as good hunter-providers as men. The typical stereotype is that men hunt and women cook, which is bullshit. I know, and have known, many women who were excellent shots and hunters and many men who were marvelous big-game cooks. In a family, it is most true that the person who kills something is the one who is also going to have to clean and cook it. When it can cost more than $150 to get a deer processed and you can do the same job with $15 worth of materials, it makes since to do as much of this as possible. Particularly, if you are out of work and have more time than money.
Teaching yourself to hunt is a productive activity that brings financial and psychological benefits. Although every hunt may not produce game, you are going to do it better next time, and hunting gets you out of the house. Financial hardship brings stress on families, and it is good to periodically step away from the noise of everyday life, enjoy nature and accept any gifts that might be offered.
There is no reason why your spouse and kids cannot participate. It often helps to have another pair of hands when processing meat or cooking. This provides the spirit that “we are all in this together.” Think about the life that your grandparents had. Everybody in the family did something to keep the family going. There was work about the house, in the garden, in the yard, with the livestock, in the kitchen and keeping the family in clean clothes. This was more about doing the job that needs to be done and not about “my job” or “your job.” I have lived alone most of my life, and with the death of my wife five years ago am alone again. Whatever gets done at my house, I do. If I can live by myself and maintain a reasonable lifestyle, that means that a family with more pairs of hands can, at the least, do equally well.
Some very practical reasons for consuming wild-game meat are: 1. It taste good. 2. It is free of antibiotics and other things that may be injected in commercially-prepared meats. 3. Wild game meat is naturally a low-fat product. 4. You know exactly how your meat has been treated and what went into it.
5. Removing excess game animals keeps the wildlife population healthy. 6. Animals taken from near-urban areas reduce deer-car collisions. 7. Hunting provides a psychological getaway while also providing outdoor exercise to relieve stress. 8. When done close to home, hunting provides low-cost, high-protein meals for better family nutrition.
The need for this book was recognized by many publishers once I presented the concept, but none felt that they could publish it rapidly enough to be available on by mid-summer of 2009. Fortunately, Author House, a print-on-demand publisher, provided a means to produce this book in time for it to reach the hands of those who needed it.
Thanks also go to fellow Georgia outdoor writer, author and friend, Jeff Samsel who edited the book. Samsel’s contribution was valuable because he is a fisherman who seldom hunts and could view this material as a perspective user, rather than as an expert advisor.
Wm. Hovey Smith
Whitehall
Sandersville, GA
February, 2009
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