Tagged out and a lively 24 hours

Yesterday morning I was driving north on Highway 10 between Orangeville and Shelburne and spotted a roadkill deer on the side of the road. I pulled over and when there was no traffic backed about 100 yards down the shoulder of the road to take a look. This was at about 930 am and the deer turned out to be a 7pt medium size buck that by all appearances had been killed some time that morning. Its neck was snapped and had some trauma to one shoulder but over all looked pretty good. I got back in the truck sitting with my hazards on, got online and within 3 minutes had a possession # from MNR. Loaded the deer and was under way in 5 minutes. Headed home, got the tractor backhoe and unloaded and field dressed the buck. I used the backhoe to bury the gut pile about 150 yards from the house so as to not attract scavengers and to keep my dogs from getting into it.

The roadkill buck:



Around 5 pm that same day my wife calls down to me in the basement and says the dogs (a walker coon hound and a black lab/pitbull cross) are going at it with 5 coyotes about 100 yards from the house. I guess there was enough blood/scent on the snow that the coyotes showed up to investigate. I ran to the safe and grabbed the closest rifle to the front - my 308 recently put away after an earlier deer hunt. Grabbed some ammo and headed out the back door to the deck. The dogs are back to back fending off the interlopers and seem to be holding their own against the smaller coyotes but the coyotes aren't backing down either. The coyotes are all moving and there was general chaos so getting a shot was tricky as I obviously didn't want to risk hitting my dogs. I finally managed to get a shot in and this one paid for his crimes:



Hit a little far back but he went down immediately and did not get back up. For 100 yards with moving targets I figured that was acceptable. At the shot the remaining 4 yotes broke off and headed for the hills. The dogs were none the worse for wear other than a few minor scratches.

After all that action I decided to head up to the camp to try and fill my additional doe only archery tag. Got to the camp about 11 pm started the wood stove and hit the sack. Got up at 545 am had some coffee and porridge and headed out. Arrived at my chosen destination about 630 am and got comfortable with another coffee and waited for legal light (659 am). My set up was on the ground in snow camo against a tree in some pines north of an east-west primary run that connects a bedding area to a food plot with beets in it.

The hiding spot and shooting lane (picture taken from the primary run):



The run:



Well the crossbow had only been loaded for 6 or 7 minutes when I heard something to my west. Surprised me a little as my expectation had been they would be coming from the east if they showed. A group of 4 does was heading my way down the run. I let the first one pass and than grunted the next in line to a stop broadside at the end of my lane. I pulled the trigger on the micro and three of them took off west but my target went east. She only made it 30 yards before going down.

As discovered - yellow ear tag applied by me after the kill - our version of tags for the wardens:



Dragged out to the trail:



She's the biggest doe I've taken in a lot of years - probably pushing 200 lbs. That toboggan is 54 inches long and 16 inches wide.

Loaded up with her roadkill partner for the trip to the butcher:

Congrats but that's to cold for me.

X2

Congrats!

Isnt hunting great. Love the snow on the ground. Had a very productive hunting.

Well done, that doe it as big as the buck.

That doe is massive!!! Really enjoy your updates from up there

Congrats

You had a heck of a 24 hours

Does the basement look out into the back yard? Otherwise why the basement? Anyway, you have plenty of meat for the year well done!!!

That is too cool. Lots of meat for the next year.

Big doe for sure

right on! Looks a little chilly though

That'll fill the freezer.

Eating roadkill in Texas would definitely earn you a Redneck merit badge - and I say that with all due respect. I've heard tales of some west Texas folk eating roadkill coons and such but only in very difficult times.

Is eating roadkill pretty common up north where you live? I guess it's cold enough it doesn't spoil for a good while? I'm curious and want to hear more.

That doe is double the size of the average doe where I hunt. What's the average size of a doe around there?

Eating road kill is pretty common if the animal is a deer or moose and is fresh and is not too beat up. During butchering you just throw out the bloodshot/bruised meat or use it as coyote bait. If you are particularly fussy just take the good meat and grind it and mix it up with some ground pork and spices and make sausage. The weather definitely helps as it was 0F when I found that guy and he was not frozen yet and no marks from coyotes/wolfs/birds - so pretty fresh. Most of us rednecks have an account with the government that lets us log in and get a possession permit downloaded free to our phones snappy snappy. The permit basically details how and where we came into possession of the animal - this prevents any misunderstandings if you get stopped by a warden.

Average size doe is about 150 lbs in these parts and anything over 180 lbs is big and pushing 200 like that girl I took is about once every 10 years for me (I get 1 or 2 doe only archery tags every year).

I was wondering the same thing. It seems like I see car-killed deer all over the place during Nov & Dec here in Texas. Some look like hamburger but some look OK if the "hitter" would have just loaded them up right away. Great story & Interesting scenery!

I once saw a very nice 10 pt buck laying on the side of the road that had obviously been there for a while. It was bloated, rotting & buzzard picked. A couple of hours later, on my return trip, I saw the same buck except someone had stopped & "skull-sawed" the horns off! Now that would DEFINITELY earn a Texas Redneck merit badge with star clusters!

Very Nice. In TX it is illegal to pick up a road kill deer and authorities are known to cut off head (on bucks) to deter traffic stopping.