All About Pocket Knives

Royal, sounds like he's a fine young man!

OH, I'm glad you still get that yearly hunt with your dad. I knew you'd understand that quip about dove hunting too!

Great stuff OH. Thanks for sharing.

Accurate insights and fact on the elusive Dove.

Lookin' forward to this year's pics Bruce.

Labor Day, when I lived up north was always the ceremonial beginning of fall/end of summer. Not anymore, it's now Thanksgiving

We carved every tidbit we could off of the Antelope on Tuesday and processed it. Got a lot of good steaks, roasts and a boatload of ground meat. We also saved about 20 pounds of some premium cuts for sausage/salami. We may even mix some deer to go with it for a mixed sausage/salami.

Jerry D, I saw the comment when you said you tried some antelope sausage. Must not have been prepared properly or something. The 20 pounds I saved was some prime location meat and had plenty of good roasts, etc in it that I would not have had processed that way unless I had tried some excellent sausage/salami prior. The butcher also mixes in some pork as the antelope has pretty much zero fat. Antelope sausage is the best "summer sausage" if you want to call it that I have ever had personally. May not be for everyone's taste though.

One thing about taking a smaller buck is the quality of the meat. Kind of like veal versus cow. Cooked some up and the taste is indeed phenomenal. Personally, I consider Antelope to be the be tasting of any red meat on the planet that I have ever tasted. I personally don't find deer to be "gamey" as many do but antelope does not even qualify as gamey tasting in my opinion. The tenderloins in the skillet below never made it to a plate.

Will be BBQing up some backstrap steaks and some heart today. Shared some raw scrap meat, bones (a couple days ago) and most of the raw heart today with the dogs and they agree, Antelope tastes pretty darn good.

I wish all my hunting brothers successful, safe hunts and good memories. Regards, Jerry

Oooooooooooooooh boy Jerry.......lookin' sooooooooooo tasty!

Thanks for sharing!

Jerry, your antelope looks terrific - both the raw red meat and the cooked meat! I have a theory about "gamey" meat; around here deer were run with dogs for many, many years - when the deer were scarce it was the only way to get them out of the swamps. Those deer were hot and sweaty and full of adrenaline from being run before being shot and THEN the hunters would drive the dead deer around and show them off before cleaning them - a deer taken by a hunting party was an event to share. Nowadays we essentially bushwack a walking or feeding deer from a high point (around here a stand) and the deer drops dead, all cool and unmolested and we know to immediately clean and cut up our deer. I think that is why deer earned an undeserved reputation for gaminess years ago.

Thanks gents, and believe me Scott - I will take pictures! I love hunting pictures. OH

Old Hunter wrote:Jerry, your antelope looks terrific - both the raw red meat and the cooked meat! I have a theory about "gamey" meat; around here deer were run with dogs for many, many years - when the deer were scarce it was the only way to get them out of the swamps. Those deer were hot and sweaty and full of adrenaline from being run before being shot and THEN the hunters would drive the dead deer around and show them off before cleaning them - a deer taken by a hunting party was an event to share. Nowadays we essentially bushwack a walking or feeding deer from a high point (around here a stand) and the deer drops dead, all cool and unmolested and we know to immediately clean and cut up our deer. I think that is why deer earned an undeserved reputation for gaminess years ago.

Thanks gents, and believe me Scott - I will take pictures! I love hunting pictures. OH

I totally agree as do many others with your assessment on a "hot when shot" animal affecting the taste. Absolutely! Additionally, their diet has a lot of play into taste also.
Best example I can think of is waterfowl, divers versus dabblers. You are what you eat! If you have ever eaten a diving duck that eats fish and other goodies off the bottom of the water body, there is no comparison to the taste of a dabbler. Night and day! Unless my old eyes deceive me, I will pass on a shot at a diver in the field. Tastes better than going hungry, that is for sure but you get my meaning.

Jerry

Love the cooking pics Jerry, you are making me salivate over here!

Hey Mike,
Is that salivatin' thing kinda' like droolin'?
Jerry, that's some fine lookin' red meat! Bruce is 100% on the handling of the venison, treat it with the utmost care and it can't be beat, at least at our place! Going to do a venison fry tomorrow night for a friend's birthday supper. Might post a picture or two of the process since folks are gettin' ready for the season to start.
Treefarmer

Since huntin' season is beginning and we need some incentive to go out there and bust ol' Bambi, here is what happens at our house. Miss Joy prepares a pot of rice, a pot of southern peas, a pot of silver queen corn, cream style and some fried corn bread. My job is to cook the venison and then make the gravy. For our friends birthday supper last night, we had fried venison ham. Processed at home the ham or hind leg muscles are simply separated, silver skin removed and then cut cross grain into 1/4" thick pieces, thus fry meat.
The process is then quite simple as shown in the following pictures, season, dredge in flour, quick fry in very hot peanut oil for 90 seconds (got too busy frying that I failed to get a picture of the meat in the oil ), finished product and then the skillet of gravy to cover the rice. We mustn't forget a big pitcher of sweet tea to wash it all down .
This stuff is real good, but in no way compares to a broiled, bacon wrapped tenderloin or for that matter a thick sliced (1") piece of backstrap, a boneless chop treated properly .
Treefarmer

Looks great TF!

Goooooooooooooooooooood Looooord Philip......man, that sounds somethin' tasty.
We have no meals like that here.....


Listen, this pic came to me moments ago.....

I call it: OUTDOORSMAN of the 70's EDC!!

........fff, that looks like one of my reels!!!..............is it a pflueger???............. .................

no sir.....it's a SHAKESPEARE TRUE BLUE 1956

.........that's a good reel, too!!!.......... ................

Scott, here's a True Blue 1956. It has letters "fe" on the plate. This stand for beginning mfg. date 1956.
This is coincidental to the model number ....... I think.
I'm so gun shy on this stuff any more because I'm often wrong.

See Shakespeare dating chart ..............

I should probably clean mine up.....yours is a beauty Joe!!

Real nice Scott and Joe. I just love old fishing and hunting gear. It is sad alot of people abuse their gear these days and think "I'll just buy another". I have some of my Dad's fishing gear To dig out at some point. Nothing fancy but point is he took care of it and I still have it.

Thanks much for sharing Gents. Great old gear there!

Jerry

I had that set when I was a kid (only my knife was a western L39, same pattern though). Those old Shakespeare reals were backlash city for a 12 year old. I've told this before but my mom got the knife with trading stamps ( green stamps or plaid stamps. Had to be one of the two. She collected both.). I'd bet you a dime to a hole in a donut the rod & reel came from the same place.

Treefarmer and JerryZ - you two are killing me with those food photos! So tantalising that I am going to have to stop reading this topic before dinner. I will get my revenge by posting a photo of my fried fish. Seriously, great photos and stories, fellows.

Nice shots of those old reels, too, Joe and Scott. JerryD, interesting that you should mention backlashes. I used a similar reel when I was young and spent a goodly amount of time getting the backlashes out. A couple of months ago I bought a new Daiwa baitcast reel made on the same lines. Well, I hoped that after fifty years things would have changed: guess what, it is still backlash city for me! I was out in the driveway this afternoon getting the backlash from yesterday out of the reel. Sigh... I just need to stick to my spincast reels.

Knice RED Mel!

I remember the first time I attempted a bait caster.....man, I couldn't believe there was such a stupid reel ever invented. Now, well, I love 'em!! Too bad I haven't been bass fishing in 4 years

That's a fine lookin' red fish, Dinadan!
Remembering the old bait casting reels and the braided black line of 65 years ago, I think we all had trouble as kids. My old dad loved to fish and when he got into open faced spinning reels, I got the old stuff but finally, one day, I somehow got a Mitchell 300. What a pleasure! I use both type reels now but prefer a little ultra-light open face, 4 pound line and a tiny little Rapala floating minnow or a little spinner bait.
Show use a big plate fried fish and all the trimmings, it's great to see what others do with the bounty of this ol' earth .
Treefarmer

Phil the Mitchell 300 was the reel that made fishing fun!
I started out using the old bait casters and it was backlash city for me too!
I remember getting a spincast reel, probably a Zebco, and that was much better but they still had problems with backlash, just not on every cast!

But the Mitchell 300 was the reel that made fishing an enjoyable, relaxing and FUN sport!
Like Mel I got a new bait caster several years ago, they still don't like me!
I still have one Mitchell 300, one my dad gave me, though I can't remember the last time I used it.

Mostly now I use Shimano reels, I have several models, as long as you get the ones with ball bearings in them they all seem to hold up well. I still use Shimano reels I bought 20+ years ago. They still work great. I think my two favorite Shimanos I have and use most every fishing trip are the Sedona and the Sienna. They have each caught hundreds of fish!

Here is a pic of my granddaughter last week when we went fishing. We had just launched in the Willamette River and were going to motor up to the Luckimute River to fish. She casted out while I was starting the motor and pulled in a nice 3+ lb Smallie! She caught the biggest fish of the day.

MAn, took ya long enough to post a a pic Dale.... (jk)

KNice one!