Processing Game Yourself: Jerky

Jerky is almost as easy to make as the breakfast sausage… with the right tools. For many years I made jerky by slicing a roast thin, marinating the slices, and dehydrating them. The end product was inconsistent… some batches would taste great with great texture while other batches would develop undesirable flavors and be tough as boot leather. I stopped making jerky for several years while I searched for a more reliable jerky option.

Once I acquired a meat grinder I decided to try some jerky again, but this time using ground meat instead of roast slices. I found that I much prefer the texture of the ground meat jerky rather than the roast slices. I also found that whether it be a family jerky recipe or a seasoning kit there are so many different varieties of flavors out there that you should be able to find a flavor suitable for just about anybody’s taste. As mentioned before, I have had excellent success with the Hi Mountain brand seasonings and over the years I have tried just about every one of their jerky flavors.

I make my jerky using 100% game meat, no adding of pork or any fats. This year I set aside 18 pounds of ground pronghorn in three 6 pound portions to make jerky. I grind the meat first through the course plate of my grinder then again through the fine plate. This gives the end product a very smooth texture and helps me evenly mix the seasoning and cure.

Six pound portions of Spicy Lime, Bourbon BBQ, and Hickory flavored pronghorn jerky.

Once the meat is ground I mix the seasoning and cure with ice water in a small measuring cup before pouring it over the ground meat. With gloved hands I mix the seasoning and cure into the ground meat for several minutes. The cure will begin to make the meat sticky to the touch and once this happens I place the seasoned meat back into the baggie and then place the baggie in the fridge to allow the cure to continue to work its magic. I generally leave the seasoned meat in the fridge overnight. This does take some planning, since I allow the meat to marinate in the fridge overnight. I plan carefully to do this step the day before I’m actually planning to start jerky on the dehydrator.

If I’m making multiple flavors of jerky I will process one flavor at a time so that I don’t get “cross-contamination” of flavors… unless that combination of flavors is wanted. After removing the bag of seasoned meat from the fridge I use my jerky gun to pump out jerky strips. My jerky gun has nozzles to pump out two different sized jerky strips… one large strip that is about 1.5” wide and two small strips that are about ¾” wide. I have made jerky with both and I think both definitely have their application. The smaller strips don’t take near as much time in the dehydrator and they are the perfect size for kids to eat as a snack at home. The wider strips are great for a good protein snack while out hiking, fishing, or hunting. I only made smaller strips this year because I still have a couple of vacuum sealed packs of the wider strips in the freezer.

With the meat loaded in the jerky gun the process is similar to using a caulk gun, with every pull of the trigger the meat is extruded through the nozzle onto the dehydrator tray.


I like to make sure there is a good amount of space between the strips on the dehydrator tray to ensure good heat circulation around the sticks. The small strip nozzle that I have can pump out two strips at once, but I find that I get a much more uniform and consistent jerky strip if I cover one side and only extrude one strip at a time.


Depending on your personal taste and your dehydrator, the amount of time the jerky will be in the dehydrator will vary. I prefer a jerky that still has a tiny bit of moisture in it and this year the small strips took between 4.5 and 5 hours to dehydrate to where I like them.


I remove the strips of jerky from the dehydrator and put them in an open plastic bag on the kitchen counter to cool. I often loose several strips here because the wife and kids get to them and want to try some while they’re still warm. This gives me some valuable early feedback though and they let me know their opinion of the flavoring. I found that three pounds of ground meat generally dehydrates down to one pound of jerky, so from the 18 pounds of ground pronghorn I started with I actually packaged up about 6 pounds of jerky.

The 6lb portion of Bourbon BBQ ground meat yielded ~2lbs of finished jerky.

Once cool, I use kitchen shears to cut the long strips in half or into thirds and vacuum seal them for long term storage. The vacuum sealing and freezing also allows me to portion control the kids a bit better as well… if I were to just leave the jerky out on the counter I could go through several pounds of jerky in a matter of days but this allows me to make it last a lot longer.


I vacuum seal 8 to 10 strips of jerky in each package and freeze. One challenge with vacuum sealing the jerky strips is that the ends of the jerky can sometimes have jagged points or sharp edges that can puncture the vacuum bag from the inside causing a loss of the vacuum seal. I learned a new trick to reduce these punctures and subsequent bag failures. I took regular old plastic sandwich bags and cut them in half giving me two 6” x 6” plastic sheets and I wrapped the 8 to 10 strips of jerky in one of these sheets before putting them in the vacuum bag and sealing them. I didn’t have a single vacuum bag failure this year while sealing the packages of jerky.


I’ve used a number of the Hi Mountain seasoning kits and my favorites are hickory, spicy lime, and cracked pepper & garlic blends. Cajun, inferno, mesquite, pepper, and pepperoni blends were pretty good. I wasn’t a fan of the mandarin teriyaki, sweet & spicy, or bourbon bbq blends. Hi Mountain makes a couple different “variety packs” that gives you a chance to test out several different flavors and identify the ones that you prefer. Once you identify the flavors that you like, don’t be afraid to experiment a bit by adding your own ingredients or mixing flavors… these seasoning kits really just give you a foundation to start with and you can build up from there. One thing that I was hoping to try this year but forgot until it was too late and I had already mixed all the seasoning and cure with the meat was to add some liquid smoke to the ice water & seasoning/cure mixture to hopefully give the jerky a nice smokey flavor… maybe next year I’ll remember.

Making jerky has been an excellent way for me and my family to enjoy wild game meats throughout the year as a fun snack.

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Next: Processing Game Yourself: Snack Sticks & Summer Sausage

Processing Game Yourself: Breakfast Sausage

Once all the steaks and roasts are in the freezer I begin to plan and prepare for the products that require seasonings, cures, and mixes to create the final product. I make several different products from kits like breakfast sausage, jerky, snack sticks, and summer sausages. The easiest of these preparations is breakfast sausage.

Honestly, making venison breakfast sausage has allowed my family to utilize more venison that just about anything else I have made. Using the coarse grinding plate on my grinder I grind all the trim meat and carefully weigh it.


I realized in the list of equipment from the first Processing Game Yourself post I failed to include a kitchen scale, my current scale is from Harbor Freight. When utilizing the various commercial sausage or jerky kits, having the ability to precisely weigh the meat and measure seasonings is essential to a quality final product. A kitchen scale is critical, it doesn't have to be fancy but get one and use it frequently. I separate the ground meat into 5lb portions and place them in gallon freezer bags then put them in the freezer. I generally wait until after hunting season to process everything that I make from the ground meat. In the above picture on the right I have 51lbs of ground venison, 18lbs of ground pronghorn, and 18lbs of ground pork.

Venison breakfast sausage is best when mixed with pork or pork fat. The exact ratio will need to be determined through trial and error to match your tastes. I have used venison to pork ratios as low as 5:1 (pounds venison to pounds pork) and as high as 1:1. My family prefers a ratio somewhere on the higher side so I like to target a ratio of at least 2:1. I ask my wife to buy several of the “fattiest” pork roasts that she can find on “Manager’s Special” at the local grocery store and run them through the grinder using the course plate and portion the pork in the same manner as the venison in 5lb gallon freezer bags until I have time to mix the sausage. Some grocery stores will have straight pork fat available around the holidays, I haven't been able to find any at my local grocer but I haven't really looked that hard... straight pork fat can reduce the venison:pork ratio or produce an end product that isn't as lean.

I have had excellent results with the Hi Mountain Country Maple Breakfast Sausage kit… in fact I prefer the Hi Mountain brand over just about every brand out there & use their products almost exclusively. Each breakfast sausage kit yields 24 pounds of finished product so I set out the appropriate amount of ground venison and pork to thaw. This year I had a little seasoning left over from last year so I made 25 pounds of maple breakfast sausage and used 3 bags of ground venison (15lbs) and 2 bags of ground pork (10lbs). I have found that adding a little extra seasoning helps bring out that maple flavor, I had read reviews on these types of products that mixing by the manufacturer's instructions yields a mild to weak flavor so I've always gone a little heavy on seasoning for a stronger flavor.

I mix in the sausage seasoning and cure by hand, it’s a great arm and hand workout with frequent breaks to let my hands warm up enough for feeling to return to fingertips before plunging them back into the pot to continue mixing. Always, always, always mix the seasonings and cures into ground meats that are cold! Once all the dry seasonings are incorporated into the meat I dump it all out onto the counter and knead it like a big batch of bread dough, the kids enjoy getting in on this part. After several minutes of mixing the sausage is ready to be weighed out into 1 pound portions, placed in freezer bags, and put in the freezer. The kids like the breakfast sausage so much that I don’t bother packaging it any further beyond freezer bags… it’s never in the freezer long enough to worry about freezer burn.


My kids have been waiting for months for this latest batch of breakfast sausage so that Mom can finally make biscuits and gravy again... scratch made biscuits w/ venison sausage country gravy... it's just that good. When cooking the breakfast sausage my wife has found it to be very lean so she will take a generous scoop of bacon grease (the same bacon grease that she saves for me when I smoke a roast) and brown the sausage in bacon grease. Initially we would cut patties from the 1lb sausage logs but now we don’t go to that trouble and we just brown it into large-ish chunks and serve it as sausage "crumbles" with scrambled eggs and French toast/pancakes/waffles.

This year, since I ended up with 3 deer and had plenty of ground venison to experiment with some new seasonings, I decided to try the chorizo flavored breakfast sausage from Hi Mountain. I wanted to do something a little different than the 1lb bags so I purchased some LEM brand sheep casings from Amazon to make breakfast links.


I mixed up 12lbs of chorizo flavored sausage with a 7lbs ground venison and 5lbs ground pork ratio. I mixed the pork and venison ground well by hand, added the seasoning and cure, then ran it through the course grind plate again just to ensure it was well mixed. From there I put the seasoned meat into the sausage stuffer and filled the casings. I hadn’t worked with natural casings in a long time but I found them very easy to work with, in fact I would consider them easier to work with than the collagen casings I use for snack sticks.


With all the casings filled I divided them into 4 to 5 inch links, portioned them out, and vacuum sealed them before putting them in the freezer. I portioned the sausage links into several “family packs” that contained 16 links (in my family that's 2 links/person), several “regular packs” that contain 8 links that I can share with my family and friends, and couple packages of the odd length ends. The only challenge I faced with preparing the chorizo breakfast sausage links was that I overfilled a couple of the casings and it was difficult to make some of the links without bursting the casing. I’m happy with the end result visually, I’ll have to report back on how they cook up and taste. It was a fun process to stuff the casings and something new that we can try this year.


I have completely modified how I butcher deer because my family enjoys it so much. To ensure there is enough ground venison to make it I haven't cut roasts from a front quarter in years… all the trim and the entire front quarters of every deer I’ve got for the last several years has been ground to ensure I have enough for breakfast sausage. If you end up with a bunch of unused meat at the end of the year in the bottom of your freezer or tire of the standard ground venison uses… try making some breakfast sausage to utilize it.

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Previous: Processing Game Yourself: Steaks & Roast
Next: Processing Game Yourself: Jerky

Processing Game Yourself: Steak & Roast

As you process your own game animal the easiest pieces to get to the final product are the steaks and roasts. With no additional processing like grinding, seasoning, curing, or stuffing the steak and roast cuts are always the first to get into my freezer.

Steaks and roasts from my 2015 cow elk

Since the majority of the steaks and roasts come from the hind quarter and the backstrap go back refresh yourself on the second and third videos from the Dead On Hunting series. Refer back to the videos as needed to learn the proper names of the cuts and roasts.



I’m always impressed when I talk to somebody that processes their own game and they know the proper names for the different cuts. They immediately achieve a certain level of credibility.

In years past I completely processed all the roasts into steaks and they were good on the grill, however I no longer cut roasts into steaks before wrapping and freezing. I have found three advantages to leaving roasts whole.

First, it’s an additional protection from freezer burn. When steaks are sliced before freezing I create additional surface area that could possibly be affected. With a solid wrapping process I have lost very little meat to freezer burn over the last several years, but leaving roasts whole eliminates this additional unnecessary risk.

Second, those cuts that are uniform in thickness grill up very nicely whole. I ‘m referring specifically to backstraps, tenderloins, the bottom roundand I’m able to achieve ideal internal temperatures for medium-rare steak much easier with these larger cuts.

Third, once you cut a roast into steaks you cannot go back! I’ve actually had occasions where I wanted to throw a roast on the smoker only to dig through my freezer and find several wraps of steaks but no roasts. If I would have left those steaks as roasts I would have had something for the smoker. You can always create steaks from roasts, but you cannot create roasts from steaks!

My preferred way to cook a roast is on the smoker. The best preparation for a very lean wild game roast I have found starts with coating the roast with a generous layer of bacon fat (left). I have my wife save all the rendered bacon fat and I spend a good bit of time rubbing the bacon grease into the muscle fibers, as the body heat from my hands warms the bacon grease it creates a smooth layer of fat on the roast. I then add a layer of spicy brown mustard on top of the bacon fat and coat the whole exterior of the roast (middle). Finally, I add a layer of rub onto the meat (right). I don’t do anything special for the rub, I’ve been pretty happy with the various store bought rubs that I have tried. You can go straight to the smoker or place the roast in a plastic bag and put it in the fridge for a little while. I tend to let it set in the fridge for at least a couple hours but I prefer overnight.


Set your smoker settings for however you prefer to smoke… hot & fast or low & slow, it’s all your preference. I prefer a low & slow technique because I a charcoal grill with a side smoker box which lacks the temperature controls that many of the newer smokers provide. I like hickory and pecan for wild game roasts but I’ve used other woods that I thought would complement the specific flavoring of the rub used. If you have a pellet grill there are several blends that I’m sure would produce a fantastic tasting smoked wild game roast. Honestly, I’ve yet to find one I didn’t think was delicious.

This was my Super Bowl Party grill from last year.  The two deer roasts were prepared with bacon grease, spicy brown mustard, and a store bought rub.  When the mother-in-law goes back for seconds, thirds, and is upset when there isn't any there for fourths you know you have done something right. And the chicken drumsticks were mighty fine as well.

I prefer a medium-rare cut of meat, so I smoke until the roast reaches an internal temperature of about 135°F then I remove the roast and wrap it in foil. I like to plan so that the roast is done far in advance of the meal so that it can rest for a good long while wrapped in foil. When it’s time to eat I just unwrap and slice the roast across the grain of the muscle fibers. The results have consistently been excellent.


Leftover smoked roast is almost always taken and sliced thin and then eaten the next day in a sandwich and if there’s more then than can fit on a sandwich (which is rare because the roast either gets eaten or the sandwich gets stacked extremely high) then I take the sliced roast and vacuum seal it and throw it in the freezer.


When I don’t have enough time to fuss over smoking a roast and I just want some quick grilled steaks, I throw the roast on the grill with a little bit of kosher salt for seasoning. Depending on the roast, I’ll either throw it on the grill whole or cut it into steaks. I prefer the backstraps, tenderloins, and eye of round left whole, but I generally make a gametime decision with the top or bottom round whether I cut them into steaks or leave them whole. I grill to medium-rare and allow the roast or steak to rest for a few minutes. On a recent deer hunt I prepared two small pronghorn backstrap roasts and marinated them using of the McCormick’s Grill Mates marinades and it was pretty darn good. I’m not usually a huge fan of marinades for steaks but this was really good. I might investigate more of the Grill Mates marinades in the future.

I grilled both whole roasts and pre-cut steaks here... the whole roasts were much juicier and more tender and were cooked to medium-rare.  The pre-cut steaks were still pretty good but were slightly overcooked to medium-well.

Whole meat jerky can be cut from roasts, and one recipe I’m tempted to try sometime is to make venison pastrami. Ultimately, I have found that I have a lot more versatility if I leave the roasts whole rather than cut them into steaks right away.

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Processing Game Yourself

Many years ago I killed my first cow elk. I barely had enough experience to field dress the animal let alone do any final processing so I decided to take the elk to a processor. Four weeks and more money that I cared to pay later I received the meat back. I had requested steaks, roasts, some ground and some salami. For the most part the end product of steak, roast, and salami was satisfactory however on more than one occasion when browning ground for dinner my wife found hair and bone fragment. She refused to use or eat any remaining meat from that elk. I decided at that point to learn to process a game animal and take the money that I would have paid a processor to acquire the equipment over time to process my own game. The end result has been a product that exceeds the quality of that particular processor and over the years has improved as my own processing methods has become refined.

I don’t have anything spectacular in terms of equipment, most was acquired on a strict budget and I’ve strategically upgraded as needed. I found a series of very good processing videos by Dead On Hunting on YouTube and watched them repeatedly. I still reference them and share them with friends who ask me for tips or pointers. Here are links to the series of videos, there are four videos with each video specifically focusing on one portion of the animal in detail.

Part 1: Breaking down the whole carcass into quarters


Part 2: Processing the hind quarters


Part 3: Processing the backstrap


Part 4: Processing the neck and front shoulder


For the most part I follow these videos when breaking the animal down into quarters then the large muscle groups. A couple exceptions are I generally keep the backstrap intact with the loin section and I don’t cut the large roasts or backstraps into steaks/chops before wrapping and putting them in the freezer. I find that I get a better product on my plate if I leave the large muscle groups whole and cut the steaks either right before or right after grilling. In my opinion, the backstrap is best when cut or thinly sliced after grilling. This gives greater control over cooking to specific temps (like medium rare) compared to grilling small individual steaks which tend to over-cook quickly.

I inspect each cut with painstaking tediousness for hair or debris and remove as much fat and silver skin possible. I have limited time to sit down and butcher my game animals, generally two to three hours after the kids go to bed to dedicate to butchering each night so I tend to spread out butchering over two or three nights for a deer. Initially it may have taken four or five nights so I’m getting more proficient but I’m also getting more particular. If you take your time the end product benefits from it.

So let’s discuss some of the equipment that I have accumulated over the last several years. I’ll share some tips and tricks in future posts that I’ve learned with each piece of equipment when we talk about specific uses in making sausage or jerky.

Initially, and for several years, I processed only using a hunting knife and a generic kitchen cutting board. This worked well enough and we enjoyed many years of steaks and roasts. After a few years of just simple cuts of meat and having a surplus build up in the freezer over time. I felt guilty that my family wasn’t utilizing the meat harvested to its fullness so I looked for other ways to utilize the meat.

I purchased a small and inexpensive meat grinder from Harbor Freight. Although there are many bigger grinders with more bells and whistles, this grinder has outperformed my expectations without question and grinds meat pretty much as fast as I can stuff it down the neck. Make sure you print off the 20% off coupon for additional savings too.

I now use a small 6” fillet knife and a slightly larger 8” boning knife rather than using my hunting knives (I still use my wife's cutting board which results in a strict warning to clean it good when I'm all done each night). The fillet knife (wood handle) is great for filleting the silver skin off the meat and minimizing meat loss from trimming. The boning knife (white handle) is great for getting meat off the bone and breaking down the quarters into the large muscle groups.

For many years I stuffed snack sticks using the attachments on the grinder and that worked well enough however stuffing sticky cured meat through a grinder again was challenging and time consuming so I purchased a dedicated sausage stuffer from Amazon. Like the grinder, there are more sophisticated options out there but this inexpensive hand crank model has been a revelation and reduced my stuffed sausage and snack stick production time dramatically.

I was gifted a small jerky gun and I’ve really enjoyed using it. I prefer ground meat jerky compared to whole meat sliced jerky, I find that I prefer the texture and feel I get better seasoning distribution. I rarely made jerky prior to receiving the jerky gun, but now it’s one of the first things on the list and the kids especially enjoy it.

Several years ago I began smoking meats on my grill/smoker and I would borrow a small folding kitchen slicer from my mother to slice smoked roasts into lunch meat. She must have tired of me borrowing it and gave me a similar small Harbor Freight slicer for Christmas a couple years ago. It works ok, but is currently the one piece of equipment that I want to upgrade to a larger deli style slicer.

Initially I simply put meat into freezer bags but over time I learned that when I cleaned out the freezer every year I would end up with random bags of freezer burnt mystery meat that would get discarded because we couldn’t identify the meat or the cut. My current packaging process is to wrap steaks/roasts tightly with plastic wrap followed by wrapping it in plastic backed butcher paper. I have kept steaks and roasts freezer burn free for more than two years using this method. With a Sharpie marker I write the species, cut, quantity, and date on the outside of the wrap so that the contents are easily identifiable. As I have shared with my family I am complimented regularly that my packaging and labeling is impressive and adds to the final product.

I started out with an inexpensive 4 tray circular shaped dehydrator (left) and used that for many years (I still use it for one-off projects). Because I didn’t do jerky often it never was a point of concern or deficiency. However, the jerky gun has dramatically improved the product I can create and also increased my potential productivity and magnified how deficient that little dehydrator was. I upgraded last year to a largeer 10 tray model from Cabela’s (right) and was a great investment and significant upgrade.

Lastly, as soon as I started making sausages, jerky, and snack sticks I needed a way to preserve them long term beyond just sticking them in a plastic baggie, throwing them in the freezer, and hoping to eat them before the freezer burn ruined them. My wife got me a small Seal-a-Meal vacuum sealer for Christmas a couple years ago and now I vacuum seal all sausage, jerky, and snack sticks. I’ll share some fun tips with the vacuum sealer that I do for jerky in a later post.

One would think that the biggest benefit in processing your own game would be the cost. This is a definite benefit but I consider that secondary. The greatest benefit to me is customization. First, I can customize the package sizes. My family is large, and I can create large wraps of steaks so that my wife only has to grab one wrap to thaw rather than juggle several wraps from the freezer to the kitchen. Second, I can do anything that I want with my game meat. I’m not beholden to a butcher’s “house” jerky or sausage recipe. I can grind however much or however little I want and can do so whenever I want. I can slice steaks and wrap them or I can leave all the large cuts whole and cut them later. If I decide that I want to try making something new or try a new flavor or seasoning I absolutely can. The ability to do this has given me the freedom to experiment and utilize every ounce of game meat that I have in my freezer faster than I ever could have imagined. I used to throw spoiled freezer burnt meat out after years of it sitting in the bottom of my freezer… now I’m guilt free with an empty freezer by summertime.

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Next: Processing Game Yourself - Steak & Roast

Utah Late Season Limited Entry Buck Deer

Back in February when my friend Cody was asking me about which limited entry deer hunt he should apply for, I embarked on a journey to convince him to apply for one of the new late season muzzleloader hunts. The dates would coincide with the muzzleloader elk and in previous years I had seen some very nice bucks. As a non-resident and having a handful of points already it was a substantial risk for him to take. He took the bait and submitted his application for the late muzzy hunt.
Odds were very good for him to draw, so when results were posted it wasn’t entirely unexpected when he text me. Even though it was expected it was still exciting and we began making plans for a scouting strategy. We purchased a couple more trail cameras and I was able to place and check them a couple times. Here are some of the bucks that had us especially excited:


The plan was for us to hunt the last half of the week so Cody booked a flight that would arrive late Sunday evening on November 4th. We arrived at the cabin about 10:30pm and prepared for the first morning of hunting. Sleep didn’t come easy for either of us and Monday morning came quickly. We hopped in the truck and headed for a vantage point to begin working the ridges. As soon as we got set up I spotted a nice buck cruising up the next ridge with his nose to the ground. He was trucking right along and there was no way for us to make a play on him and Cody decided that he wasn’t quite a “first morning” type buck anyway. Our plan was to work our way south but the wind was wrong so we turned and worked our way into the wind heading north. We ended up seeing a ton of deer but no bucks worth further pursuit. So we headed back to the cabin for a sandwich.
After lunch the wind had shifted so we decided to revisit our morning plan and work our way south into a large bowl that always seems to have game. As soon as we began dropping into the bowl I spotted a small group of deer down in the bottom. We sat and glassed a cluster of trees in the bottom for several minutes and spotted a couple deer working in and out of the trees. Cody decided that it was time to take matters into his own hands and be the aggressor. The wind was actually quite perfect for a stalk so he got the wind in his face and slowly made his way towards the trees while I sat and watched from about 600 yards away.
I lost his location as he neared the clump of trees and thought that the deer must have made their way out of there earlier unnoticed. Movement caught my eye as a doe burst from the trees… followed by another… then another. There were deer coming out of the trees everywhere, more than I anticipated. I scanned the deer searching for anything with antlers and didn’t see anything. Then in the bottom left of the field of view of my binos I saw something different. I noticed a large set of antlers protruding from the head of the last deer to emerge from the trees and almost as soon as I spotted him I was startled by the report of a muzzleloader. The buck ran a short distance and then slowly started working his way up a small fold in the bowl. A second muzzleloader blast caught me off guard and I just happened to be watching the buck at the time of the shot. The buck appeared to jump and quickly made his way to the top of a small clearing in the shade and stood motionless for several minutes. I thought that he was hit but by the way that he was acting it likely wasn’t a very good hit.
Cody slowly emerged from the trees and was glassing the area in front of him. I couldn’t tell if he could see the buck or not, so after several minutes I left my perch and hustled down to meet with Cody to let him know where the buck was. As I was nearing Cody’s location he started waiving frantically at me and I was waiving frantically back at him. Cody had seen the buck bed down and didn’t want me to spook it by coming in noisily while I was wanting to let him know to slow down because we really didn’t want to be pushing what I had thought was a poorly hit buck.
Once we realized we were on the same page, he let me know that both shots were actually misses and the buck was currently unharmed. While Cody and I were planning our next move we watched as 14 does that had scattered from the trees made their way back to where the buck was now bedded and just milled around him. I had never seen that before, this buck was the boss of that little group… the does actually came back to him!
We worked our way to within shooting range again but the buck was bedded with a number of does very near him so there really wasn’t much of a shot opportunity with the only part of his body visible being his face and antlers. So we waited… but Cody lost patience and took what was likely an ill-advised shot on a bedded buck with very little margin for error. After the smoke cleared the deer were gone so we began scanning the area where he was bedded and caught glimpses of deer scurrying through the trees in various directions. We scanned deer to the left and all were does, then some more movement caught our attention up and to the left of where they were bedded. The lead deer in this group was the buck so Cody readied his rifle. As the buck stepped into a small clearing in the trees he stopped, turned and looked back at the handful of does trailing him as if to tell them to hurry it up, and gave Cody just the half second he needed. The rifle barked, I watched the buck react to the impact, and then begin rolling down the hill.
The buck died half buried in some brush, so we untangled him and were pleasantly surprised and very pleased with the caliber of buck that was laying on the ground in front of us.



It was between 3 and 3:30pm so we worked quickly at getting the buck quartered, bagged, and hung hoping that we could be back to the truck by dark. Several years ago I shot a bull elk just a couple hundred yards away and I knew that the pack out would be grueling. I loaded my pack with a front and hind quarter, the neck meat, backstraps and tenderloins. Cody loaded himself up with the other front and hind quarters and the head. By 4:30pm we were starting the 2 mile hike that would have us gain back more than 1000 feet elevation. Needless to say we didn’t make it back before dark, it ended up taking us about 2 hours to reach the truck.
Returning to the cabin we hung the quarters outside, ate some dinner, and decided that Tuesday would be a “recovery” day.
The focus from here on out would be elk. So Tuesday morning we woke up and drove to a glassing point where we could glass from the truck. We didn’t spot anything in the morning so we returned to the cabin for lunch and drove around checking out a number of other locations where we could glass. We didn’t see any elk on Tuesday.
Well recovered, we decided to go big or go home on Wednesday and planned to make a big loop retrieving all my trail cameras hunting along the way. We covered a lot of ground that day and didn’t see any elk. We did turn up plenty of moose and another good buck… but no elk. We came across a couple other guys and they corroborated what we were seeing, they had hunted the area hard since the hunt opened and hadn’t seen an elk either. That night as we ate dinner we licked our wounds and discussed the plan for the next day. Not overly optimistic at the possibility of seeing an elk, we decided to take it easy Thursday morning, do some glassing, and if we didn’t see anything we would come back and head for home.
Thursday morning passed about as uneventful as ever so by lunchtime we found ourselves on the road back to civilization. As discouraging as it has been elk hunting this area over the last two years, the buck that Cody was able to shoot made this hunt an unquestionable success.

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