Deer Camp Rehash

I'm not sure how I missed this post but it would appear that one of our missing deer camp members has been living it-up over in Malaysia.

We've been hunting our behinds into submission while he parties.

Where is the justice?

Here is The Impromptu Traveler performing an awesome karaoke of Elvis...

Deer Camp Rehash

I discovered an additional use for leftover Thanksgiving wild turkey.

Top a pizza crust with grated Renard's natural mozzarella, chunks of wild turkey breast, chopped artichoke hearts, sweet onion, basil and garlic.

Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

Approach for Landing

SinissippiGal emailed me this cool action shot of a female eagle.

Deer Camp Winds Down

That red pine sapling that you see to the left isn’t going to make it.

It has been stripped bare and girdled by a buck marking his territory.

Deer camp is winding down.

And a good year it has been.

Our crew of six bagged four deer so far this year and there still remains some hunting to be done. Although I’d be the first to admit that it is difficult to be motivated when the freezers are packed to the gills with yummy venison and pheasants.

So I’ve been puttering in the kitchen and reading by the fire.

The Frau suggested I go out and knock one down for the hungry. That’s probably a good idea as deer donations are down significantly this year. Probably due to the wounded economy and maybe reduced deer numbers.

Who knows?

Cooked-up a big old wild turkey for the family on Thanksgiving. It was awesome. Made a big old batch of turkey soup yesterday for supper. It was awesome.

Like I said - cooking and getting caught-up on my reading.

I’ve been digging this book by Jon Krakauer – Under the Banner of Heaven. It’s as good as any of the other stuff he’s written such as Into Thin Air and Into the Wild. If you like contemporary and religious history with a dose of depravity I recommend it. When I'm done with this I need to get my hands on a copy of his story about Pat Tillman.

Took all the recyclables and garbage to the dump today. I was hoping to get some of the skinny on the local hunt but nobody besides the caretaker was there. I did notice some groups conducting some deer drives however.

Maybe I should go out and sit. Something just might get pushed my way.

The Frau and I went out this afternoon and cut a Christmas tree and a bunch of spruce and pine boughs for holiday decorating. What fragrance!

The ponds froze over last night and the creek is running.

The Campingplatz Redirects

Wisconsin's traditional deer hunt begins soon.

And I am sitting here at the platz wondering where I am going to find the time to update both this blog and the original blog.

Top-level management has determined that for the duration of the nine-day Wisconsin gun deer hunt you visit the original blog for a running commentary on this year's hunt.

Any posts that are published here will be evidence of idle time and no deer.

Obama's Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner

Dead Fish

Behold the finest of sardines and almost perfect cocktail hour or breakfast food.

Breakfast? Cocktail hour? What gives?

Seriously - if you serve these on saltines with your favorite adult beverage you have an instant cocktail hour hors d'œuvre .

Serve them on toast with a hot cuppa joe and you have breakfast!

And brisling sardines are the standard upon-which all sardines are to be judged.

And King Oscar brisling sardines are the gold standard.

Oh sure. You're probably thinking - That's about as appealing as eating bait.

Pish tosh. I've been eating these since I was a wee kleiner Junge.

And I have 10 more tins safely ensconced in the pantry for deer camp.

Yes.

Deer camp is just around the corner.

Ooooh...Pie

One de-boned pheasant cut into pieces. Skip the legs.

Olive oil and chopped garlic

Chopped celery, butternut squash, potato, carrots, peas and pearl onions – slightly precooked but not soft and mushy. Go for blanched. You’ll want enough to fill a couple of pie tins.

Butter

About two cups of chicken stock

1 c of milk

½ c of Half and Half or light cream

Fresh rosemary

2 frozen pie crusts (the kind that you unroll). Thaw to room temperature.

Sauté the pheasant pieces along with olive oil, garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Cook until well browned. Set aside and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Bring the stock to a boil in a small pot. In a saucepan melt 5T of butter. Whisk in ½ c of flour. Add the stock, the milk and the cream. Bring to a boil until thickened.

Add the cooked pheasant and the veggies to a pie pan. Sprinkle with rosemary, sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. Ladle-in the cream mixture.

Drape the pie plate with your pie crust and crimp the edge to seal. Cut some vents in the dough.

Beat an egg with 2T of water and brush the top of the crust.

Bake for 40 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve with a bold red wine.

Makes two 9-inch pies.

Don’t hunt? Substitute boneless, skinless turkey or chicken breast.

Recipe adapted from the November, 2009 issue of Field and Stream.

The Return of the Hippie Bus

One of the side benefits of South Dakota pheasant hunting is that you get to sleep-in.

Legal hunting is 10 AM to sunset. So unlike turkey hunting, duck hunting and deer hunting there is none of that nonsense of getting-up in the wee morning hours and stumbling about in the dark trying to feel your way to a blind. Which might possibly be a contributing factor to the persistent rumor of snoozing in hunting blinds.

Because of the later start - pheasant hunting allows for poker games and late night bull sessions to ensue with little risk of sleep deprivation.














Unlike sleeping in your deer stand – pheasant hunting actually requires that you tramp about.

The birds hunker down in whatever cover affords them the best form of concealment – be it grassland, agricultural crops or swampy sloughs.

And as of last weekend South Dakota has harvested only half of its beans and 12 percent of its corn. And things were rather wet.

We pushed a lot of corn, grass and soggy bottomland in an attempt to get those birds up in the air.

Ordinarily we’d move about from place to place throughout the day with our trucks. But this year we resurrected what we affectionately refer to as the Hippie Bus.

This clunker – with its paratrooper-style seating arrangement - can easily haul eight dogs, twelve hunters and our gear. At the end of the day – clean-up is easy – you simply kick open the back exit door and hose it out.

This year uncle Glenn got the bus stuck in a bean field.

South Dakota Works Its Magic

The Rock and I drove straight home from SD today – stopping only for coffee, gas, breakfast and more gas.

Girlfriend - aka Mighty Dog (that lovely Lab on the left in the picture below) really worked her own magic. Flushing birds out of heavy cover, working water-logged bottom lands and completing some great retrieves on wounded birds trying to make a run for it.

When she saw us packing the truck this morning she took refuge under the dining room table hoping we wouldn’t take her from her vacation.

The dogs worked hard this year. One of the Labs came-up lame and was down for the count. A few other dogs were limping and Girlfriend ran into a barbed wire fence yesterday chasing a bird.

She’s fine though – excepting for some irritation on her tummy.

With the exception of a Minnesota pit stop Girlfriend slept the entire trip home.

The Rock and I brought home a Coleman Xtreme cooler packed full of dead birds.

I have a vision of pheasant pot pie before too long...

click on image to enlarge

Dakota Pheasants

Hunted hard today.

And the pheasants were fewer and farther between.

With South Dakota's wetter fall weather there is standing corn everywhere.

Have you ever heard of taking beans off of a field in November? Huh?

Nobody’s started on the corn.

After sunset we ended up at Randi's barn for a refreshing adult libation two and some of Larry's freshly-fried pheasant tidbits.

And I found a bottle of this on the bar...

Gone Hunting

The dog and I are just about to shove-off for South Dakota pheasants.

Girlfriend is pacing-about as she knows what's-up.

I'm all tingly and wracking my brain to figure out what I've forgotten to pack.

If I can grab a signal I'll post a progress report - otherwise I'll catch you on the flip side...

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I snapped these pictures the other day after the rains ceased and the clouds opened just enough to let some of that fantastic late afternoon sunlight to filter through.

(click on image to enlarge)

Bowhunting

Braumeister and I hunted this past weekend - and the weather was absolutely good for nothing.

Wind, rain, more wind and rain mixed with snow.

Pretty hard to stay warm under these conditions.

Braumeister hunted from a couple of ground blinds to hide from the elements - and I went vertical.

Never saw a deer until I let the dog out Saturday night before bedtime. There they were - two of them - munching fallen apples in the yard.

There were fresh deer tracks in the garden the next morning.

Did you know that deer are fond of romaine lettuce and broccoli?