by Lee Powell
I make an incision just under the tail and separate the colon from the rest of the digestive system.
I then extend that incision up to top of the pelvis.
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I woke up early on Saturday, ate a sausage, egg, cheese, and hot sauce sandwich, and got in the truck. I drove to the field listening to 98.5’s Country Classics, in which Cash and Nelson came on consecutively, and hid the truck behind the mound of dirt at the front of the field. I’ve never known why that mound was there, but I am thankful for it, because I can successfully hide my truck each time I hunt. I got out of the truck, grabbed my gear, and began the walk across the cut down corn field. The moon was still bright enough to cast a shadow, and where there was no shadow, the ground was covered in a silky white. The sky was still pitch black with no hint of sunrise and this may seem too early, but I like to experience the complete process of sunrise, from pitch black to broad daylight.
There was a thin layer of fog hovering above the field. It was almost eerie, but I enjoyed this. It was just me and the outside. I felt one with nature.
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I go up to the bottom of the neck or top of the sternum and cut down to the bottom of the ribcage. Do not cut further than the ribcage right now.
I go back down to the pelvic incision and cut out to where the pelvis ends. I make two incisions, both of them following each branch of the pelvis up to the side of the deer.
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I climbed into my stand as quietly as possible and got comfortable. Not long later, I saw my cousin’s truck pull into the field. He would be hunting another part of the field. I kept repeatedly checking the time to see whether or not it was legal to shoot, but there was nothing there, anyway. First light began to shine just before 7:00, and the east end of the sky began to turn a pale orange. After a while of sitting ridiculously still with the only movement coming from my eyes and maybe neck, the tops of the trees in the west end of the field turned a burnt orange. Gradually, the orange moved down the trees and onto the land.
****
Thomas arrives with a deer hoist and we hang the deer by the legs on a tree.
At this point, we aren’t sure what to do, so we make an incision down the middle of the back and find the backstraps. We cut out the skin around them and once we see the straps, I stick my hand under them and just peel them off.
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Though my part of the field was still shielded, and would be for a while, the land began to wake up. A groundhog emerged from his hole. He began to meander to the corner of the field, eating leftover corn the whole way. It was entertaining, just watching him as the birds and squirrels also began to wake. The large fox squirrel began to cause his usual ruckus in the woods behind me, and the birds began to say good morning to each other. I lost sight of the groundhog and so I just sat there and absorbed everything else. It is truly beautiful, seeing something so peacefully silent and dark turn to something light and alive, yet somehow just as peaceful. The groundhog reappeared below me and then went into the woods where I lost sight of him for good.
****
Next, we use a bone saw and cut the top of the femur, trying to obtain the hams.
We go up to lower leg near the knee and cut the skin around the leg. We section off which part of the leg we want cut out.
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A majority in the field was covered by sunlight now, but it was still the orange light that the morning sun brings, not the yellow light that the day sun brings. The part of the field that I hunt in is almost always shady, except for when the sun is directly above it. Regardless of how beautiful this was, still, there was no deer. Although I say that I hunt to kill deer, I am never mad if I don’t shoot one. When I hunt and fish, I see the fish and the animal as a bonus. Just being there is rewarding enough.
I was pondering all this until about 8:45, when Mom called me.
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We start from the circular incision near the knee and cut a line down to where the skin ends where the femur was cut.
We peel the skin off, leaving a ham that needs to be separated from the lower leg bone to be cut off.
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Usually she would text me if she knows I’m hunting. I answered in a whisper and she responded in a panicked yell. ]
“Come home right now!” I thought I was in trouble.
I timidly told her that I was on the way and she responded, I her same tone, that there was a deer dying in our yard. I was stunned at first, then a quick wave of relief washed over me. Then confusion came. I climbed down and started heading home, all the while wondering how this could have happened. Was it illegally shot and then ran into our yard? Had a moccasin bitten it? Maybe it was just having a heart attack. Now that I’m writing about after the fact, all of these sound ridiculous, but it was in fact a ridiculous situation. Mom then called again me while I was on the way back and told me that it had died. I asked her what had happened because I was still confused. She told me that it had jumped our fence and then the dogs started chasing it. To my understanding, it then became panicked and ran into the fence and broke its neck. I got home and walked over and saw a small six pointer lying there.
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We cut the upper leg bone and the deer began to only be held by the other leg. We then cut the lower leg bone and separated the ham, put it in a trash bag, and then did the same thing with the other leg.
In total, we had two backstraps and two hams.
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Normally if I had a dead deer on my hands, I would take it to Flowers Beef Slaughter so they could skin it and then process the meat. Since I didn’t kill this one, I figured that I should just skin it myself so I could learn how and also so I don’t have to spend $120. I would not have felt guilt if I botched it because I was doing no disservice to the deer, for it might have well just have been roadkill. If I had killed it, I would have felt as if I owed the deer something, so I would have taken it to Flowers to make the most out of the deer. Since I didn’t kill it but was still taking meat from it, I felt as though I was making a situation with no benefit turn into a situation with benefit.
I got one of the backstraps and seasoned it with salt, pepper, garlic, and an unbranded seasoning that my grandmother had given us. Later that night when Thomas got home from hunting, I took it to his house and we grilled it over a fire. Only a few people had the pleasure of tasting it, but out of those of us who did, we can all agree that it was delicious.
Maybe I only thought it was delicious because I had dedicated my whole Saturday to it, but none the less, it was still delicious. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, but that’s why God gave deer two backstraps instead of one. One of them is to learn, the other is to execute.
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