Saturday, an 8 pt. buck was running around.

At 11:30, he wasn't running anymore.

By 12:30 he was hanging in my barn.

Monday night he was skinned, boned, and all the meat cut off.

Tuesday, tonight, wife and I were processing the meat. In the process, wife made venison burgers.

All that's left for us to do tomorrow is to vacuum seal the rest of the meat. Some 65 lbs.

There’s a field near where we live, and this past summer, I was on our balcony at 2 am, looked down and counted nine deer eating the lawn. There is enough food and woodsy areas nearby to keep them safe, fed and healthy.

They’ve been here for years, frankly we need a cull but the powers that be don’t have the guts to do it , and it might not work long-term, anyways.

I was out walking the dog a couple weeks ago and saw a deer with a massive rack just sauntering around the neighborhood. My flowerbeds show evidence of lots of deer activity, but it was still surprising to see a pair of antlers like that just chilling in the cul-de-sac.

Nothing better than fresh venison. Especially if there are farmers growing grain close by which they can use a food source. The more grain the better the flavor. Enjoy arch!

You ever been to this corner of the state? Cornfields everywhere. Probably not much different from where you lived previously, Bellfountain/e

I really know very little about your area of the state. That's why I composed my response the way I did. I actually grew up and lived in the Tipp City area for most of my life. My bus driver owned what is called West Charleston Falls. She leased out the fields which had road access to a soybean farmer. Behind those fields were hundreds of acres of woods owned partly be her and some by another local farmer. We hunted Quail and Pheasant on her land for much of my younger life. We would start in the fields hunting in the opposite direction of the road. The coveys of quail would break up into the woods when they were first flushed. The rest of the day we would flush singles and doubles in the woods. They flew weaving in and out of the trees when flushed. It provided quite a challenge and made for good sport hunting.

Later her and her husband went through a divorce. As such they sold the land to the park district. They made it a nature reserve......

https://www.miamicountyparks.com/parks/charleston

Once that happened they no longer leased out the fields for grain to be grown. That made food scarce for the game on the reserve. In turn deer and game would travel to the surrounding properties of local farmers to feed which I had permission to hunt. There was only actual feed in two directions. The Miami River ran on the west side. Residential housing was on the south side. So there were only two farmers involved in getting permission from. So the deer was plentiful and well fed with grain.

Many years ago we never saw deer. Ohio has deer hunting during November and December, when it first gets cold.
Hunters go out in the woods to shoot them. Now, it was 2006, 2005 ish, at the industrial park, between two clear city buildings, asphalt, mowed grass, on a trip to the dumpster someone came across about a dozen deer, in the, well it's a lawn, between two city buildings nowhere near the trees.
I surmised, that somewhere along in the generations, some deer <(plural) learned that Elmer Fudd isn't shooting at them in the city, because police frown on discharge of a firearm in city limits.

but the deer that stay in the woods, they all got shot by Elmer Fudd over 100 generations.

All the deer that are left, are the offspring of the ones that were stupid enough to hang out in parking lots 30 some years ago.
It's like all the deer you see, are the offspring of the (akin to) the kids who would hang out in goth makeup and smoke weed behind the school building during high school.
It's akin to all of human society being eliminated except for the ones who became clown posse jugalos and wore makeup and followed a band around as groupies, over 30 generations, all of the regular, well adjusted forest dwelling deer have been killed by hunters, and there are no deer left except for the ones who hang out in parking lots during the winter months.
I saw a deer while driving, hugging the brick outside of a church building, from a 1/2 mile away, with it's movements, just a couple of years ago that reinforced this theory.

Around here, in the country, it's woods, and fields. Behind my house, about 250 acres of field - crops vary yearly, but either wheat, beans, or corn. Behind that is about 80 acres of woods.

It's like that everywhere.

My bro in law hunts, but also goes to W.V. to hunt as well. In the heart of W.V. In the mountains. The deer here are huge compared to what you get in W.V., at least where he goes. Acorns and grass don't fatten them up like corn.

Acorns and grass also give the met a gamier taste than grain. The drummer of a country band I was in would go to the mountains of Kentucky to hunt with his father in law and a group of guys. I used to joke with him that the only possible reason they could be doing that for was to get away from their wives. Because the deer were plentiful, larger and grain fed here. There's no reason to go hunt small deer with a gamier taste somewhere else.

Sauntering: Cambridge English, : walking in a slow relaxed way, often in no particular direction...

(Oh my gosh, there is an addendum, dust it off, blew, figurative: see 2011 Cleveland Browns organizational direction. sauntering.)
Does your dictionary have that, I might have an abridged copy.

I hope you fried up some tenderloin in butter, bread in the grease, and made sandwiches while you were were cleaning it. Such great memories, I can almost taste it. Oh shoot, let me go down to the freezer.

Not really disagreeing, but taste is a function of what you are used to eating. I like a game flavor. I can buy meat that lacks game flavor in any store. Maybe that is why your bud liked to go back home to hunt...not to mention it was home....maybe hunting with family.

I am sure grain has something to do with it, but deer species vary. The larger species do well in cold climates. The smaller do well in warm climates. If you took your typical southern deer...I am not going to try to get in to species names...the southern deer would die off in the cold winter climates. If you took the larger norther deer south, they wouldn't last many of the hot summers.

Just natures way how cousins adapt to different environments over eons.

After growing up and I started hunting aside from my family, I had one hunting and fishing buddy for about 20 years. He was a few years younger than myself. He had family in Alpena, Michigan. Nothing less than a paradise for hunting and fishing. And that's pretty far "north". He lives there to this day. The only thing he complained about was the deer being much smaller there and the taste of them from living on wild nuts and berries rather than grain like in Ohio. He said the deer we killed were trophies compared to the deer up there. Venison has it's own unique flavor. I've never actually heard of anyone that likes gamier, wilder tasting meat before but I guess it's possible.

You heard it now.

See, it is possible!