Lol. Thanks, I change my hair color every couple of months. Naturally, I look like my profile picture, but most of he summer I was blonde. Deer can actually see blue, but if you look closely, you'll notice I have a balaclava around my neck. It covers my face and hair... however, since I wasn't actually in my hunting area yet, I don't remember if I had it on. Without it, the deer definitely saw me, without it, I imagine I looked sort of like The Predator to it, showing up while moving but disappearing while still. Here's the same picture with a "deer vision" filter over it. Notice how my shirt, which is super visible to other human hunters, is turns indistinguishable from the leaves behind it, which are still green.
Here's the thing. Your shirt, in both pictures posted above as well as the time you posted that shot on the first page, looks the same color as the leaves on the tree behind it to me. I'm red/green colorblind and I suspect I have low color sensitivity as well (hence the "Is your hair blue or purple?" thing. That's a much less obvious distinction than red vs. green for most people), so it's all a bit of a mystery to me. My favorite example (sorry to hijack your deer hunting thread) is this one: Depending on the monitor I can either see no significant difference between the colors on top of the screen or a slight difference between the colors on the far-right split apple (the lower portion looks slightly lighter and possibly green, but I can't tell for sure). Beyond that, unless I have the correct monitor and settings and I'm forewarned and focusing hard, all I see is a picture of some apples with a diagonal white line running through it. I also have pretty severe astigmatism. This image isn't perfect, but it's the best I could find: Basically if I'd been born anytime prior to about 1902 I'd have made a sabertooth tiger very happy for a day or so.
Blue stands out to deer the way blaze orange stands out to us. Has to do with the number of cones in their eyes (two, I think). Humans have three so can see a wider range of colors. Rule of thumb: don't go deer hunting wearing jeans, a blue chambray work shirt, and blue hair. Ha. I now know the subject of the second newsletter article I need to write this month.
This is how I understand it as well. I certainly must have had my baclava on. If I hadn't, I probably pulled it on when setting down my pack. I don't think I could have stalked as closely if my hair had been exposed.
lol no, I change my hair color every couple of months just for the hell of it. The baclava completely covers my head when I'm hunting. I only pull it off if I'm taking a break or working. That would have been terribly sad. If I saw a deer fight a bear and win, I'd be more likely to give it a survivalist nod than an arrow. Nice fight deer, I'll spare you for now.
If I see a whitetail deer kick a bear's butt, I am throwing the field to the deer and heading home before it comes for me. I skewered my shin on an elk antler one time, and can about imagine what those pointy things on a deer's head could do to a person with the force of a body behind them.
Wouldn't ever want to find out. Luckily, whitetail deer are famously not aggressive. Even big bucks with a harem of females is far far more likely to run away than confront a threat. I'm not sure I'd even want to be within bow range of an elk or moose. I know they definately will attack people.
I don't think my son has ever drawn a moose tag, but he bow hunts elk every year. There is one residing in the freezer right now along with an antelope or two. We haven't had deer in a few years; right now CWD is especially bad in the deer herds in our traditional hunting areas.
I'd be scared to get so close, I hope he's up in a tree stand. I put pictures that have any raw meat in spoilers, some are pretty graphic. Butcher called me on Monday, so I picked up the meat. Already made burgers and got the jerky on. He also saved the pelt and the mount for me. I've spent the past few days processing the hide. Spoiler: Since I never weighed her, I took a taxidermy measurement to show how big she was. I started to peel the head and realized I was way out of my depths and I needed some experience first, so I cleaned the pelt first. Spoiler: Cleaning the hide Started to pickle the hide. It's gonna sit in there for a few days. Spoiler: Starting to work on the head Spoiler: Took all day, but I got it out clean! There was over two pounds of scrap meat attached to the hide, not including the head. The dog is going to have deer every day for months. I just tossed the head, I could have cut more out, but I was cold and so tired of cleaning. In a primitive situation, I'd use it's brain to tan the hide, but I'd rather not go through the effort; I'm just going to use mayo and egg. Both hides are pickling now, the main pelt is two days ahead of the head. I built my frame to stretch it on, but not at that step yet. Planning on making a coat/blanket with it, since my wife and I often camp in subzero temperatures. I'll post some more pictures when I'm done, it's a long process, but I'm having a ton of fun. I'm at the point now where the life lets it in the house. I told her there is a line between something you'd see in a butcher and something you'd see in a high end fabric store, and I've crossed that line. It's just unfinished leather/fir now. I normally hate fir, but I'm fine with it if the animal was fully used like this and it's going to be so warm.
No tree stands in this country. Boots on the ground and moving- or sometimes tummies on the ground and slithering to get close enough. He covers miles in distance and sometimes thousands of feet in elevation during a hunt. People who think hunting is just safely laying in wait for Bambi and shooting a creature that doesn't have a fighting chance should spend a day elk hunting with my son. Might even get to be stalked by a bear or mountain lion.
What do you do with all that meat. Does it not spoil? Sorry for ignorance. I'm a city person who grew up in England, not much hunting anything over there that I was exposed to.
You asked NJrunner and not me, but I'll answer anyway. We package the meat, freeze it, and use it for meals for the rest of the year. Some of the meat gets turned to jerky, a kind of spiced and dried meat that keeps without refrigeration. We've occasionally canned meat, but prefer to freeze it. We process all our own meat and there is very little waste. The dogs get scraps and bones. Any decent hides can be donated to a place that tans and sells them (we make no profit ourselves). Antlers are displayed, sawed into buttons, fashioned into knife and kitchen implement handles, etc..
The meat was butchered into cuts and my wife and I individually wrapped them and put them in the deep freeze. A deer takes about 3 cubic feet of freezer space and will keep for a year.
I love the animals. I show that in my writing, with characters coming to see the sentience in the animals they encounter and growing in their own character to care for them. It helps to sometimes write with the perspectives of creatures and animals showing, as far as I can reasonably do so, to help in writing about them in such situations for stories.
