Deer from 2010

Fred here. When I grew up on the farm I hunted quite a bit. Once I moved to town 15 years ago, it became something I fit in occasionally. I usually get in deer season, but it’s typically a couple hours of a couple days, not an every day, or even all-day for a single day, type of hunt.
Last year my brother Tim was up to the farm for his annual fall visit of helping with the harvest and working the cattle, which typically coincides with deer season. After finishing with the cattle, I was about to head back to Columbia with Ann and the boys, when Tim suggested they could all walk through a patch of woods that has been a deer hot-spot in the past, and see if any deer run out my way.
So I took my post as they walked through the woods. It’s exciting, because these are small woods, and you know if anything is going to happen, it will happen in the span of a few minutes. That day it didn’t. The four of them emerged from the woods, with no deer in the lead. It was about time to head back to Columbia, so we called it a day. But on the way back to the farm, we jumped up two deer.
They ran away from us at an angle through the woods. I quickly took the only shot I had, a head shot. The deer dropped instantly, and hard. The single 30-.06 bullet to the temple did its job fine. It looked more like a mafia hit than hunting prey. I certainly didn’t waste any meat on this one.
We took it back to the farm, and used our age-old method of hoisting it up with the loader on the tractor to hang it and gut it. I suppose I should tell you I then skinned it, cut it up and packaged it, but actually I just put it in the back of my truck and took it to a deer processing place near Linn. Bargain prices, on the way home to Columbia and they did fantastic job.
The venison was used for some great grilled steak recipes from the book "Grillin and Chilli'n" by Kate Fiduccia, and also burgers and chilli, and there is just enough left to get us stated on some recipes from the new book before this fall’s deer season comes around.