Thankful for Hunting

The Thrill and the Meat

By Greg Lemon, 11-25-06

The dirt was hard and cold and the yellow grass brittle. I lay quietly watching a herd of mule deer feed across an open hillside, slowly making their way into the coulee. I was propped up on my elbows, my rifle in my hands. The fog of my breath disappeared behind me in the slight breeze.

The deer were only a couple hundred yards away, but with the wind blowing the way it was, they had no idea of my presence. The herd held a few small bucks, which were busy nosing does around. The bucks looked frisky. The does looked tired.

I was hunting on a friend’s ranch south of Big Timber on the Boulder River. His land extended from the banks of the river to the crest of a large open hill to the east. The river bottoms were full of whitetail deer; the hills were home to mule deer. This was my third year hunting this land and I was beginning to get comfortable with the animals’ patterns. The coulee I hunted on this morning was a defining feature for the mule deer. Every day they found security in its brushy bottoms, where they could quickly escape predators and find respite from the wind.

While I waited for the deer to cross over a fence and onto my friend’s land, I heard a noise to my left. A buck had snuck up behind me and was walking up the same hill I rested on, only 50 yards away. It was a fortunate turn of events and in a split second I had my deer tag filled.

Today, three days after I shot the buck, I finished processing the meat. I did it all myself, pretty much. Last night another friend and I took a couple of hours and reduced the carcass to roasts, steaks and meat to be ground into burger. Today I wrapped the burger and stuck it in the freezer.

Some people find this tale revolting. That’s okay. For me it’s as normal as the sunrise. Like so many in Montana, I grew up hunting. My father taught me how to stalk, shoot, field dress and butcher animals. Hopefully someday I’ll have the opportunity to pass that knowledge onto my children. I’ve never taken my meat to someone else to process. I find it immensely gratifying to take an animal from the field to the table with my own two hands.

I enjoy the meat. That’s mostly why I hunt. To say that’s the only reason would be ridiculous. The thrill of the hunt has been described over and over by better writers. But I will say that for me, the meat and the thrill of hunting are about neck and neck.

Earlier this year I quit a steady newspaper job to be a freelance writer. The move was risky, but so far I’ve been able to make it work. However, I don’t know if I would have lasted as easily if it weren’t for a freezer full of wild game. In the past several months I’ve eaten burgers, tacos, barbecued deer steak and wild game goulash more than I had planned. I had nearly two deer in the freezer at the end of hunting season last year. When big game season opened this year, I was down to five packages of deer burger and one roast.

The way I figure it, after factoring in gas, tags and miscellaneous expenses, the deer I shot on that hill south of Big Timber cost me between $3 and $4 a pound. It is wild meat, killed and processed by my own hand. It might not taste quite as good as a thick, well-marbled beefsteak, but I’ll gladly take it.

I guess this kind of living off the land is a benefit to living in the West. I don’t know what I would have done this year if I hadn’t filled my deer tag. I still don’t think this one deer will take me through until next year. Without the meat I don’t imagine I would have starved. I’m not self-righteous enough to say I don’t buy my share of processed, non-organic, steroid-pumped food from the grocery store.

Still, I think about what I eat. I try to consume as little of the processed stuff as possible. I hardly ever buy beef, but what meat I do buy is mostly grown locally. In my freezer is an entire deer that I was lucky to shoot. It’s meat that has no extra fat or preservatives. It was raised on wild grass and some alfalfa. With it I’ve managed to provide food for myself during the long winter that’s sure to come. For that I’m thankful.

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