Bow hunted deer this past weekend. Saw a nice 7 pointer. Snuck up to his last position, came over a rise and there he was 10 yards away. He saw me too and scooted before I could shoot. I saw him run around a ridge some distance away. Realizing he had run to a dead end shelf I maneuvered to him. Sure enough I had him trapped. He had to run by me to escape. Well he chose option #2... trying to scale a cliff. This resulted in a 400ft fall that not only killed him but broke two antler points and bruised up some meat pretty good. Amazingly his hide was hardly tarnished. Trouble is that it took me about 4 hours in 85 degree heat to get to him. NOT GOOD. I caped him and took another 2.5 hours to hike out and get home. Once at home I washed the cape out with bacteriacide, salt, water and Kemol 4, turned the ears, lips, nose. Towel dried him out real good and froze him because I was too worn out to do any more and it was late. Does this hide have a chance? I didn't have any Stop Rot on hand at the time. My next move was going to be to defrost it, salt it, let it hang a while, then finish fleshing it and re-salt, then later pickle and tan. Any suggestions? By the way, the cape smelled okay and did not have any green color. The hair was intact when I placed it in the freezer. Although it was hot, he did land in some shade when he fell.
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we are only talking a few hours here and not days. I think it'll be just fine.
When ever you have thoughts that a cape may not make it - Always - keep it as dry as possible until its salted and dried tight. Then when you rehydrate it - quick wash it, rinse, and place it in the pickle. Keeping it dry (and not washing it) is important if you want to save "iffy" skins or capes! If moisture lays around the base of the hair - it will tend to pulp the epidermis and likewise loosen the hairs! You want to avoid that!
lol dude...that's quite a story you should be in Field in Stream or something. Did you have to put your archery tag on it even though you didn't have to shoot it to kill it?
Sounds like a good time...Congrats on the harvest.
Bruce, I thought that a wash with bacteriacide would be the right thing since there was ample blood saturation in the skin and to hopefully wash out bacteria. Kind of like spraying Lysol on your counter top? Guess I was wrong. I trust in your assessment. Thank you.
Joe T, ya know I didn't even think about that "loop hole". As far as I'm aware, that was NOT a harvested buck, since I didn't kill it... well not exactly? But you can't argue with the Fish and Game, and I doubt that they would let me have my cake and eat it too. Anyway it was a unique hunt. I don't know about being in Field and Stream... I kind of felt guilty since the poor critter was put in a position where he didn't stand a chance.