Antler party 2019

[Okanagan]

Thirteen extended family members got together for I think this is the 4th or 5th year of our now-annual antler party.  We swap stories, look at horns and hides from this past season and others, laugh a lot, eat pizza and taste things a little more exotic.  I heartily recommend such an event for anyone to do with friends or family.

This first pic shows the setting, a cousin's garage this year with some antlers and hides from earlier years, and food just starting to come in to the table.  That's an Alaska Interior grizzly that the owner of the garage tagged during the years he lived in Alaska.  Like me, he recently retired to our home town.



The photo below shows some of the antlers from this past season.  I think the 13 of us brought horns or hides from 15 big game critters.  Two of the mule deer racks are big and four Rocky Mountain elk racks were quite big 6x6, one of which is in the pic.  The elk antlers lying on the floor in the foreground are sheds from a Roosevelt elk that one of the cousins found.  That rack is massively heavy and webbed at the 4th tine/crown.



Grandson Cody made a spicy pulled meat dish out of a recently taken bobcat, which anyone who wanted to taste bobcat could put in fresh hot tortillas for a burrito or soft taco with fixin's.  Cody also sous vide cooked a bunch of deer steaks and then seared the outside right there on the table with a kitchen torch.  Scrumplicious!  We had elk summer sausage and elk pepperoni, plus wild huckleberry and peach pies I baked, shown below.



Stories ranged from a record book elk grandson Cody missed with an arrow to a duck one of the youngsters got recently while hunting with his grampa. 

My favorite story was about a young man from the mid-west who came out west one Fall to live with his brother-in-law who is a cousin of ours.  The young man had never hunted but wanted to fiercely.  Opening day of deer season he got on some tracks in light snow and followed them for hours without catching up.  Late in the day he rejoined his BIL and another man, and then he got lucky and killed a buck by the logging road as they drove toward home.  When they had the buck loaded in the vehicle, the young man studied the deer's hooves for a bit and said, "I was following those tracks the wrong direction!"

[Todd Rahm]

That’s awesome!!!! Especially the annual part. There’s some nice racks out there too!!

[HaMeR]

  @ the wrong direction!!!

Lesson learned tho & i'm proud of him for making the effort to continue to follow those tracks!! We all gotta learn somewhere & I had my Dad!! 

I look forward to your antler party every year Ok!!! 

[riverboss]

Man what a great time it sounds like you had!
I would love to do something like this around home, but unfortunately most of my hunting buddy's got married and are to whipped to go anymore.

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[FinsnFur]

Geez, the food alone!

[MI VHNTR]

Looks like everything was there for a great time. Good people, good food and good stories. Thanks for sharing.

[JohnP]

I remember the last one you posted enjoyed it and this one also.  I guess my invitation was lost in the mail, next year call.

[HaMeR]

next year call.