Havalon Knives

Congratulations to Chuck Crabtree of Sunnyvale, California!  Mr. Crabtree is the winner of the Havalon Dealer Starter Kit recently on display at the International Sportsmen’s Expo in San Mateo, California earlier this month. 

The winner of the Havalon Dealer Starter Kit from the Shot Show in Las Vegas, Nevada will be announced soon.

Bill Vaznis, Editor of Bear Hunting Magazine

MEAT FIT FOR A KING

Larry Mandell has been a professional meat cutter for 24 years. He has also butchered thousands of whitetails for area hunters and for local venison donation programs. He knows why his own venison always tastes good, real good in fact, while the venison from other hunters can sometimes taste a bit gamy.

“The secret to good tasting venison,” says Mandell, “is to first cool it down as fast as possible. A deer starts to cook from the inside out as soon as it dies, turning the meat green and giving it a skunk-like smell in short order.

“Secondly, you must keep in mind that the better you clean the animal, the better the quality of meat you will have. The biggest problem hunters make in this regard is that they don’t always complete the field dressing chores.  For example, it is not all that uncommon for us to find the esophagus, heart or lungs still in the chest cavity. On occasion we might even find that the hunter failed to remove the rectum leaving us with that and a full bladder to contend with. If the deer was shot in the intestines or the liver, there might also be food particles, blood, hair, bone fragments or other body parts in the body cavity, all of which can eventually transmit a bad or gamy taste to the meat.”

“I suggest you gut the animal as soon as possible, and after removing the entrails roll the carcass over so you can drain as much blood from the body as you can. Then take a rag and clean out the body cavity of excess blood, body fluids, partially digested food particles, urine, feces, broken bones, dirt, etc. Do not use creek water to wash the meat as it may be infected with various forms of bacteria. Keep in mind that the stomach contents of a gut shot deer will definitely taint the meat, especially if you shot the deer on a warm evening and didn’t recover it until the next day.”  

You might also want to saw or chop through the pelvis to help cool the rear quarters. If you have no cutting tools, stand on the deer’s rear legs, grab the tail and yank up forcefully. In most cases this should crack the pelvis.

“Now you can prop open the body cavity with a stick,” says Mandell, “and hang the deer up to get it off the ground. If it is not a trophy buck, split the breast bone to the base of the neck to help get the heat out. Keep in mind that the neck holds lots of heat and is home to several strains of bacteria used for digestion.

“Then hang it in the shade. It makes little difference if you hang it by the neck or back legs, although most hunters seem to prefer to hang their bucks by the hind legs because it is easier for then to skin it from this position. Do not however skin your buck until you are actually ready to cut it up otherwise the meat will dry out, get tough and actually blacken. Once the carcass has cooled, the hide will actually help keep it cool, especially after a heavy frost. It will also continue to protect the meat from dirt, debris and insects.

“If you can’t get the carcass to a processor in a day or two,” advises Mandell, “trim as much fat from the carcass a possible. Bone out the larger portions such as the front shoulders, back straps and rear quarters, and  then wrap the meat and place it in a cooler on ice to chill it down as fast as possible. Do not wrap the meat in plastic as it holds in heat and moisture. Freezer paper or aluminum foil is a good choice. If there is no ice or cooler available and you are still in the field, wait until the carcass cools before you wrap it in cheese cloth, and then bring in to a butcher ASAP.

“Finally, do-it-yourself butchers should remove as much fat from the carcass as possible to eliminate any gamy taste. Add beef suet to your ground venison, and you will have more taste. Bones can also give your venison a bad taste. I opt to bone out all meat, including the back straps. Sometimes bacteria forms on the inside of the body cavity, giving it a slimy appearance, especially if the animal was gut shot. The presence of bone in the meat can thus give your chops a gamy taste.”

Think Ahead Before You Drop the Hammer Or Let An Arrow Fly!

I positioned my bow on the moose’s rack, and then walked around and around the huge bull awestruck by his immense size. How in the dickens were we going to get this critter back to camp, I thought to myself?  I turned to Cliff, and told him with a straight face to start dragging. I would meet him back at camp by sundown.

“Yeah, right,” said Cliff in reply. He knew I was feigning sarcasm, but we did have a job to do, a 1,200 pound ordeal that would take a string of pack horses and three long days to complete. Fortunately my guide had already devised a plan based on forty years experience in the British Columbia wilderness. Best of all, his plan worked.

Indeed, the first step in game care is figuring out how you are going to get the meat and cape back to camp before it spoils. Some critters like deer and antelope are easy to drag or toss into the back of a 4×4, but larger animals like moose, elk, caribou and bear can be more of a challenge. In some cases you can hire the services and pack animals of an outfitter, but when you are on a do-it-yourself adventure, this may take a few days to arrange.

So what should you do? Outfitter Jeff Beckley of Three Bars Ranch in Cranbrook, British Columbia, believes “ethical hunters should know how they are going to keep an animal from rotting before they even think about dropping the hammer. It just takes careful planning.

“The first step is to field dress your trophy as soon as possible, but even after eviscerating a big-game animal know that the front shoulders and the neck still retain a lot of heat. You have to take immediate steps to dissipate that heat in order to stop the meat and hide from spoiling. And the bigger the animal the more important this task is. The neck of a bull elk in rut for example is usually half again as big as normal. Indeed, spoiling always starts in the neck, and even though you are not likely going to eat the neck, the spoiling quickly radiates through the whole animal.”

Your Havalon Piranta will quickly field dress any big game critter. Its strong scalpel-sharp #60XT Stainless Steel blade is strong enough to sever the wind pipe and internal connective tissue yet sufficiently sensitive to remove the bladder and lower colon without spilling the contents onto the meat. Indeed, I field dressed my last whitetail buck with a Havalon Piranta in less than 60 seconds!

And the replaceable blade feature means you do not have to stop and sharpen your knife. Just pop in a new blade and continue working! This is especially helpful when field dressing a larger animal, such as an elk or moose when darkness is closing in fast.

 “After completing the field-dressing chores, cut the hide along the top of the neck to the base of the skull, and then tube skin the cape starting from behind the front legs. Once you have peeled the hide back as far as you can, cut the head off. You can cape the rest of the head right then and there, or bring the cape and skull back to camp with you and let a taxidermist complete the job for you.”

Take your time! A Havalon Piranta fitted with a Havel Blunt tip #22XT is the perfect tool for the job. It is thicker than the standard #22 blade so it holds its edge longer and resists breakage. It is also safer for you to work with and less prone to poking hard-to-repair holes in the cape.

“Next, cut a half-dozen small poles, and roll the animal over on his back and on top of these poles. This will allow air to circulate all around the carcass. Now you can open the brisket. You are going to need some type of special tool to open the brisket of a larger big-game animal such as a moose or elk. A small hatchet or portable game saw will do the job nicely, if you prepared for the event and brought one with you. Split the brisket all the way to the base of the neck, and then reach in and remove the windpipe. Now is the time to make doubly sure you have already removed the heart, lungs and other internal organs, too.

“Now cut a small stick and prop the brisket open with it,” adds Beckley. “With this stick in place and the removal of the animal’s wind pipe and other internal organs, most of the body heat should dissipate over night. Before I leave the kill site however I will place pine boughs on top of the animal to help keep the birds off the meat.

“If it is still early in the morning, you have more time to play with. You also have more time for the temperatures to rise. If you have a big animal like a bull elk you are going to have to sever the animal in half at the spine, and then drag the front and rear quarters into the shade or a moist area near a creek. If it is a great northern moose, you may have to cut the animal into four or five pieces. Your goal must be to get the animal out of the sun and into a cool area. One trick is to place logs or green poles across a cool running stream, and then put the front and rear quarters of the animal on those logs. 

“Finally, when transporting the meat back to camp, I usually leave the hide on to protect it from dirt and debris rather than place the meat in small cheesecloth bags that tend to rip and tear. I then peel the hide off back at camp, and put the meat in heavy-duty game bags for the trip to the butcher.”

Check back next week for Part 2!

The social benefits of hunting include deer population control and additional state income.  But another significant benefit is a more directly human one: hunting feeds the hungry.  Hunting families can sustain themselves through the winter on what they kill during white tail season.  And several non-hunting families can benefit from what hunting families can bring to the table.

Havalon Knives would like to highlight three organizations that accept donations from hunters – and then pass processed venison on to families in need.

The group Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry help cover processing fees and state that one deer can feed up to 200 people.  For more information on FHFH, click here.

Safari Club International has a program that promotes venison donations to food pantries.  For more information on SCI, click here.

And the NRA’s Hunters for the Hungry has brought “hundreds of thousands of pounds of venison to homeless shelters, soup kitchens and food banks.”  For more information on NRA’s HH, click here.

Ohio is allowing a bonus weekend to the hunting season this December 19-20th.  Think of what a donation could mean to a hungry family this winter.

A Mexican wolf in the wild causes much debate among ranchers and wildlife conservationists.

The federal government began returning Mexican wolves to the Southwest a decade ago. The result has been anger among ranchers who claim livestock losses. Environmentalists blame the federal government for mismanaging the program. Fifty wolves are now in the wild in Arizona and New Mexico – half of what was hoped for. So, it is now time to re-evaluate. Federal, state and other officials are scheduled to sit down and discuss what needs to be accomplished in order to make the re-introduction of Mexican wolves a success in the Southwest.

To read more, click here.

Hunting has gained popularity among women, both married and single. In Louisiana, Sherry Finck took to hunting after her daughter left for college. According to the Shreveport Times, Finck joined her hunting husband and now they hunt together both in Louisiana and out of state.

Thanks to programs such as the National Wild Turkey Federation’s “Women in the Outdoors” program and the University of Wisconsin’s “Becoming an Outdoors Woman” events, women have more opportunities than ever to acquire the skills they need to be successful hunters. The National Rifle Association also sponsors the “Women on Target” program that offers shooting clinics and beginner hunts.

Hunting is no longer perceived as strictly a man’s sport. The Shreveport Times reports that out of $3.4 billion spent annually on firearms, ammo and hunting gear, $500 million is spent by women who hunt.

To read the Shreveport Times article, click here.

Enter Your Video & Win 1 of 3 Great Prizes

Produce a short video that highlights how the Piranta works, plus blade removal and replacement. Load it to You Tube and send us the link along with your name, address, telephone number and email. Your video could be chosen to air on our website and in our booth at Shot Show 2010.

Videos must contain the following elements:
* Show the use of any style Piranta in the field, at camp or at home.
* Several close up views of the Piranta.
* Blade removal and replacement.

We cannot use videos that contain:
* Shaky camera work or difficult to watch angles.
* Footage of actual organ removal.
* Obscene language if you choose to narrate your video.

Audio is not necessary, but if verbal descriptions are entertaining, informative and creative, they may be included. Tell us why you love it. Comparisons to other skinning tools are also welcome.

The deadline to submit your video is December 15th, 2009.

By entering the contest, you’re allowing Havalon all rights to reproduce and use the submitted video as desired.

Prizes

First Prize: The Jim Bowie Commemorative Knife, designed by award-winning knifemaker, Dr. Fred Carter + Your choice of three Piranta knives (with holsters and additional blades) + one box of 100 #60XT blades + credit in our marketing materials.

Second Prize: Your choice of three Piranta knives (with holsters and additional blades) + One box of one hundred #60XT blades.

Third Prize: Your choice of two Piranta knives (with holsters and additional blades) + One box of one hundred #60XT blades.

How to Enter

1. Produce your video.
2. Upload your video to You Tube OR send us a DVD to the address below.
3. Send the You Tube link to your video to Amanda Page at apage@havels.com along with your name, address, telephone number and email address. DVD submissions should be mailed to Amanda Page at Havalon Knives 3726 Lonsdale Street Cincinnati, Ohio 45227.
* You must be 18 years of age to enter. Winners’ ages will be verified. If Havalon Knives discovers you are younger than 18, your video will be disqualified.

Winners will be notified by January 1st, 2010.

Questions? Email apage@havels.com.

We look forward to seeing your videos!

Deer hunting is increasing in popularity in and around Pearsall, Texas: home of Los Cazadores, an outfitter and hunting contest sponsor.  This year marks the 24th Annual Deer Hunting Contest hosted by Los Cazadores. 

To view the shop, click here.

To learn more about the contest, click here.

To read more about the store and the contest, click here.

Grand View Outdoors has launched a digital magazine dedicated to the AR platform. According to the editor, Ralph M. Lermayer, the objective is “…to act as your primary source of information on all things significant to the AR platform, both the AR-15 and AR-10, and to enhance, defend, and promote the AR’s natural and deserved move to the hunting community.”

To read the premiere issue, click here.

Finally, a social network that speaks specifically to outdoor sports fans.  Other sites are alright (MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) but they serve a very general audience.  CamoSpace.com is designed for “…those who enjoy the outdoors and everything that goes along with it.”  Here is a site that creates an instant community based on common interests.  Get information on new products, best places to hunt and fish, and maybe learn a new trick or two from others on the site.  Give it a try.  Get social on CamoSpace.