The backstrap is basically like the trapezious of the deer. It extends from the base of the deer’s neck most of the way down it’s back and down to the deer’s side’s a few inches. It’s the most tender, tastiest part of the deer and it’s shape lends it to easy butchering and cooking. When I was young and hunting with my dad he would skin the deer and cut out the back strap in the field and have me run it up for cooking while he worked on the rest of the deer. Instant gratification.
As for the rest of the deer (I do all of my own butchering BTW) you can make a nice rump rost from the rear haunches (cuts out quite nicely) and the front shoulders can be cut into some small steaks as well. Most people use the front shoulder’s, some of the meat in the neck, and some of the flank for chilli or stew, as it is a little tougher and “gamier”. Me, I cut the backstrap out and a couple of flank steaks and make the rest of the deer into sausage. (This year I got an automatic sausage grinder/stuffer. Sure beats doing it all by hand!) I’m trying to make some jerky this year as well. I have to admit, I don’t cut out the ribs, as there is very little meat on the ribs of a Hill Country White Tail deer and it’s allot of work to get them all out. With a little skill, and ALLOT of patiece, you should be easily able to get 40+lbs of edible meat out of a Hill Country White Tail deer. It’s sad, but it took me a little over 6 hours from my first cut to field dress to putting the meat into bags in my freezer for this last deer.
If you want, you can take the head to a taxidermist and have them mount it, which costs several hundred dollars. Which I have never done. I either saw the horns off or, if I like the rack allot or it was an especially cool deer, I’ll go through the pain in the a$$ and skin and dress the skull and mount it a board for display.
And the kung fu of long range accurate shooting is in the field craft, the body positioning, the breathing, and the mind set neccessary for making such a shot. A good sniper has allot of kung fu. I have adequate kung fu for what I do, but not for what I want to be able to do.
I have no idea what the difference is between Army and Marine sniper deployment. I’ll leave that to our new resident Leather Neck. (How they got that name is an interesting story, especially if you’re into Escrima.)
JWT
If you pr!ck us, do we not bleed? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that the villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. MOV