By Michael Pendley
Deer seasons are over, spring is weeks away and the weather is dreadful. It’s times like these that I turn to a bowl of tender venison and mushrooms in a flavorful gravy to stave off the winter blues. But who has the time to stand over a stove all day? Enter the slow cooker. Add everything to this wonder-gadget before you head out for the day and come home to slow-cooked goodness without the work. (Note: As with most slow-cooker recipes, you can build an extra layer of rich flavor by browning the meat in a skillet before adding to the slow cooker.)
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds venison roast, cut into 1-inch cubes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 cups beef broth
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
½-cup red wine
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons cornstarch
16 ounces baby Bella mushrooms, halved
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish, if desired
Directions
1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
2. Season venison with salt and pepper to taste. Add the meat to the skillet and cook until evenly browned, about two to three minutes. Set aside.
3. Whisk together beef broth, tomato paste, Worcestershire, soy sauce, red wine and thyme in a slow cooker. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Stir in beef, onion and garlic. Cover and cook on low heat for seven to eight hours or on high heat for three to four hours.
5. In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and ¼-cup water.
6. Stir the cornstarch mixture and mushrooms into the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high heat for an additional 60 minutes or until the mushrooms are cooked through and the sauce has thickened.
7. Serve immediately over rice, pasta or mashed potatoes, garnishing with parsley if desired.
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Where hunter and classically trained chef Georgia Pellegrini shares recipes from her book, “Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time.”
The Start of Something New…My first hunting experience!
By: Heather Marie Johnson In July 2020, my two aunts, plus a friend and I, went on a road trip. During that time, we talked about past and future trips we have been on. We starting discussing hunting trips, because my Aunt Clara has been on a guided hunt in the past and my husband frequently travels with his friends on hunting trips. We talked about other family members who hunt and discussed the fact that we have never been invited to join them. I mentioned that I would love to try hunting some time, thinking we could plan a trip together in the future. The future was going to be much sooner than we thought! Shortly after getting back home from our trip, my Aunt Clara called me and said that she'd seen a scholarship opportunity through the Ladies Adventure Camp Experience (L.A.C.E.) to be nominated for a guided hunt on wild hogs and whitetail does in Texas—and it was to be a trip for the first-time women hunters. I was thrilled Aunt Clara nominated me! After waiting patiently for a few months, she called me with the exciting news that I’d been selected for the scholarship hunt trip to Texas. I was so excited! I shared the good news with my closest friends and family, and everyone was excited for my new opportunity! We flew from Chicago into Texas and met a group of women at a Dairy Queen in Rotan, Texas, to caravan to Hawks Double Mountain Ranch. From the start, everyone was so nice and excited for the weekend ahead. I felt comfortable with this group of ladies, especially Deb Ferns and Kay Miculek who run the Babes with Bullets camps that was the kick-off for the L.A.C.E. program. [caption id="attachment_3765" align="aligncenter" width="450"]



Ingredients
1½ pounds of ground venison 8 ounces of bacon 1 cup of Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs 1 14-ounce can of fire-roasted tomatoes 1 cup of milk ¼-cup of grated parmesan cheese 2 tablespoons of onion, finely chopped 2 teaspoons of salt 1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper ½-teaspoon of ground sage 2 eggs, beaten 1 cup of your favorite BBQ sauceDirections




Try Out More Recipes with NSSF’s Game Meat Cooking Series
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF4EE32869227CCE5
Where hunter and classically trained chef Georgia Pellegrini shares recipes from her book, "Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time."I have a love/hate relationship with deer decoys – but the more I understand where and when to use them, the more I love them.
By Bob Robb Back in the Dark Ages of whitetail hunting, before food plots and sophisticated trail cameras and quality deer management and YouTube videos and a plethora of hunting TV shows on cable and all of that, I learned a lot about deer hunting from friends who spent more time in the woods than most sane folks would consider healthy. One of them was Gary Clancy, an outdoor writer and deer hunter extraordinaire from Minnesota who was taken from us far too early, in 2016, by a cancer caused by Agent Orange exposure when he served as an Army point man in Vietnam. Clancy was a soft-spoken, down-to-earth guy who loved to laugh. When he talked about whitetail hunting, I listened, because he knew his stuff. He was one of the first men I know of to start using decoys seriously for deer hunting. His classic 200-plus page book, Rattling & Decoying Whitetails, became a sort of bible on the topic. Gary was killing bucks over decoys that were crude by today’s standards, learning, as he went, the old-fashioned way, through trial and error. What he taught me back then still applies today, and his simple yet effective techniques are even more deadly when using modern decoys.Three Keys to Success
While there are several nuances to using decoys successfully, Clancy stressed three things above all else: placement, scent control and distant visibility. [caption id="attachment_3720" align="aligncenter" width="650"]


Best Time for Decoy Use
Though I’ve used decoys at various times of the season, like Clancy, my experience has been that the chances of having a mature buck come visit a decoy are best during the 10- to 14-day period just prior to does’ first estrus. During this time, bucks are actively scraping and roaming, and they seem to respond to both grunting and rattling, which is a very effective way to draw a buck’s attention to a decoy it might otherwise not see. During the peak of the rut, when most of the mature bucks have already found does to breed, bucks still come to a decoy, but I’ve mostly had immature bucks come then. A mature buck between does might also commit, but everything has to be “just right.” I’ve had my best luck with decoys in the morning when bucks return to bedding areas after an unsuccessful night of seeking out does. I also like using decoys in the afternoons, especially if I can set up in the corner of a field I know does are regularly using. This sometimes means I might hunt a stand in a funnel or known travel corridor between food and bedding areas from sunup until early afternoon, when I might then move my stand location to be near a food plot or other agriculture area.Setting It Up
One of the problems with using some of today’s full-body decoys is hauling them into your hunting area quietly in the dark, then setting them up without sounding like a marching band, for a morning hunt. This is especially true for big decoys that have to be assembled before they’re set up. There are a couple ways to help alleviate this problem. [caption id="attachment_3718" align="aligncenter" width="650"]

Multiple Decoys
[caption id="attachment_3719" align="aligncenter" width="650"]