[Dicky]

Good cutting job! I have a set of knives and saw in a nice case that are sold to hunters to do the job you did. Best present ever!

Thanks.  The tools I used are nothing too fancy.  Not sure what that type of knife is called but it has a long narrow blade with a very sharp point, and I sharpen it as much as I can.  The hacksaw is just an old one from the garage and the block was made from a bit of left over kitchen worktop.

[MAK]

I have no idea if it is legal to hunt with a crossbow- sorry. It is a very lethal weapon and I treat it like a gun.
France is a very large country - we live in a department with just 3 significant towns ( 8 - 14 k people) - so it is vast and very rural. If it is legal to kill your neighbour " a known thief" for stealling truffles , or for a hunt to kill 2 mushroom pickers then I am not too worried of the punishment if someone does actually see me and reports me to the authorities.
I will pop into one of the hunting shops and ask about hunting with a crossbow.

[RUSTYME]

Totally illegal in uk , get caught hunting here with  a crossbow or bow and you will get 5 years . May well be different in  france etc . But whatever the law in whatever country , they have to catch you first !

[deepinthewoods]

haha catch u and prove it!!

[RUSTYME]

Plod : " i arrest you sir , for hunting with a crossbow "
hunter : " me officer ? Never , what makes you think that ?".
Plod : " the dead deer over your shoulder sir ! " .
Hunter : " what dead deer ?" , hunter looks at shoulder and sees a dead deer and throws it to the floor screaming " oh my god , who put that there ? " .

[deepinthewoods]

  something like that yes.

[funkyfish]

Lucky U! Would be shame to waste all that meat! Bet your dogs would love the antlers- my dogs love them.

[Lesley Silvester]

One morning my son, then aged about 8, looked out of the window and said there was a stag in our garden.  I looked out and realised it was towing it's entrails.  It had jumped our gate - the type with spikes on top - and had obviously not jumped high enough to clear it. Obviously we couldn't leave the poor thing to die in agony and if we'd rung the red deer commission to report it, it would have sufered longer so we called our neighbour who had a shotgun.  There was enough meat on our half to half fill our freezer.  My  ex buried the skin in the front garden every day and every evening our dogs dug it up again.      

We sold antlers from on the hillside in our workshop so ex decided that a full set, mounted on a shield, would be worth a bob or two.  To speak up decomposition, he buried the head, just leaving the antlers above ground.  He tied a sack over one and put an upturned bucket over the other.  Every week or so he checked on it and one day announced happily that it was almost ready to finish off.  the next morning he was furious to discover that one of the dogs had knocked the bucket off and gnawed one antler.

Those dogs risked life and limb frequently.  Often when out he would pick up road kill rabbits if he knew they were fresh.  One day he got home having picked up a large one just down the road.  We were very hard up and free meat meant we ate meat.  He came in the house furious burt laughing as well.  It was his own fault for forgetting the dogs were in the back of the car when he threw it in. They had a lovely feast.

[Dicky]

I want to keep the skull too, but not sure what to do with it.  At the moment the whole head is just sitting in a bucket in the barn.  With the last deer I had I buried everything and a fox dug it up and chewed all the flesh off it, but I'd like to keep this one in good condition.  I'm thinking I might just skin it and leave it in the barn for the rest to rot off.  I've got a squirrell head in there at the moment that is going the same way.

[happygolucky]

Dicky, my dogs picked up a lovely dried out deer head with little antlers the lot, I took photos and left it stuck in the garden as a feature, then one day my dogs got it back and ate nearly all of it, we often find deer heads due to poaching, I know my son in law has had one mounted but my daughter hate it

[Brijjy]

Go on YouTube, you'll probably find someone on there who'll tell you how to deal with the deer skull. I want on there to find out how to skin a fox. It was great. I skinned Mr Fox and now my friend is tanning it for me 

[Reg henderson]

game keepers up the glens from me boil the heads , that cleans them off , then hang them to dry the bone out

[funkyfish]

My other half (who was a real squeamish townie until he met me..) Is fascinated by skulls.
After he culled a cockerel recently, he boiled the head in Daz. It ment the kitchen didn't stink, and the skull is lovely and shiny white!. He didn't understand why the guinea pig skull he boiled split along the mandible,  I had to explain re the madibular symphasis.

[Lesley Silvester]

  Not sure what that type of knife is called but it has a long narrow blade with a very sharp point, and I sharpen it as much as I can. 

It looks very much like a boning knife to me.  A few years back when I was writing my crime novel called "Death for the Butcher's Daughter" I went into our local butcher's shop and asked, after explaining why I wanted to know, which knife would be most suitable for stabbing someone up under the ribs and into the heart.  He kindly laid all his knives out of the counter and we were discussing which would make the best murder weapon, when a customer came in, looked at us and was heading for the door again when the butcher spoke to her.  Fortunately, she saw the funny side and  he didn't lose her custom.

[fiestyredhead331]

I ran over a pheasant on tuesday, for some reason i thought it would get out of the way like chickens etc do but no.......thump thump and a cloud of pretty orange feathers in the rear view mirror. Did feel sorry for the mechanic who had to put 2 new tyres on the car 3 minutes later when i got to the garage who probably had to deal with some unidentifiable bits around the wheels