How Much Meat Is Your Goal?

Background: Family of three, with one on the way. For the last several years I have been increasingly working to grow, forage, kill or catch an increasing portion of our diet.

Question: How much meat do you need? Where, when and how are you planning on sourcing it?

My land: I am not in a hunting club and have no private land in North AL. I will be hunting/fishing all public land. I do have private land in South MS that I will hunt over Thanksgiving. I do have access to hunt Redstone Arsenal. There is public TVA and AL WMA land not far from me.

My plan: I drew and elk tag in KY this year, so in DEC I will travel there and attempt to harvest a cow elk. I will be working with a guide, so there is a high chance of success for this hunt. I process all my own meat, so my goal is 150lbs of elk meat out of this trip. I will plan on harvesting one deer on land in MS, with a high probability of success and an expectation of 30lbs of processed meat. This will be my first year hunting RSA, so I would like to harvest one deer there, but give a low probability. I would like to hunt hogs on the Sipsy Wilderness in NW AL and harvest at least one this year, moderate probability of success.

With that said, and assuming several meals of small game and fish, I figure this would provide enough meat for my family such that we would only need to buy a couple pounds of meat per week - and then mostly pork or chicken.

What are your plans/goals for the fall/spring?

I would LOVE to do this, but just can't make it happen with my schedule. I'm always jealous of beastman's threads where he catches his dinner. there's not much better than pulling out your own fish and cooking them fresh that night. I've had tuna raw straight out the water... that's pretty cool too.

The weight really depends on how much your family eats. How much do y'all normally buy now? Also will depend on how you process it. 1 LB on fried tenderloin is a lot different than a 1 lb of ground meat IMO.

I usually kill ~2 deer per year and fish year round. With those deer and plenty other killed by family every year, we have as much deer meat as we want to eat and we eat a lot of it. My freezer is also never void of fish. We eat a good bit of speckled trout and redfish in my house. I actually threw back every trout I caught last night, because we have plenty in the freezer. We are fortunate to have access to so much. Of course, we still buy a good bit of chicken and occasional ground beef.

Judging from last year I want, in the least, 3 deer.

Last year I got a doe on Christmas day. I made a boatload (and that is no joke) of jerkey. I made 10 pounds of ground meat. I grilled a few pieces. I finished my last piece of jerkey about 10 minutes ago. I'm already in withdrawl....but that's for another day.

I didn't buy a lot of ground beef..but I did buy a fair amount of pork and and a very small amount of chicken. I figure that if I can get those 3 deer (minimum) then I'll cut that by more than half. It depends on how my jerkey addiction works out....anyway...

I did not do well fishing this year. I've never done so bad with a jig or a fly rod. It was really a head-scratcher. It was also my first year with the slat-box and I failed miserably with that new venture. Same with the crawfish traps.

I hope that I can make up some with squirrel and rabbit. It's that time, so I reckon that I should get after it.