I used to save liver & heart - if either was in good shape. For the heart, clean it off really good. Soak the heart in water with pickling spice overnight in the refrigerator. Slice it thin (1/4 in thick), flour it and fry in bacon grease just until it's brown. Mmm, good.!
I have a funny tale about saving deer liver... I was hunting in Maryland in some thick woods fairly close to my father one morning. I shot a nice young doe. I gutted her out and put the liver in the ziplock bag I carry in my pack and put the bag back in my pack - the heart wasn't salvageable.
I had just started dragging my deer when .. ka-boom! my father shot. We each had cheap 2-way radios back then to stay in touch, so after about 15 minutes, I called him and asked what he got. He said could only find hair, so I told him I would walk over towards the sound of his shot ( I had plenty of orange on). I finally got over to him and we commenced a circular search of the area around the hair. After a few minutes, my father found a few drops of blood. So he marked it with TP and kept following the blood, marking each drop with TP. After a while, we noticed that the darned deer was making a strange-shaped circle! Remember that ziplock with the liver in my pack? Well, unbeknownst to my father, it was in my pack, and unbeknownst to me, it was leaking! This all became evident when we we standing discussing the odd behavior of the "deer" that we were "tracking". My father noticed the pool of blood where I was standing and thought that deer must be right there somewhere. He was really disappointed when I revealed what I found with my pack.
I put the pack down and we started searching the direction the deer originally went - since any blood near the initial hair was probably from the liver. By following the kicked up leaves and broken branches, we were able to located that deer about 50 - 60 yards away from the initial hair through the heavy, holly & laurel thicket. We never found a single drop of that deer's blood until we got to where he laid.
I think that was the last liver I kept, but still kept, and plan on keeping, any hearts that are in good shape.
I have a funny tale about saving deer liver... I was hunting in Maryland in some thick woods fairly close to my father one morning. I shot a nice young doe. I gutted her out and put the liver in the ziplock bag I carry in my pack and put the bag back in my pack - the heart wasn't salvageable.
I had just started dragging my deer when .. ka-boom! my father shot. We each had cheap 2-way radios back then to stay in touch, so after about 15 minutes, I called him and asked what he got. He said could only find hair, so I told him I would walk over towards the sound of his shot ( I had plenty of orange on). I finally got over to him and we commenced a circular search of the area around the hair. After a few minutes, my father found a few drops of blood. So he marked it with TP and kept following the blood, marking each drop with TP. After a while, we noticed that the darned deer was making a strange-shaped circle! Remember that ziplock with the liver in my pack? Well, unbeknownst to my father, it was in my pack, and unbeknownst to me, it was leaking! This all became evident when we we standing discussing the odd behavior of the "deer" that we were "tracking". My father noticed the pool of blood where I was standing and thought that deer must be right there somewhere. He was really disappointed when I revealed what I found with my pack.
I put the pack down and we started searching the direction the deer originally went - since any blood near the initial hair was probably from the liver. By following the kicked up leaves and broken branches, we were able to located that deer about 50 - 60 yards away from the initial hair through the heavy, holly & laurel thicket. We never found a single drop of that deer's blood until we got to where he laid.
I think that was the last liver I kept, but still kept, and plan on keeping, any hearts that are in good shape.