Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Gutless/deboning in the field

What is the consesus on this process - leaving the carcass behind, and hauling the meat out boneless. I would think this would save a ton of energy when your animal is far away from established roadways. Is it legal in your state? How do you prove the animals gender? Obviously if you have a bull, you'll be hauling horns, but when you have a cow?

Kaiser Norton

Same as if you only quarter it, you need to leave evidence of sex naturally attached to one piece of meat in CO. Sex organs, or for a cow part of the udder attached to a large chunk of the hind quarter.

Saves a ton of weight if you're packing meat on your back. The only drawback is, you can get some tough meat if you trim it off the bone before rigor mortis sets in. It's best to leave it in quarters at least overnight, and bone it out right before you put it in the pack.

Horns don't count for proof of sex in CO unless attached to the body. They are OK for proof of 4 pt. minimun though

In Wyoming it is different, I've been checked three times with boned meat and it's not been a problem. In Colorado we would leave a testicle (or I have heard the udder as smokepole said, for a cow) on each hind quarter as proof of sex-as saddlesore said, horns weren't enough. Unless time is an issue or you were close with horses or equipment, it sure is easier to bone it out on the spot. Even if quartering I'd never gut one (unless it had to be left).

Helps to have snow

My pal's favorite method....

I've been doing the gutless method for years !

I can't remember the last animal I had to drag. It is the only way I do it. Some claim the meat is better left on the bone. Maybe, but there is no where near enough difference to justify that pain in the azz in my opinion.

I did gutless last year for the first time, but didn't debone. I just dropped pulled the quarters, backstraps and then the tenderloin from behind that back rib. Left a testicle on one quarter. Then I took the brisket/rib meat and some neck meat in a small bag. I'll never do it any other way again, unless it is an easy load. Too quick and easy.

I also think the meet stays cleaner for processing later when quartering in the field. Thank God for horses and mules.

I've done a bunch of them gutless and for sure it saves a lot of work.

However......I'm convinced that boning a freshly killed animal can make them tougher. If the muscles are cut before they go into rigor mortis, the fibers will shrink which makes them tougher. Cooling meat too fast will do it, too, in a process known as cold shortening. This is a problem if you shoot one when it's really cold and immediately skin it.

It's possible to remove the 4 quarters with only minimal cutting of muscles. Removing the meat from the bone, though, and taking out the loins will allow the muscles to contract while still warm.

Over the years, the most memorably tough animals I've shot have all been done gutless. In recent years, I've been using llamas to pack meat. I field dress the deceased and skin depending on how hot or cold the weather is. By the time I get back with the llamas, it's usually ready to bone. If I shoot it in the evening. I'll let it lie and bone it the next morning.

Here's a technical rundown of what's going on:

13 Rigor & Cold shortening

13.1 Introduction
Rigor mortis is a loss of muscle extensibility marking the conversion of muscle to meat. In other words, living muscles can be stretched and they return to their resting length when released. Meat cannot be stretched and has very little elasticity. A strong attempt to stretch a length of meat will merely rip it.

Just before a muscle sets in rigor mortis, it may attempt to shorten. Refrigeration increases the shortening - giving rise to the name cold shortening. But even cold shortening is weak relative to contraction of a living muscle. A muscle will only contract if there are no skeletal restraints. What does this mean? Consider a beef animal walking into the abattoir on all four legs - a leg at each corner of the body. We slaughter it and suspend it by its hindlimbs. The muscles ventral to the vertebral column are stretched and cannot shorten before rigor mortis develops. But the muscles dorsal to the vertebral column have no skeletal restraints and are free to contract - either from the very weak shortening just before rigor develops, or the slightly stronger cold shortening caused by refrigeration.

Why is this important? Because shortening decreases sarcomere length and increases the overlap of thick and thin myofilaments. This increases the toughness of the meat. Nobody likes tough meat. It is important to understand how to minimize cold-shortening.

The key point to grasp is - the sarcomere can only shorten if it still has ATP and has not yet developed rigor mortis. An exhausted muscle has minimal glycogen, therefore minimal post-mortem re-synthesis of ATP, therefore it develops rigor mortis early. Once rigor has developed - the muscle cannot shorten. We are safe. We cannot make meat tough by rapid refrigeration.

Cold-shortening is a very complex phenomenon. The most likely cause is the effect of low temperature on the sarcoplasmic reticulum. The sarcoplasmic reticulum works hard using ATP to sequester calcium ions. When it is cooled - it begins to fail. Calcium ions remain in the cytosol. The muscle slowly contracts. Cold shortening is more severe in red muscles than in white muscles because red muscles have a weak sarcoplasmic reticulum.

13.2 Rigor mortis
The conversion of muscles to meat is completed when muscles have depleted their energy reserves or have lost the ability to utilize remaining reserves. In living muscles at rest, an ATP molecule binds to each myosin molecule head and in this condition the myosin head is said to be "charged". In resting muscle, further developments between the actin and myosin of thin and thick myofilaments are prevented by the intrusion of tropomyosin molecules. Contraction in living muscle is initiated by the release of calcium ions from the sarcoplasmic reticulum, and followed by the removal of the tropomyosin intrusion. As a muscle contracts, charged myosin molecules heads attach to actin molecules, ATP is split to ADP with a release of energy, and the myosin molecule head swivels to cause filament sliding. The myosin molecule head, which is still attached to its site on the actin, can only detach itself if a new ATP molecule is available to be be bound. When muscle is converted to meat, myosin molecule heads remain locked to actin and even passive filament sliding is impossible.

The four legs have the bone in them when I use the no gut method, but the back strap is definitely tougher when it is filleted out off the spine vs leaving it attached

We always do the gutless deal but never bone. Boning will make meat tougher and if it's warm out it doesn't cool as well as if it's left on the bone. I also feel that it's easier to pack when it's left on the bone. A pile of boned out meat just kinda settles into the bottom of a pack and tends to ride too low. With a quarter it has some rigidity that helps keep the load distributed more evenly. Whole quarters are better at forming a protective crust when they're hung and have less places for flies to blow eggs.

Debone or not, one thing I know for sure is that I don't plan on ever wallowing in another gigantic gutpile from an elk or moose again. I also like to split the hide from the root of the tail up to the back of the neck and skin it down in halves as opposed to starting at the bottom. That way I don't have to cut the tougher lower leg skin and I feel like it helps me keep the hair off thw meat better.

I prefer to skin from the bottom up for 1 reason - hair. The cut edge will get the most hair on the meat and the belly has the least amount of meat exposed to hair. I've done it both ways, though. Dressing elk or moose is in one aspect like golf - you play it where it lies.

We've been doing gutless and leaving the meat on the quarters (except backstrap and loins, obviously). Have done antelope, mule deer and moose this way and see no reason to go back to gutting and hauling out, unless the pickup was right there. Even then I believe that I'd process it that way anyway. Makes it easier to handle, hang, etc....

So gutless saves you about 10 minutes? mtmuley

Nothing quite like all blooded up in a dry camp in Brown Bear country! I like staying clean! rather than blood up to my elbows with the bugs and bears! Just prefer after doing both ways!

On a 3 yr old mule deer processed gutless, meat weighed 70#, leg bones weighed 7.5. The bones are worth that much extra effort for their help in stabilizing the load, crusting to keep flies off, and later hanging or aging the meat. YMMV

And like KK says, I stay way cleaner. Besides I'm quite certain that I cannot gut an elk or moose in 10 minutes without either cutting myself or the stomach open and making an even bigger mess.

I'll even take a saw and cut a window in the ribs so I can reach in and take the heart as its one of our favorite eating parts. With that in mind I just don't see a downside to the gutless method unless you just enjoy getting all bloody and nasty.

Anybody weighed out elk quarter bones? I'm curious now.

An elk femur weighs a sh*tload. And more with each mile from the truck.