Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Deer field dressing?

Up until this season in WI, it's been required to check the whole deer (guts not required) at a DNR registration center. If you've got a gutless method for that, I'm all ears.

How do you get the heart out? Ribs would be a pain also perhaps?

Because in some states it's not legal to quarter them and dropping 30-50 pouds out of them by gutting makes a lot more sense than dragging the extra poundage out of the woods.

Not everyone has easy access to an atv or tractor path where they hunt and we have to drag them.

everyone i ever hunted with in va. field dresses deer

If you have a utility knife this would work the same.

I was given one of the Hunters Edge "Switch-blade" (IIRC) for Christmas last year. Seems like a pretty cool tool for an all in one. I always just use my regular knife propped on two fingers to unzip them with ease, but may give the new gizmo a run. Damn thing is very sharp from the package.

The good ole shingle hook. Many uses, fletching removal is another.

Coyotes and birds can have my share of heart and liver...

It's easier to get at those inside tenderloins if the guts are out and I usually save the heart. Otherwise I would not gut one at all.

If you want the heart you have no choice, but otherwise, it's not that hard to get the tenderloins out with the gutless method.

+1. Anytime I ever strolled past a gut pile days later...the coyotes had left the liver. Hmm

The reason I do is that by the time I get through with a deer, all I want left is a bunch of bones picked so clean that what I do throw out ticks the coyotes and buzzards off.

I don't throw away the heart, liver, rib meat, flank meat, brisket, neck....etc. I could make a surprising amount of burger off of what the "no gutters" leave for the critters and I don't mind taking extra time to get it. That is just my way not to say it is better than anyone else's....just how I choose to utilize the animals I get. I was raised not to waste food.....my Dad and Grandpa really were big on it.

BTW, the shingle cutter blade....it will work but the hook on it is too narrow....kind of like the seat belt cutter only maybe worse. Plus you have to get the hair, blood, and other "stuff" out of your utility knife when you finish.

Other than the heart and liver. I can get everything you mentioned with gutless.

I agree on that.

Heart is good, muscle meat, just a different sort of muscle. If you have a dog boil up the liver but do that when you can have the doors open, it can get pretty "fragrant." They absolutely love it. Usually it's some for me, some for the dog but each to his own. Careful removing the gall bladder, gall will make it unpalatable for people though the Sioux favored a little gall to "spice up" raw meat, particularly when winter killed buffalo floated by in the spring.

We always field dress, never have much of a drag if any. Then hang, cool/age, and cut up at our convenience and comfort. But our dads were meat cutters. I like a 3-1/2 to 4 inch drop point knife, fast and easy to unzip with that. Dad once had to dress one with his little and not so sharp pipe knife so it's technique more than tools. (BANG! Oh hey, did anyone bring a knife?? Wish I was there to see what happened next. )

I LOVE heart. In fact my favorite breakfast after killing a deer is fried heart and eggs, with some biscuits of course.

I stopped eating heart years ago.I collect them for others ,but dont eat it myself.
Gut piles never last overnight where I hunt.Usually just a bloody spot left the next day.

I didn't get to the top of the food chain so I could eat guts.

But...I do save deer heart and liver for my dead hunting partner's widow. She loves it. I give her all my deer meat, so I just take the heart and liver too.

Can't speak to elk or mule deer but a whitetail does not have a gall bladder. miles

No whitetail don't have a gall bladder in the typical sence that would normaly attach to the liver...but they do have a urine bladder thats located inside thier pelvic cavity. I have drained and saved the piss from many of them.