Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting How do you hang your deer?

Skinned ASAP, head down, washed with cold water from the hose, hung 7days or more in a dry cold place with fan on the cavity till it dries out.

Field dress with a small knife and small Sagen saw, opening the pelvis and rib cage. Split the deer from jaw to tail and get everything out cleanly.

Then hang head down for however long to age.

Skin with knife only, and we save the hide to trade off later.

Debone starting at:
1) remove backstraps.
2) remove shoulder quarters and send to deboning table.
3) remove neck meat boneless.
4) remove rear quarters with knife and send to deboning table.

Never use a saw for processing. Leaves bone marrow on meat, which tastes bad and if there is cancer or prion-diseases, they will be in the marrow and lymph nodes. Throw the bones away and carefully get rid of all the inner-muscular lymph nodes.

Head down, that way if there is anything in the oesophagus it won't run down the chest cavity and makes skinning much easier...

I too fillet all moose and deer for the same reason. Removing bone dust and all fat, esp from deer will improve the flavour greatly.

Gutless

I (almost) always gralloch my deer in the field as I understand doing it is best for the meat.

If I do it at the garage, I do it head down. I saw the hip bone and the sternum and everything comes out easy peasy with the help of gravity, falling directly into a rubber bucket and without much messing.

Whichever way I do it, I leave it hanging until rigor mortis disppear, when I skin it and debone it.

Yep and easier to process when getting it home.

I never thought about the bone marrow from the sawing. That doesn’t sound too good.

Where I use the saw does not affect the meat. It's only to dis connect parts.

I cut the meat away from the sawed areas & bones. It's a non issue to me.

Jerry

Gut them where they die. That’s why they call it “ field dressing” . Hang it in the shed ,head down , with a gambrel through the back legs. I think there’s more than one way to skin a cat for this question.

And retrieve a 90 pound deer.

.

Why not just whack it with the hatchet then?

The more I hunt the more I discover I need a lot less schit in my pack or pockets. I do use a Sagen saw sometimes, if I have it with me. But most of the time I just reach in and pull it out because I can cut it from the outside almost all the way around.

Tom, if you whack the pelvis directly with a hatchet, it splinters, then the pelvis cuts up the back of your hands !

Suddenly, I've come to realize I don't bone or debone a carcass, I meat or demeat it.

That's a great idea! Can't wait to give it a try.......

Thanks for that tip. I need to try that. I have a devil of a time getting the Saws-All clean. That should keep most of the funk out.

Gotchya!

You will notice a vast improvement. I take the blade through the middle finger.

I use a cordless Saws-all to cut the legs off at the knee. Then I use it to cut the spine right above the ass end and throw the whole rear up on the table and use a knife to unhook the hind quarters from the pelvic bone. Then I use the saw to cut the head off of the body carcass for easy packaging in trash bags. If it has horns, I use the saw to cut the skull cap off. It can certainly make the job a lot quicker and easier.

As far as the sternum goes, if i'm not mounting it, I bust up on one side or the other where the ribs hook to it with a knife. You can cut right through the ribs right there. It's soft bone. I do that so I can reach up to grab and cut the wind pipe and yank everything out in one clean swoop.

Everyone does schit different, no right or wrong way. That's why we read these types of threads to find out better ways to do stuff. Different strokes for different folks.

Of course the middle finger.