Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting why do people not gut deer right away?

I was always taught to gut it as soon as you are able. We were not allowed to have 4 wheelers in the woods so we had to drag them out. When we were back at camp we would hang the deer to cool it and drain it,if the temperature allowed. The old days of driving down the highway home with a nice deer on the roof rack.

Wow. Your deer meat to taste better than mine?
Hard to believe.
I shoot the majority of my deer in the neck and have them hanging in a walk in in less than 1-2 hours.
So the time your spending gutting the deer is spent better than mine getting it hung and skinned?
What exactly is it about removing the guts that causes the muscles to release blood in them?
I'm not understanding the mechanics.
Since a muscle needs a working heart to pump blood into it, I'd think that your concept is flawed.
Animals are not jugs of milk. Your not going to drain blood by opening the abdominal cavilty from any muscle.

Gamey, as I definitely it in taste, is from 2 things.... adrenaline in the blood from deer that was hit and pushed before death and handling meat after touching hide.
Deer have oild in the hair and handling meat after touching certain areas of the hide can transfer those oils to the meat.

Shaman,

Do the deer processors up there not gut them for you or is it an extra cost or something?

I ask because here they do. Guys just load up their deer as it fell and take it to the processor. The one my friends use is about 30 minutes away and they have no issues with spoilage or bad meat in our warm temps. As cool as it is where you are, I can't see you having any issues and the time you spend hanging and gutting could be used to transport the deer and get there before the processors fill up.

Not saying you are wrong or anything, just asking??

The no gut club seem to live in Texas, like involving lots of golf carts, feeders and stands.

This thread is another fine example of the how strong provincialism is on the 'Fire.

it's warm in Florida during hunting season. Many a deer has been taken while wearing a short sleeve shirt. We gut the deer where it falls. I want to cook down that carcass. I pull out the tenderloins and put them in a zip lock bag.
The deer is skinned and butchered as soon as possible. I have never sent an animal to a processor. We put the meat in a cooler, tilt it for drainage, and ice down for at least a week. Meat is always tender and flavorful.

SE Alabama is the only place I have lived, where not gutting is the norm.

Just lazy is all I can guess.

Both deer and elk, I use the no gut method as prescribed by the CPW because of CWD prevalence. A lot nice than wading thru guts and blood.Slitting the throat of a downed animal only works to bleed out IF the heart is still pumping.

A double lung or heart shot elk or deer will have most of the blood inside the body cavity with very little in the meat

I agree.

I think those are two good reasons. But, hell, I don't even know exactly what "gamey" means other than an "off" flavor.
I'd add to those reasons 1) a bad flavor-inducing diet, like the onions. 2) gut shot on a scale from simply having the stomach broken to having the intestines broken to having the bladder punctured and 3) spoiled meat from being too warm for too long for whatever reason.

I don't think blood in the meat has much to do with it, at least not in my neck of the woods. The deer I shoot are agriculturally fed or eat acorns so they are pretty sweet. As it is, the deer lose so much blood from a lung shot, I don't think more is necessary. At least not for the deer I shoot.
You guys bleeding them on ice, I wonder how much the flavor is improved just from aging.

Liver is too dark for my taste.

?Kidneys? No thank you.


Jerry

Why the heck do people mess with guts these days? No need to touch them in any situation....

I set up in a brush blind close to a water tank hunting cow elk. About mid-day about 12 elk cows come trotting in. One is nice yearling, so I drop her with a single shot to the base of the neck. The other cows milled around a little bit then wander over to the tree line and bed down, all less than 100 yds from where the dead elk lays and me sitting in the blind. My hunting buddy who was hunting just over a hill from me heard the shot and comes over to see if I shot anything. Once in sight of the blind he calls out and asked if I shot anything. Of course this spooks all the cows bedded down around me and there are elk going every which way which spooked my buddy and he doesn't get a decent shot. We gutted my elk and drag her to the road and got her out to camp. Next day, my buddy is back in my blind and just about mid-day the cows come back in and he shoots one. Gunshots, blood, guts, dead elk, didn't bother them at all.

Gutting is an extra $25 at some processors here.

In SC where I do all my deer hunting.

I have very bad balance issues. Kneeling over a deer makes me wobbly so I gut the deer on the tailgate of my truck so I can do the job standing. I only live 10 or 15 minutes from the places I hunt so my friends help me get the deer in the truck and assist me dragging if necessary.


I back up next to my gambrel, put a wheelbarrow under the tailgate to catch the entrails. I've been doing it this way since I acquired the balance issue over a decade ago.


Dan

Shoot ‘em
Gut ‘em
Hang ‘em
Skin ‘em
Bag ‘em
A week or so later, cut ‘em up.








Even elk, when you can get them out whole









P

Here, gutting is included in the price of skinning which I think this year is 20 or 25, but it is not extra.

I had a scientist (and also a member here) explain to me that an animal's intestines will cease to fully contain fecal material at around 45 minutes after death. Accordingly, I prefer them to be out of the body cavity by then.

Just another perspective.

FC

It used to be no one would take a deer that wasn't gutted. Now a few of them will do it and charge you, but it's expensive. The thing I would worry about is how long after drop-off does the deer get gutted? The processor can get backed up with the carcasses stacked like cordwood.

For us, I figure gutting adds maybe 30 minutes to the process. Also, we usually take our pictures at this point.

I will also say that getting closed out at the processor has become largely a thing of the past. The overall volume has gone down as well as more processors have opened up. Our chief worry is in the evening. Sundown is at 1730 or thereabouts. The processor closes at 2000. I've had one instance in 10 years where I had a big buck down and I was hunting alone, I gutted it in place and then wrestled it into the back of the truck. I got to the processor just after he locked up. It was a warm evening. I had to go home, winch the deer into the freezer and then winch it back out in the AM. That was before I started improving the process.

Last year, we shot two within 15 minutes of each other right at sundown. I was already tagged out and sitting back at camp. I had the deer wagon rolling towards the first when the second went down. Spit-spot, two pickups, two hunters, two deer, and we were back home sipping scotch a half hour before the processor closed.