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

can't figure this one out. I gut every animal that i'm planning to eat as soon as I get to it. I can't figure why anyone would not do this. I want the blood out of my deer or bear as soon as possible. when I was young the first time I was around hog butchering they shot one,and stuck him right away to drain the blood. if it wasn't for scalding them they would have just gutted them right away.


I have had to look for a few deer that I have shot and finding one 6hrs later then gutting the meat holds a lot more blood.

I'm with ya.' I was at the butcher shop just Wednesday dropping off a doe I shot when 2 fellas pulled in with a decent buck in the back of the truck - ungutted.

I hang and quarter my deer within 30 minutes of shooting, but I never gut mine unless I fuuck up and gut shoot it. I always gutted mine before a guy showed me it was a waste of time.

If you don’t gut a deer, how do you get the tenders?

Yeah, that just doesn't make sense, if for no other reason that the deer's a lot heavier to drag out if it's ungutted. I always gut 'em right where they fall, and as soon as I possibly can. We've got wolves up here, and they wouldn't think twice about getting some easy eats.

No reason for me to gut a deer. Get it back to skinning rack and take meat off the bone. To get inner loins, let guts sag a bit and get em.

Bingo.....same for me. I can have one back to the skinning rack within minutes of laying my hands on it so never seen the need to gut one unless it was going to be a very long drag.

Firm believer that 3 things are required for truly good (tender and flavorful) venison steaks and roasts:
1. Field dressing asap to start getting the heat and fluids out
2. Clean the cavity out as soon as I can get the deer hung, flushed with hose and sprayed with saline solution
3. Let hang for several days, so long as the temperatures are in lower 30's. If weather is to cold or to warm, off they go to a shop that has cooler that can hang and age for at least 5 days prior to processing.
The tenderloins often get consumed earlier.
Any deer that can't get properly aged is processed into several kinds of sausage.
I put a lot of effort into keeping my venison cleaned of hair, blood, and fat. [u][/u]
The work really starts right after the shot.

The key to quality venison is timely heat removal.
The sooner you can get the carcass cooled, the better and less gamey the meat is going to be. Gutting is the easiest way to remove the most heat from the carcass. The next most important step is to remove the skin.

That gamey taste? Really not much to do with "game". It's really the taste of spoilage.

a12 said it all. Fug a bunch of gutting unless it’s gut shot.

Curious how blood moves into/out of muscle once the heart stops? I understand blood can diffuse a bit around a wound channel but other than that????? The vessels at the top of the heart are the only connection to muscle tissue within the visceral cavity and again, once there's no blood pressure there isn't much blood moving. Gravity will of course move blood out of the visceral cavity but gravity doesn't move much blood out of actual muscle tissue. If you take a freshly killed game animal, get a pristine (not shot up) rear or front quarter hanging quickly and then lay some cardboard or a bunch of paper towels under it you can leave it for days without much dripping out.

While we're on the subject of "bleeding" game animals, I'm reasonably certain that those who insist on "slitting the throat" of an animal that's already dead are also guilty of eating their own boogers as adults.

I gut mine just to make them lighter

Or the taste of "Overcooking/Under-Basting".

I was sitting up on a hill in north Texas years ago. I saw a guy shoot a buck, get out take off his coat, put on some arm length plastic gloves, get his knife out, walk over to deer to gut it. When he got about 10’ from that buck, it jumped up and hauled ass, hopped over on our lease. It ran a couple hundred yards, fell over dead. He looked up when he heard me laughing. I will never forget him standing there like he lost his best friend. I went down there, helped him drag it back to his side of the fence. That was thirty years ago.

I quit gutting deer a few years ago. I hang em, skin em, take the backstrap and debone the hindquarters and some of the shoulder meat. Then we put the meat on ice for a few days, draining off the water occasionally. If it’s a gamey buck, we’ll salt the ice (a tip I got from a lady hog hunter).

The gamey taste isn’t spoilage. It’s in the blood. That’s what a few days on the salt and ice do, is to remove the blood.

Many years ago I spent some time trying to get within range of a big buck who loved eating wild onions. He often fed in a big patch of them. Finally got him. His blood had a strong onion odor. My hands smelled like onions after I cleaned and deboned him and so did the meat when we cooked it. I think 3 or 4 days of the meat in salted ice might have made that meat edible.

The grandson killed a big stinking hog last season. I’d have thrown it away, but he was a starving college kid and wanted the meat. That’s when I first tried the salted ice soak. After a couple of days, the wife cooked a bit of backstrap just to see how it tasted. It was great. Not at all gamey/stinky.

Try it.

Wether gutting of boning out, it important to do I it quickly. I get a kick out of guys that Don t gut their critter for some time.Don't remove the wind pipe, if they do, or gut it and drag it through the dirt for a ways. And oh yes, break the bladder and scatter pee all over, and wonder why their meat doesn't taste good. Almost forgot to mention driving around with it in the truck for 12 hours to show it off. Meat preparation is an art, and it starts when the critter hits the ground. I wouldn't want to eat half the deer i see other people kill either.

Once you kill an animal and the heart stops beating, you are not going to be getting any more blood out of the animal's muscle tissue. In the hog butchering situation, the old timers (like my Grandpa) would shoot them in the head with a 22 and then stick or cut the throat ASAP like you are describing....attempting to bleed them while the heart was still beating its last few times and they would get blood out that way. When you shoot an animal with a rifle it usually lives for a short time........they either run, or lay on the ground kicking for a few seconds. During that time, they are bleeding out what they are going to bleed. When you gut the deer, you see the result of that but are not enhancing it.

I've seen guys who will go up to a deer they just shot and cut the throat to bleed it. It does not hurt anything but its basically a waste of time.....because the pump is no longer working.

As to your original question, I've answered it probably 3 times before. I don't gut deer in the woods for a couple of reasons:

One, I have access to a lease 30 minutes from my house which is the best hunting situation I have ever been in and probably ever will be. One of the stipulations in the contract is that we are not allowed to leave guts on the property.

Two, during the best part of hunting season here, temps vary from hot to very hot. I killed one early in October at around 7 am and the temp was probably 80 headed for 90. Had I opened it up, every blowfly in the county would have swarmed me and the deer. I don't like that. Since we have to get the deer on ice ASAP, those of us who process our own deer usually do everything at once by taking the deer someplace we can hang it for skinning and butchering......hopefully out of the flies.

Fail to understand why some make a big deal out of gutting a deer. It takes less than 5 minutes, with a good knife, and rids the carcass of the stuff that can cause the most problems.
As others have noted, its the single best step to initiate cooling, critically important to making great venison.
The coyotes and crows gotta eat to.
I understand that those who hunt in hot weather might have an entirely different situation than we enjoy here north of the Mason Dixon line. I regard 70+ degree weather as time to go fishing, not hunting.

Don't know, I can saw the chest cavity open with a folding limb saw I keep in a cargo pocket on my hunting pants and have the guts out of a buck deer in two minutes, have also found out gutpiles DO NOT bother other deer, have seen it firsthand, BOOM, dump the guts and go.

Don't get it either, even if the "drag" involves an atv or other vehicle. The steam that rolls out of the body cavity should tell you all you need to know.

Interesting thread. I always gut asap but I can see in some of your situations that may not be the best way to go. May also depend on what you do with your deer. I treat mine like beef (gut and skin asap, hang for 10 days-2 weeks in a meat locker before butchering) and make most of it into steaks. When I serve it most people would not guess it is venison.

Same here. I have been doing it that way for the last forty-five years or so. Only gut them if I'm required to on a draw hunt here in Texas.

Yep. We strip them quick, and get the meat in a cooler with ice and salt. Drain it once a day until the water is clear. Sometimes I have left them in coolers for ten days. Never had that gamey taste.

I'm in the no gut club also. You can get all the good stuff without getting elbow deep in guts. I can see the benefit of gutting if you have to drag them a good ways

I grew up being taught that you were to gut the deer immediately and I did for over 30 yrs. But...we hunted as a family and if I killed a deer early in the morning, the others might not get through hunting for several more hours so the gut job was warranted. My circumstances have changed. I usually hunt by myself and if I kill a deer at daylight, I'm done. If I have done my job and there is no track job I either drive up to where the deer lays (not this year, been too wet...lol) or go get the 4 wheeler and drag the deer to the vehicle. I'm getting older and have a bad back and bad discs in my neck to pulling and tugging and lifting the deer any longer is over with. So with the 4 wheeler I just drag the deer upon the trailer. Our lease is only 6 or 7 miles from the processor who dresses the deer and cuts and wraps it. So there is no need in my estimation to gut the deer in the field. I shot a young buck yesterday morning at 7 AM and it was at the processor shortly after 7:30 and he immediately started dressing the deer.

I can honestly say that since I have been handling deer this way for the last 8 or 9 years, that there is no difference in the quality of meat that I get from when I gutted the deer immediately. As far as the gamey taste, I believe as mentioned above that the deer's forage has far more to do with that than gutting the deer immediately. The onion deer story above was hilarious to me. I like to use onion seasoning my venison so was wondering if one would still need to season a deer which had been eating onions...lol.

When we hunt the family farms, we gut when we get the deer back to the barn. That means from 20mins to about an hour, depending on which farm. We do not field gut, but keep the meat clean of any ground clutter or foreign matter. Why drag an open wound through the woods? I've never seen any issue with the taste of the meat due to the slight delay. We gut in the barn, and drop it all into a wheelbarrow, and deliver it to the gut pile. It serves double duty, if we set leg hold traps around it.
We've done no gut version, but in general, we prefer to gut it, wash it and hang it a couple days if the temps allow. The only time I ever use a processor, is if I do not have time to do it myself, such as a Sunday evening hunt.

Try not gutting on a moose.....

Liver is 30 lbs alone. I take 10.

well,to this I say ,bullshit!! blood always leave a animal faster when its warmer. I never soak or ice down a deer. all you do then is bleach the blood out and ask for bacteria to grow.

I like to quarter, get meat on ice as soon as possible. It’s always warm in Texas

I don't gut them where they fall becausd I might want to hunt that stand again. We skin them first usually and cut most of the meat off before we gut them. I only gut them to get to the heart. The tenderloins can be cut out without gutting. I am in the camp that puts my meat in a cooler with salted ice and drained off daily. It does pull most of the blood out of the meat and makes it more tender. I ate deer loin for supper last night and that deer had been on ice for 5 days. It was off a buck that stunk when I walked up to him that was in rut. Full of hormones and he wasn't the least bit gamey.

All my life my credo was that when the deer hit the ground, the guts were out of it before the second bounce! Now that I am 70, I don't move as fast as I used to. I even let the processor gut a deer last year because of my back. It took me about an hour to get him there.

Heart, liver, kidneys. Best parts. Just say’n.

Bacteria growth happens at temps above 40 degrees. The only way to "ask for bacteria to grow" is to let all the ice melt and the temp inside the cooler reach 40 or above. Meat naturally has a lot of water in its composition. If it was a problem on its own, hanging a deer would not work.

I notice that most of you guys in the "No Gut Club" get it done in a timely manner in spite of not doing it in the woods.

The only gamey deer I've had was one I shot in the morning and didn't recover until the afternoon (about 6 hours until I got it gutted).

^

I gut them to cool it off and because the drag out of the woods is often very rugged terrain and not particularly close. dumping some weight is a appreciated. Time to hanging and butcher is usually not within a couple hours either, so gutting is warranted.

603country IS correct as well as RJY.

All meat hung in a COOLER is NOT frozen. It’s aged above freezing.
I stumbled onto this in the 80s. My family & friends have been aging venison in ice & water or
coolers ever since and none have gotten sick.

I also was able to demonstrate this to 2 diff deer leases and they changed from freezing to
aging.

srw - 603country said “try it”. I ask have you ever tried it?

Jerry

This. I can't imagine not gutting a deer.

Interesting. When I gut a deer it is usually about 20 to 30 degrees. The gut pile is usually gone by the next morning. Different locations call for different answers to the same problems.

This.

I'm one of those fellow who doesn't gut right away most of the time. I'll attempt to explain.

First off, let me give you some background. We've got 200 acres in the Trans-Bluegrass of Kentucky. I'm about 10 mi south of the Ohio River. Rifle season starts the second weekend in November and runs to about Thanksgiving. Average temps on The Opener are a low of 35 and a high in the low 50's.

The main goal in our case is How fast can we get the deer to the processor? The problems are:

1) The nearest processor is a 1/2 hour away.
2) Historically the processor filled up before Noon and refused carcasses after a certain point.
3) The availability of alternative processors-- I've ridden around the county for hours trying to get a deer taken in.
4) The idea of a 300lb live weight buck is not out of the question, nor a 170 lb+ doe.

The timing is not such a problem anymore in the mornings. However, we have a fairly stiff 8PM cutoff for dropping off deer in the evenings.

The key here is speed. If we can get a deer back to camp in an hour after the shot, we hold off gutting until they're out of the field. That is normally the case. Rather than gut in place, we'll call for somebody to come out with the truck. We have a dedicated deer wagon, an old S-10. It has a winch on it so we can even drag a carcass out of the ravine, and block and tackle and ramps to get deer into the back. I have it set up so that one guy can get any sized deer into the back without assistance. Once they're in the back of the deer wagon, we can run them back to the meat pole, run them up and clean them out in a few minutes.

Spoilage? Given our normal operating temps, and the speed in which we retrieve the carcass, spoilage is just a non-issue. A deer taken before 10 AM is at the processor well before Noon. A deer taken before 6PM is there around 7-7:15 PM.

We also are not tied to the process. If a deer runs down into a nearby ravine, and it's going to be a chore getting them out, the first thing we'll do is gut. That happens about once every 3 years or so. Ditto for delayed retrievals. Once in a while it takes us a while to find a deer-- maybe an extra hour or so. In that case, the guts are coming out right away, no matter what the temp.

We hang head-up. We tie have a short length of chain that slips around the neck that attaches to the block and tackle. For gutting, it's ideal. Gravity pulls most of everthing out with very little assistance.

BTW: I learned all this from a hunter from Alabama who was living in Kentucky and on whose farm I bagged my first deer. He was used to much warmer temps and would hoist a deer, head-up, on the nearest tree and gut him.

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.

There is probably truth there. All I can say is that most fellows report that 2-3 hours is a safe window for normal fall conditions, say under 55F. Of course, nothing we do is going to be passing USDA inspection, and nobody should eat the stuff without proper cooking.

Have never seen or heard of this phenomenon here in PA....

Laziness or dont know how.
Hahaha.
Takes a few minutes and the deer weighs less for the drag out.
Silliness...

I ain't hanging a deer for a week with the guts in.

if you want to hang them for awhile…….do you leave the guts in?...….bob

I think GregW is using the gutless method out west, in that situation I totally agree.
Out east where we bring the deer out while I cannot agree with his statement of “any situation”

lots of people out west bring them out whole...…..I am with SH......not going to hang anything with guts in...….bob

We never gutted them in the field. Mainly because we hunted with in 1-3 miles of home. Loaded them up, hung them up and gutted them. We had water available too, to wash up and flush the cavity. Besides who wants to gut a deer in negative degree weather, when you don't have not.

Out west where you could be miles from any road and packing in and out there is absolutely no reason to bring out anything whole...1/4 it up and through it in your backpack and hike out.

Pretty easy to tell who has hunted out west and who hasn’t.

Gutting or not gutting , field dressing or not field dressing depends on your hunting situation, geography, timing, temps , method of removal from the woods and facility's. There is no one right way. Only the best way for the situation. This is not directed at anyone on this threadbut I I notice some on the Fire fail to see the sense in some things as they fail to take into consideration that hunters find themselves in many different situations.

I for one go one two very different hunts with in two weeks of each other. One hunt you can drive right up and snatch your deer with an atv and have it back to camp in 15 minutes the other is walk in on National forest and your draggin your deer by hand back to the truck over hill and dale where it lays
In a trailer for four days until its transported back to a cooler and a barn where its processed. Temps matter in both cases as to how a deer is handled after the shot.

We all seem to agree that the deer needs to be cooled down with in a reasonable time.

..
tom …….bobmt…...bob is my name.....mt stands for montana…...have only hunted out west......az..born there.....wy...lived there....nv...lived there....ak...hunted there.....mt...going on 29 years.

I have packed out.... and loaded them up....just shot late season cow elk.....b tag.....Friday, on my little 20 acres, out my back door...its hanging now....no guts...…….I have to throw this out there....like you did....pretty easy to tell who has hunted out west and who hasn't......have a good one...…..bob

Did you backpack them out or drive them out on a side by side/quad?

We usually gut our deer within an hour of shooting. This past season opening afternoon, i shot a nice wide, white tined 8 pointer at 320 PM and Hope was still out there hunting on the front part of the property. Because she has started sometimes using the trophy pics on our Christmas cards we send out, she doesn't like them to be gutted before she can get the pics taken. So I waited until she got back to our cabin and we got some pics taken and it was a little past 6 PM before we started gutting the deer. It was fairly cold that day here in Mid-MO, probably mid 30s, but I was starting to get a little nervous. I hung him up afterwards and we skinned him out on Monday along with a dandy 10 pointer Hope took Sunday morning. We've only eaten the tenderloins so far on these guys, but they were fabulous as always, So there doesn't appear to have been any detrimental impact from the delay. Might start hanging them up by the head'/neck to field dress them, looks like it could be easier and less messy.



Hope's 10 pointer,.

Today's suburban hunter finds such a behavior distasteful.




And I find it a bit unethical.

Always like shooting one where I can gut it out in about 3 minutes and then toss it in the truck whole. If I can do that, I can hang it for a few days if weather permits. Lot of the time that is not possible so you gutless method it and roll. I do think a lot of wusses who are used to unwrapping shrinkwrapped chicken breasts, would struggle to gut an animal. Kind of pathetic really.

Totally agreed. And you just described the provincial thread originator to a tee.

...


tom......as I said in my post.....I have packed out( on my back) and loaded up whole.....no guts, by atv….trucks... and quartered up with horses.

I have packed ….on my back....quartered and have boned them out...…….I am actually agreeing with you when you said.....that you don't agree with the statement of....any situation.....bob

I prefer not to have to trim so much red crust so I do prefer to gut a critter if it can be brought out whole.

If it is even mildly difficult to get out in one piece then I fully agree-no reason at all to gut unless some weird state has regulations requiring animals get brought out whole.

I just always shoot my stuff miles from a road. Getting it out whole is not an option.

Always have field dressed them where they fell or close by, no need to be dragging extra weight, having innards contents in contact with the meat and finally field dressing allows more rapid cooling of the meat. Never saw any reason to do differently, it has been working for me for 56 yrs. now.

Different strokes for different folks. Everybody's situation is different.

In my case, I generally have anywhere from a 100 to 400 yard drag. I ain't dragging out an extra 50 pounds of schit, then loading a deer that weighs an extra needless 50 pounds onto the truck by myself, then creating an extra 50 pounds of crap to get rid of. Screw that, I can gut the thing in about 5 minutes and leave it in the woods for the other critters to get rid of.

The first time I ever heard of gutting later was when a buddy of mine moved down to the Eastern Shore of Delaware about 25 years ago. The first deer season he was there, he called me up to tell me about the crazy schit those guys do down there. He couldn't believe it. He told me how they drag them out without gutting, take them home and hang them. Then they gut them over a bucket and throw it away somewhere.

Why? It's gone the next morning.

My parents used to live in a suburban setting with houses on 2 to 10 acre lots and you could only bow hunt there. They were over run with deer. My mother didn't want me to hunt there, but my father and some of the neighbors wanted me to try to thin them out, so she agreed. My father told me I could hunt as long as I didn't leave gut piles everywhere. So I go out and shoot a doe one Saturday evening right at dark. I gut the deer and drag it out and load it in the truck. My father asks, "What did you do with the guts?" I told him I left them out there and I'll be back in the morning to clean them up. I did this to prove a point. I came back the next morning with a trash bag and we walked down there. We walked up on a spot where there was a few bloody leaves and I said, "there's my gut pile". He was amazed that you couldn't even tell that anything had happened there. He never worried about the gut piles after that.

Beautiful bucks, congratulations.

Because of sand?

I could imagine that ruining a lot of meat!

Yep, agreed. Working around or wallowing in guts is asinine. I gutted deer asap when I was a kid, now? I get the animal hung and skinned and then I drop the guts intact onto a tarp. I lower the animal with my lift to keep that process easy and splatter-free.

Would never do it any other way these days. Meat is as good as it has always been.

And for butchering 'in the field' on mountain hunts, the LAST thing addressed other than the loins is the innards. "Gutless' is the only way to go.

Up here, it's the only way to warm your hands !

Since it takes about 3-5 if you work slowly I'm not sure what the big deal is. But most of the time I'm with family and on the hunt for days at a time so we just get back and hang it.

I can gut one a lot faster than I can 1/4 one. But now that the laws in MN/WI have changed, I'd not hesitate to 1/4 one and pack it out instead of haul it, if necessary.

I think most hunters do something for the right reasons or because it suits their hunting methods. Gutting a deer to hang it or going gutless, skinning it or not, etc.

Some hunters though, do things because they were shown by someone who didn't know any better. I've had guys give me a call to go help them gut a deer because they had no clue how to do it. I've seen deer half gutted, nothing cut above the diaphragm, with the pooper still in, etc.

One thing I do not understand is guys who slit a deer's throat when it's been hit in the boiler room. It does absolutely nothing, the heart has stopped beating and if it's been lung/heart shot, almost all of the blood is in the chest cavity.

For guys whose backs or legs hurt when gutting on the ground you might want to try what I do as more often than not I am alone in the woods. .

I keep a sheet of plywood in the bed of the truck and pull it out to make a ramp. Tie a rope around the deer head and run the end of the rope through one of the front cleats near the cabin. Grab the deer , or rope near the deer, and pull the deer up onto the plywood - doesn't have to be all the way, using the tension on the rope to keep the deer in place. Cinch the rope on the cleat and the deer will now be secured on the "ramp". You have a lot of leverage and it is easy. It is then very easy to then pick up the plywood with the deer laying on it and slide it forward into the tailgate.

To gut it, turn the deer sideways and tie up the up side legs to the upper cleats in the rear if you have them. This keeps the belly exposed, easily accessible without bending, and the deer from flopping like it does when on the ground or not secured. Finish gutting and let everything slip right off the tarp on to the ground. You can then throw a bag of ice into the deer chest cavity if inclined, wrap the tarp and drive off to the processor.

MUCH MUCH easier on the back and legs.

A rare trick I got to teach my dad.

I have gutted smaller deer and antelope after dragging them to the pickup because it keeps dirt, leaves and grass from getting in the body cavity. The tenderloins and inside of the rib meat are nice and clean if you wait to gut till you're either in camp or at least until you get the critter to where it won't be drug through the weeds anymore. If the cost/benefit of dragging a lighter carcass trumps keeping things clean, then go for it-gut it where you find it. If the drag is easy and involves gravity and/or snow, I will wait to gut.

9 out of 10 of my critters get quartered gutless and come out in my backpack though, so I rarely do gut anything anymore but this is one reason to wait. I know other people like to gut stuff in a spot where they can watch for coyotes or whatever else, so there's another reason. I have had ranchers ask me to gut antelope in their hay pasture near their house to shoot coyotes off of the pile.

Yep, provincialism is just as strong on the Fire today as ever.

Trying to remove all the flank and rib meat whilst the guts or in the deer is fugger. It takes me more time to dig out my knife, roll up my sleeves and put on a pair of rubber gloves than it does to gut a deer.

Seriously, how long does it take to get the insides out, 2 minutes

What’s your technique exactly for salted ice soaking.

I’ve done both and you’re correct. It all depends on the situation. I’ve packed meat out in a pack and never touched the guts. Reason was where I happened to be hunting I didn’t have access to a machine to haul him out or a place to hang it for easy butchering. I cut the hide down the top middle of the back and peeled each side open. Took the backstrapes out shoulders off,deboned the hind quarters and slipped in each side for the tenders. Cut the neck and head off and in two trips had everything. I divided it up evenly and strung half up in a heavy duty laundry bag I pack so the yotes and wolves didn’t get it and packed out. If I can’t hang it this is what I do. If I’m hanging it I gut it immediately, hang it up and pull the hide off when it’s still warm.

What’s a “processor?”

I always used to gut right after killing. Anymore though if a deer looks heavy enough that I know I'm going to have to leave it alone for a while to go get my vehicle and/or help to drag it out I don't gut.

My reasoning is with the increase in the coyote population around my area nowadays I don't want to leave any unnecessary blood and gut scent that could attract a pack of coyotes looking for a quick easy meal from a already cut open carcass while I'm gone.

As always, YMMV.

Spot On

Also, where we get our deer usually involves a long drag to get to a road or trail. We get one tag about every other year and don't waste meat by being lazy. Every scrap gets used and is taken care of. The liver and heart are some of my favorite parts of the deer...liver, bacon, and onions...heart trimmed out inside, stuffed, roasted, cooled in the refer overnight and sliced thin for cold cuts.

In South Carolina, it is normally hot on deer opener of August 15. 90-100 degrees... We don't field dress a deer because of flies - plus, we can normally drive the truck or four wheeler to them and pick them up and take them to be cleaned in a place that has something to hang and running water.

Also, we always put the quartered deer in a cooler full of ice for a few days with the drain plug removed. Makes the meat better tasting and drains blood.

Hot most of the time in Texas too! I never gut deer at all.

There is a way around this, gut the deer, drag it about 15-20 yds away, cover it with your jacket and get your help.
If the coyotes do come the will always hit the guts first and with your jacket over the deer they have never bothered it here.