Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game gut shot meat protocol

Deer killed today in camp with a quartering away shot that pulverized lungs but nicked stomach, so it had some gut spillage. It was in the high 20s/low 30s all AM, and gutted, skinned, rinsed, freezer hung, etc., all within 1.5-2 hours. In my book, given these circumstances, it's a total non-issue for meat and if it was mine I'd happily eat it.. But it sparked an interesting conversation about it in camp (most seemed to agree, re: no biggie), so I'm curious what yall's takes are.

Non issue for me.

NO problem.

After thoroughly rinsing.. I like to let them hang a few days.

Jerry

It's not a crisis. I've had a couple where the bullet angle opened the gut. As long as you wash it out fairly soon there's no bad taste.
Consider how many guys take a straight on shot. Any of the larger calibers will easily make it through the lungs to the gut and mess things up. It happens all the time with no meat spoilage.

No issues here. A thorough rinse n dry and it's good to go. An exception might be a gut shot animal that wasn't found till the next day with warmer temps.

sounds like no problem. my son, who's camp nickname is "Gutshot" has made a mess a couple of times. i'm talking straight through the stomach with a 308 kind of mess. boy had a problem with his aim when he was younger. thankfully he has improved, but the name still sticks. i have actually cut entire sections of the deer out and thrown it away because it was so inundated with gut paste, including tenderloins and hinds. i would skin the mess quickly and hose it out thoroughly and trim and it was always fine.

people wash pig guts and eat and use them for all differant things (Sausage etc) I just had hog maws for supper yestarday.

Buddy thought it was a good idea to catch a 140 grain BT from his 7mm mag. He opted to shoot a whitetail straight on an indeed caught the bullet. We field dressed animal and saw the mess. He found the bullet and cleaned animal. No issue. I rinse out animal or use dry grass/rag to wipe out excess blood and other fluids ect. Cut out meat if tainted or bad.

Non issue for sure.

OP nailed the procedure for minimizing any issue.

Guts and vital hits where the animal dies quickly are a non issue. Straight gut shot where the animal dies hours later have never been good in my experience.

100%

Have eaten Hog Maw myself.

Most sausage is stuffed in but.
I'd guess most people don't know that.

Common knowledge among country people here.
Not so much pseudo country people.

Non-issue.

No issues. Sometimes hard to avoid punching guts depending on angles.

I've done it, a quick field dressing and a good washout of the cavity. Never tasted any difference. Prefer not to, but stuff happens.

Thanks gents. It doesn't get talked about a lot because it taints the story a little, but especially with all the quartering shots folks say they take on elk, my hunch is this happens all the time. Glad to hear y'all agree.

It’s very common and no matter how good a shot a person is, things go wrong through our own faults or not.

My worst shot on an animal was a WT doe. I was out in a cut block in tall grass and had a small herd of deer walk right at me, sun rising right behind me. I was nearly busted several times by a yearling and while I was trying to keep an eye out on the yearling, the doe I picked out walked slowly past me about 50yds out. I slowly turned while the yearling was standing about 20yds away looking at me and when I looked back at the doe her head was down in the grass feeding. I quickly aimed behind the shoulder and shot. The deer scattered and the doe ran over the ridge in front of me. I found her about 600yds later and while focused on the yearling I hadn’t seen the doe turn 180... In my haste to make a shot before I was busted, I assumed the doe was still walking past and made the quick shot. I put the bullet perfectly in the crease... right in front of her hind quarter and gut shot her. No meat loss with a relatively quick death but terrible shot placement and I felt ill for a while after that.

that smell can turn a stomach though. last one i remember doing myself was probably almost 30 years ago. straight on shot on a doe with the 270 at about 30 yards. i saw the stuff blow out the sides through the scope. it was all over the trees and snow and basically the bullet gutted the deer. what a friggen stinky mess.

Clearly a city boy.

I had a quartering to shot that got in the guts pretty good. Small deer. Had a gut funk on the carcass after it was gutted skinned and cleaned.

I gave it a sponge bath with some vinegar and cut/wrapped it after a few days.

Meat was delicious.

If you look at a deer, you can see that the gut actually has very little direct contact with meat. That's why skinning a large animal will get it cool much faster than just gutting. The skin has almost full contact with the meat.