Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Which way to hang a deer?

Now, I already have my opinion on this one, but want to know why people hang their deer by the head/antlers? Why did someone invent the gambrel if some don't bother to use it.

In camp, we hang 'em by the head. The body cavity drains out and the hair sheds precipitation. When skinning, I used to hang 'em by the back legs using a gambrel. At that time, I would saw the carcass down the spine to cut it in half. I now hang the deer by the head. I found it easier to skin them head-to tail than tail-to-head. I don't saw them any more. I just lop off a quarter at a time to work on it. I don't know why we used to saw them.

When I skin for the local butcher, we hang head up unless its getting caped. After skinning, when we hang them to cool, its head down to let the heat rise out of the cavity. At least that's what I've been told. I've seen it done either way on camp meat poles.

I've tried it both ways. Head down does it for me. Just a lot easier IMO.
Most all the time the deer that I work up are brought to the pole in the round.
I think the best time we ever had from hanging the deer until it was sectioned and in the cooler was twelve minutes. Of course my bud and I have had a lot of experience. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />


BCR

In our camp, it's hang 'em by the head. Skin, quarter, take out the backstrap. Unless the ribs are wanted, the body cavity is never opened. Get the neck meat if wanted, cut the head off the body, and it's done. No fancy equipment- a tree limb lopper for the legs, a bone saw if needed, usually a 3" or so blade pocketknife. Got a couple of folks so good at taking out the backstrap, the buzzards aren't interested in what's left! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Pedestal, do you know what tenderloins are, and, if so, how do you get them without opening the body cavity?



I hang mine by the head, and I have a logical reason for it, at least as far as my way of doing it goes. I kill or help clean quite a few deer and when I field dress a deer or a hog, I usually leave the last couple of inches of the large intestine in the pelvis. Hanging them by the head prevents fecal contamination of the tenders. I don't split the pelvis unless someone wants to take the whole carcass. If we want whole ribs, I cut the last few inches on the spine and pelvis are off, after stripping any meat scraps left from removing the hind quarters. I haven't ever timed just the hanging process, but I've several times, killed a deer and had him in quarters, backstraps, tenders, and stripped the meat in less than an hour from the time of the shot.



I don't have an argument with hanging them upside down, I am just used to doing it the other way.

Hang em from the head, you never see a decent buck pole were the ars is looking you in the face <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Flies/Dies. Don't know if it works on deer, , but I get the tenderloin out of elk without gutting them. After I have stripped the loins and quarters off, I can push the paunch in far enough to run a knife up along the underside of the vertebrae. Then grab the tenderloins and they pop out kinda. JUst ahev ot be careful not to knick the paunch.

The only time I hang 'em head up is if the animal is killed at last light and weather allows me to skin them in the morning. This is for draining purposes. Most of the time, I take the back legs off, start the skinning around the hocks to get that out of the way and hang 'em head down. As soon as they're skinned, you take the windpipe out and they drain through that opening. For me, they skin easier head down. Go figure!

For whatever reason, hanging them from the head reminds me of those old photos of outlaws getting hung in the old west and that correlation doesn't sit well with me. Sentimental fool that I am <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />.

Besides, I can't remember EVER seeing an animal hanging head up at a butcher shop and I figure they must know what they're doing.

Muley Stalker:

Now that you mention it, that's another good reason to hang them by the head, reminds me of the 2 or 3 people that I'd like to see in that position. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Hmmmmm, perspective is everything! Now that I think about it THAT way ......... (grin).

Simple question here, why would you leave them out in the rain? We have always covered ours, but have seen a couple nasty instances where someone has let the rain get to them. I definitely would not want to eat those!

IIFID,

I tried to convince a guy last year that those tenderloins were scrap meat, and graciously offered to take them off his hands. Unfortunately it didn;t come together for me.

You surely can get to the tenders without gutting them. If you make and incision right at the last rib, you can get your hands up in there and get them out. They really come out pretty easily and it doesn't make much of a mess.

cas --

being that he is from wisconsin, he might be referring to snow.

for the record, i live in north-central montana, and have always hung head down, but a friend i grew up with always hung his head up, so i guess when you boil it down, a lot of us do it one way or the other because that's how we were taught, i guess.

This is a good strand. I see many camps do it both ways. I prefer head down. I find it easier to pull the hide down and we wind up with less hair on the meat. The fellow that mentioned cleaning out the lower intestine makes a good point but I always remove that before hanging. I simply crack the pelvis with a hand axe and remove that intact. I would not leave it in irrespective of the fecal content, as the residual heat is a concern as well. If the head is to used for a mount we saw off the head and generally leave the cape intact for the Txidermist. Either way I would also make sure the wind pipe etc is completely removed from the neck as well. That is the primary reason I do not like to hang by the head. I also notice that many who hang by the head do not peel the hide.

I do mean rain. Because of the way the gun season is set up,(always the week of Thanksgiving), opening date may vary almost a week over the course of the years. During the early seasons, sometimes we get rain, like the last couple of years. During the later seasons, we get usually count on snow. We seem to get a period of stormy weather around Thanksgiving. In any case, we don't have to cover them 'cause we hang 'em by the head. The hair points backward and the hide sheds water like a roof. We've never had them go bad.

I hang them head down and I prefer to gut them on the ground.

It is so warm here we rarely get to let one hang overnight. I have to quarter it and get in on ice quickly. I have not used a saw to quarter or process venison in decades. I only need a kinfe to take off the legs, quarter and bone the meat.

I sure would like to watch one of you bone out a deer without gutting it first. That would be a time saver.

IIFID:
The method is described below-I forgot that in my note. As the weather is usually quite warm here during the early part of the season, it's important to get the meat on ice quick. This is a very fast way. Usually two guys working together can have one on ice 10-15 minutes after hanging. I must say, thou, if I had to do it by myself, it'd take me a LOT longer-I'm not that good at it....

It's not hard to do but you will lose all the flank meat and the striping between the ribs. On a good sized deer it can add up to 3 to 5 pounds of good ground meat.

I guess it is just a matter of semantics, non of the methods described can be done without "opening" the body cavity to my way of thinking. I hunt in basically the same weather you do, and there is NOT that big of a rush to get the animal on ice. Field dressed, yes, iced, no. Even hogs will keep for hours in high heat if gutted and opened up to cool. Not that there is anything wrong with icing them down, and I usually do it pretty quick myself.

As for me, I think abandoning the ribs or the meat around them is a waste of some fine eating, either as burger, sausage, chili, or just plain ribs. I kill more deer for my freezer than most people (meaning that I have less need for the "scraps") but I process the whole animal up to the head.

I love deer liver and onions, unfortunately I'm the only one in the family who does. The heart doesn't do much for me, but to each his own said the man as he kissed the cow. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

A lot of the "hanging" that people are talking about is in the "classic" deer camps farther North, where the weather permits them to be left outside for several days or more without a problem. We rarely have those conditions in NE TEXAS, thankfully.