I guess I'm just not as experienced as the rest of you guys. Seems like everyone I talk to about this claims they can skin and bag an elk in less than an hour. For me its been no were near that quick, especially alone. The 15 min it takes to gut an animal saves me time in the end. Not to mention its easier to get the entire tenderloins out with out worring about splitting the ever expanding gut bag.
Maybe I'm just no good at the whole gutless thing.
We were fortunate to kill two moose within about half an hour of each other a few weeks ago. We decided the best thing to do was gut one and get it opened up and cooling, and go work on the second one. The second one we decided to go with the 'gutless' method, bagged and deboned at the same time. Start to finish was 4 hours with meat bagged and in the shade. The first moose we gutted was bagged and in the shade in 3 hours, add in the gutting time and we were still time ahead... That was also after packing a load of meat down to camp, and hiking a mile back up to the second bull. In other words we were 1/2 worn out before we even started.
No guts made moving it around 10x easier, and all in all the meat ended up cleaner. maybe we should have split the hide on the belly instead of the back on the gutless bull, but reguardless I'll never do another gutless.
Sounds like you are a minority of one, so far.
Now, I've only done 3 animals gutless- 2 moose (one in the dark and 6 inches of bog water, the other in 6 inches of morning-light bog-water) and a caribou that way, after helping (OTJT, as it were) do an elk and learning about it.
Your times seem about right for what I'd get- but then, I've done quite a few dozen animals by the old gut-first method. Betcha I get faster with the gutless method given the opportunity.... Robert-the guy doing my elk - sure didn't waste any time...
The gutless method on those two moose and the caribou gave us cleaner meat than usual(well worth the extra half hour, which is more than made up for in trimming time during processing), but probably requires two or more people to be really efficient on a large animal. Good leg holders/pullers/bag holders are a valuable resource, especially with the gutless method!
Good luck on always shooting your animals on dry, clean ground, too.
Should we ever be lucky enough to shoot two animals virtually at once, I'd do the same- gut one, to start immediate cooling, then gutless field dress the other...
You should see those NoSlope Eskimos work a caribou! My friend/mentor Henry once did a bull caribou I'd shot in 17 minutes, timed from the first slit to bloody pieces piled on the sled, at about 15 below...gutless method, with only a knife- first time I'd seen it, but somehow it didn't "take" with me at the time.
