Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting "The gutless method"

Ditto RC

Has anyone made a lightweight evaporative cooling game bag ?

I thought of trying to devise something like that. I guess the standard bag could work, but it isn't light.

I've done the gutless method with elk, but I still prefer to gut them. One of my hunting partners has a very sensitive nose and is always retching, which may partly explain why some people prefer to do the gutless thing. I don't feel like it saves significant time, maybe that's because I have my disassembly routine, and prefer not to change it. I guess on a quartering shot that went through the rumen I might consider doing it again. Could also see how it might be easier if by yourself.

The smell of gutting doesn't bother me in the least, but I've been killing chickens, etc. since I was a small kid. Gutting is just one more step that I don't bother with any more since I can get all the meat off without it.

We are not all Marlboro men.I am vertical challenged at 5'5" amd if I jump in lake,I might weigh 150.

Very very few times in my life have I had some one around to help with a downed elk Seems they all show up after that.
So I can't muscle a 400lb elk around,butI can usuauly get enough ropes on it and set up that I can either process from the spine or belly.Last year I had to wade into beaver pond and attach a rope and have the mule pull one out and then take care of it between a some beaver cut logs and a steep bank.

The guts alone weigh about 100lbs at least and unless the elk can be manuevered, they are sure hard to take out up hill.

Can't see dragging around 100lbs when I don't have to and wading thru all the blood /guts doing it.

How not to do it.

I've had to do 2 of them hanging off a mountainside just like that. The guts are still inside the skeletons as far as I know. I sure didn't spend any time trying to get them out.

I've got a good friend that owns a butcher shop. Every year he tells me a few stories about the winners that bring in whole animals sometimes with the guts in. Stories like the bull elk brought out whole days after it was killed. Often he has them sign a disclaimer stating that the meat is not fit for human consumptions, dogs only.

Yeah, quartering and boning out an elk is wasting only soup bones. Though I haven't seen many folk canning soup bones in years. I think I'll turn in the hero to fish and game for not canning/freezing all his soup bones. Not to mention saving hides and sinu. Hipocrites suck.

The offenses you cite have absolutely nothing to do with gutless vs. gutting.

Feel free to take your pennies and put them somewhere the sun dont shine. We have a name for guys that get elk out whole in the back of trucks.

Dont know where or how you get your elk but I tend to do it about as far from roads as possible and I prefer to not pack crap to the truck that I will just end up chucking in the garbage when I get home.

No sense in dulling a knife pulling guts out and this entire thread has not a [bleep] thing to do with meat left on an elk when done.

Road hunters do what they do and I will continue to do what I do. Feel free to inspect any frigging carcass I have and tell me that gutless has a [bleep] thing to do with what is left.

Internet blowhards.... Keep your money.

Hey wyoelk, If you saw an elk close to a road would you pass the shot? I tend to kill elk a ways from roads usually too. Ain't a damn thing wrong with a dead one close to a road if possible though. I'm sure gutless is a great method, just not really neccessary. mtmuley

FWIW I find a fish fillet knife is a good tool for several of the cuts needed to bone out big game. It works well on the long outer backstrap from neck to pelvis. On ribs it slides flat on several ribs at once to take off the outer layer and leave nothing but white bone. The tip works well between ribs, if the critter has any meat there. Some deer don't.

Have boned a few critters with a pocket knife however.

As said, boning and/or not gutting has zero to do with wastage. The choice is merely whether you lug it home before you trim and throw away the inedible parts, or whether we do that in the field and bring home only edibles.

One can do gutless and still leave meat on the bone. In some areas here it's *required*.

Is that to feed the PETA puppies?

A fish fillet knife is very similar to a meat boning knife - long and skinny. Either will work very well. Most hunting knives are compromises between boners and skinners. There are better knives for both jobs.

You make a great point. I must suck at finding one close to the road. Have no trouble finding one a few miles back in.

and I agree...not necessary. It just works for me but I aint pimping it. My post was directed at the blowhard knocking it.

In Az they changed the law of 'edible' to...

front quarters/ hind quarters/ neck/ loin...

You no longer have to pack out stuff that will be thrown away later because it has a sliver of red between two sinews.

Kent

This is from the Idaho regulations. The change to exempt the neck and meat between the ribs is fairly new. I don't don't know what prompted that change. I don't know any hunters who would leave the neck meat.
Exempting bears is a recent change to hopefully get hunters to kill more bears in areas where they're detrimental to the elk herds.

Waste of Game
Hunters are required to remove and care for the edible meat
of big game animals, except black bears, mountain lions and
gray wolves. This includes the meat from hind quarters as far
down as the hock, meat of the front quarters as far down as
the knee and meat along the backbone which is the loin and
tenderloin. It does not include meat of the head or neck, meat
covering or between the ribs, internal organs, or meat on the
bones after close trimming.

Neck meat was probably included due to the lymh glands being there which has shown to also cary the prions of CWD

ARE YOU SERIOUS!

guess it depends on where you live

"GUTLESS" method is mainly a way to get the SAME job done a lot faster-
especially in states like AZ when heat can cause meat to spoil
its faster - easier

nothing to do with how manly you are ! what a putz

grampa use to wipe his ass with cornleaves and straw - how manly are you