Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Field dressing / deboning

Forgive the ignorance from this newbie. I've aways understood that after the kill you gut I.e field dress the animal, leave the hide on and then take it somewhere where it can be hung and butchered.

I hear a lot of you guys on this forum talking about 'deboning' the animal in the field and the 'filling the cooler'.

Is it really true that you folks are deboning the animal in what sounds like 10s of minutes at most rather than field dressing and taking the whole animal out to butcher elsewhere?

I'd appreciate if you could point me to any resources to help clarify.

There will be lots of answers because there are lots of different situations. I hunt on my own property and I usually bring my deer to the house before gutting. I do all my own butchering and have a fridge to put the meat in if it is not cold enough for it to hang. You will have to figure out what is best for you and where you are hunting. miles

I've never broken one down in the field, and it would take me a LOT longer than 10 minutes. I've always been able to load mine up and bring them a few miles home to do the cleaning.

Here's the [b][color:#3333FF]Gutless Method on an elk...[/color][/b]

Typically in the areas I usually hunt, we aren't using a vehicle to get to where we are hunting. Carrying an entire animal out without breaking it down is a major PITA. I dragged a deer over a mile last year because I didn't have my pack yet. After downing a critter I normally gut it out and quarter it up, makes for an easier pack. If I had more time I could bone out the quarters to save some weight, but it normally isn't necessary. Also in some areas of Alaska it is against the law to bone out the meat completely in the field.

Yes, it depends on the situation. On the public land here we are required to gut them in the field and then bring them in for weighing and measuring. Last year in Colorado I shot an elk on the side of steep mountain in thick brush and I couldn't even budge it an inch so I did the gutless method for the first time...in the dark. It did work even though I wasn't the most efficient at it and I was able to carry down the pieces in my backpack.

Elk and bear always get boned out for packing. Pack quarter bags and 550 cord of hanging bags. Big animals take a few trips. Cut up and packed out a big blacktail a couple weeks ago.

You're not getting them out whole. If you don't get the hide off of elk, bear or antelope fast you'll lose most the meat. It's not tough to do.

If I could get the animal out whole and hung at camp quickly I probably would.

If I can get a critter out whole, I will gut it then skin it once I get it home. Cleaner that way.

If there's no way it's coming out whole, I just skin a side, then cut off each quarter as close to the torso as possible. Flip the carcass and repeat. I take the quarters off at the ball joint for the rears and the fronts come off easily as no joints need cut. Then I turn the torso onto the brisket and fillet off all rib meat and the backstraps. The neck gets cut off and deboned too. Then I take the tenderloins and the heart. Explaining how to take the tenderloins with the guts in is hard to do so I won't try to. It's one of those things you have to do once, then it's easy.

The whole process takes me a good hour for an elk, maybe 45 minutes for a deer. Others can do it quicker I'm sure, but I take my time and keep things clean. It's not really too hard once you do it a few times.

Here's a pic of what's left to carry out: For a deer, I use one game bag each for a hind and a front quarter, plus one game bag for the rest. For an elk more bags are needed.



You can debone the quarters too, but I usually don't.

From my own experiences with boning in the field over the last 20+ years, I'm convinced that boning before the carcase stiffens up will make the meat much tougher, sometimes too tough to chew. I've done them gutless many times and it's the easiest way to do it but for the most tender meat I like to gut and skin to get them cool, then wait at least a couple hours before boning, preferably overnight if there's minimal bear or wolf danger in the field.

I've gone back over the toughest meat I've shot as far back as I can remember and every one of them was boned immediately after being shot. I can remember 2 moose and an elk that were the classic all time toughest animals ever shot, both boned immediately after being killed. The best ones were left to cool before boning. Last year I got both a large mulie buck and a cow elk in the evening. I gutted both & skinned the elk in the field and boned them out the next morning for packing out. Both were VERY tender.

Here in Colorado if the temperatures are above about 30 degrees then the Elk needs to be skinned or it will sour over night. Then most of the meat is not good. Got to get the hide off and the elk quartered. You can not leave it with the hide on it. The hide and the bulk of the elk keep it warm. I even built a platform for the back of my truck so the meat does not lay directly on the truck bed. The truck bed heats up while driving home. The drive home is usually 2 to 4 hours.

Might I ask why you left the foot and lower leg on? Is it the law like leaving one wing on a duck or a foot with spur on a Pheasant? I can't speak to mule deer but on whitetail and on cattle the lower leg is easy to cut off at the joint on the knee. With a little practice there is a flat joint that is easy to cut. miles

My hunting partner and I have converted to the gutless method mentioned above. We've done antelope, deer and one moose this way. I won't go back, unless the animal is where I can back my truck up to them, and even then, I probably would stick with it. You end up leaving all the byproduct in the field and not having to deal with it later, if nothing else.....

Tom

Very interesting. Do others notice this as well; that meat de-boned in the field is tougher?

I am a cattle rancher and our butcher kills, guts and hangs the carcass for ~14 days in his locker. I don't know if it is skinned when he hangs it; suspect it is. The results are very tender meat.

Didn't expect that boning immediately vs the next day would make so much of a difference.

I have always heard to wait 24 hours before cutting up an animal to allow rigor mortis to pass or else it would be tough. I quarter my deer and put the quarters in a fridge or cooler and let them stay for 4 or 5 days and have always had good meat. I have no facilities to allow the whole animal to hang, or I would do that.

Obviously I don't hunt in the wilderness where I have no access to coolers or fridges else I would make do the best I could. If possible, I would probably try to take the qtrs out whole.

This discussion comes up often. We have someone on here who's a pro butcher and he claims that cooling too fast will also cause tough meat. That seems to fly in the face of 'common knowledge' but I can't argue with years of experience.

I've seen the same thing. I hunt the backcountry so I pretty much always have to cut up my elk or deer to get them back to the truck and on ice, in large coolers. I've packed out bones before, but I like to think I'm older and wiser now, LOL. An elk femur is a heavy piece of bone.

Anyway, I normally use the gutless method, remove the backstraps/loins and then separate the quarters and hang them in the shade, bone in, usually at least overnight, as Rock Chuck said. So the quarters aren't usually an issue, but the backstraps are. The toughest backstraps I ever ate were from a 2-3 year-old mulie buck that I shot right at dusk and immediately cut up. The cuts from the hind quarters, which were left bone in and hung overnight, were much more tender.

Same with this year's bull, the backstraps (removed immediately) are not as tender as expected, but cuts from the hind quarter (left bone-in overnight) are better.

Also, what Rogue said about getting the hide off an elk or antelope post haste is right on. A lot of guys from back east or the midwest are accustomed to leaving a WT deer hide on for a while, and they do the same thing with elk or antelope, with bad results. I think that's why you hear a lot of guys talk about antelope not being good table fare; you can't treat it the same as a WT.

Has anybody tried aging a deer/elk for 14 days? It seems like the conditions(temp/humidity) would have to be very controlled.

I've kept some animals in a cooler with lots of ice for a week without bad outcomes but it did make me nervous.

I have an acquaintance who is the head honcho at a hunting club and they have their own walk in cooler/meat locker. He leaves deer in there, hide on, for about 2 weeks. I have had some of his venison and it is very good, but mine that I just leave in the fridge 4 or 5 days before final processing and freezing is pretty much the same as far as I can tell.

Keeping one on ice or in a fridge for a week won't hurt a thing, this much I know. It probably helps especially if you have an older "trophy" age class animal.

I have found the same thing about deboning right away making tougher cuts. Especially the back strap.

Its known as "cold shortening" and in the beef industry various ways have been tried to over come it, including applying electric shocks to the hanging carcass!

And the fact the carcass is hanging is also part of the tenderization process as basically the meat fibers are being stretched under their own weight. Again from the meat industry, there is another idea that the best way to hang a carcass is via the aitch bone so the carcass appears to be folded over somewhat..apparently it stretches fibers in certain muscle groups better than the more traditional way..

From a hunters perspective, I believe the ideal situation is where you can hang the carcass to allow it to cool slowly/naturally and then move it into a chiller to hang for a further 10-14 days minimum.

Putting a warm carcass into a chiller also causes other problems and can cause any existing carcass to go a little slimy due to the increased moisture content of the air...

Yes, I use a small converted fridge to hang by carcasses for ten to 14 days..Because this fridge set up is not purpose designed, you do have to watch for signs of mold starting to form..This is usually the limiting factor rather than the carcass going "off"..



The carcasses above are our small Roe deer, but I have had a 65" Fallow deer pricket carcass in there..The fridge itself was bought off ebay for about $75 delivered and I just removed the shelves and added a hanging rail. I now have a slightly larger stainless steel fridge that I got for virtually nothing, and it will take up to four roe or two medium size Fallow..

Many stalkers in the UK have these sort of fridges, with converted soft drinks chillers being another favourite: