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

I always heard natives whack off, just never knew what it meant. Where'd you get those antelope quarters, way up in the woods like that? And what's the little yellow tent for? Is that what they call a "powder room??" Is that where natives keep the stack of "Sports Illustrateds??"

Seriously though. None of the bones made it into the pack.

This ^^ , treating two parts of the same animal differently, is likely to be the only sure, definitive way to tell if there is a difference.

Be sure and post your findings bwinters. I'm going to keep an eye on this.

It's a good test, but I'm not sure it's the only way. I'd say if you use the same animal and compare a very tender cut (backstrap) that was boned out immediately to a cut from the hindquarter that's not as tender but was left on the bone for a day or two, and the backstrap is very tough while the hindquarter is tender, that's pretty good data. Good enough for me anyway.

Not sure if it was this thread or not, but I said I was going to do an experiment of aging a tough old bull elk steak in the refrigerator for 10 days. Today that time was up, I grilled a round steak to about medium rare. Just so there was a little bit of pink left in the center.

The meat was " marginally" a bit more tender than before this aging. This bull meat was in the freezer since 2009 ( CO 201 bull) with no freezer burn.

The bull was done with the no gut method,but the leg bones were left in. It hung over night, maybe two nights before I put it on ice at hthe elk camp.

Guess I'll keep grinding it as I need it.

Early Tues morning I shot a cow that knew Noah personally. I know she was old enough to have come over on the ark. She was where I could slide her down a snowy hill 150 yds and get the pickup right to her. I gutted her on the spot and took her to the bottom where I skinned her. We got her in the pickup whole and didn't cut her up until late afternoon so she was well stiffened.
We ate some round steaks and loin chops yesterday and she's acceptably tender.
I KNOW that if I'd gone gutless and boned her early, she'd be a lot tougher. I've done that too many times over the years.

Why would you go gutless 150 yards from a vehicle? What if the situation was further than 450 feet?

Its faster and a lot less mess to work in, even if you're parked right next to it.

I would second that. The only reason I could see to gut one is if you're alone and can't roll the animal over to do the other side. Not such a big deal with a deer, but it can be with an elk.

I guess I was midunderstood. I use gutless exclusively. Shooting a critter 150 yards from an open road (I am assuming) is much different than it is for folks that don't hunt along roads.

There is a pronghorn in my pack from a couple weeks ago. Usually I bone as well, but in this case these are bone in quarters. It beat dragging the critter two miles and suprise, my first steaks, eaten that evening, were not leather. In fact, they were amazingly tender.

I don't have a lot of experience with pronghorn but I've never had any that was tough. Seems they're a different animal altogether.

On the average, my elk have to be packed a mile or more but if I can find one near a road, I'm certainly not ashamed to take it.
Taking quarters out bone-in usually isn't a problem. It's when you remove the bone that the meat fibers contract and add to the toughness. The backstraps are another matter. Unless you want to haul the whole spine out, they have to come off.
I've used gutless for many years, doing it either way as conditions dictate. In my experience, the ones that are completely boned right after the kill are the tough ones.

Pronghorn rigor is much different. Pretty much like mule deer in my opinion.

Like others have said, it depends on the situation. Let each scenario dictate whether to bring a critter out whole & gutted, quartered bone in, boned out by gutted or gutless method. Confidence with all of those gives options to a man who knows his limitations.

I opted for gutless on a buck less than 100 yards uphill from my vehicle, though deadfall all of the way downhill.

If I have time, I'd rather gut them, leave them till the next day and then bone out. I did that last week on a mule deer, killed before sunrise 260 yards from a road. He was skinned to cool and hung in the shade where he fell till the next day, then boned out and taken home to cut up. I've boned out a number of backpack bucks within minutes of when they hit the ground, however, and they have been good to eat, maybe a little tougher. While living in an apartment I boned out everything in the field.

For context: have backpacked deer up to 8.5 miles, 11 miles for an elk, etc. On the other end of the distance spectrum, dragged one buck to the house whole.

HaHa! Sorry, not laughing at you mtmiller. Just laughing of the absurdity of suggesting Rock Chuck being a "road hunter". Having gotten to be friends with him and hunting with him, I can assure you he's a tough bird that can put a hurting on this N.Carolina dude chasing him up the Idaho mountains! He doesn't quit either!
RC shot this gal on up the hill a ways and was blessed with some fine snow to sled her right to the pickup, in addition to finding her near a road.
I can assure you, the mule deer we shot a few weeks earlier was no where near ANY road! We packed it out in pieces, after a night of cooling on the carcass. (Okay, we "packed" it out on llamas! Pretty snazzy way to roll!)
Point is, we let it cool on the carcass.

Gutless makes sense. Even it it's beside the vehicle. I've sworn I'd never drag another one out. But I'm starting to second guess that. The point is, some are finding this makes them a bit tougher at times. In my situation, being in NC, oftentimes hanging a deer up for a day or so before quartering or boning isn't practical because of the temperatures. And sometimes where I hunt, there's no way ANYONE is bringing a deer out of there whole! But in the event I get one that isn't in some hole somewhere, and temperatures permitting, I may try dragging and hanging for a day just to test this theory.

Bottom line, if possible, leave it whole until rigor mortis is set in and perhaps the meat will be a little easier to chew.

I didn't say he was a road hunter. He mentioned he shot elk 150 yards from a road, hence my post.

I have eaten deer that were boned immediately and others that were allowed to set over night. I haven't seen the difference. I am sure you experiences are more diverse. Thanks for sharing.

Up until a few years ago I would've said the same thing. Then I shot a buck right at dark and cut it up within minutes, the muscles in the backstrap were still quivering. I left the quarters with the bone in. I don't think the buck was older than 3 1/2, and the meat was good but those backstraps were probably the toughest I've ever eaten. That kind of got me interested in the whole subject.

If I can remember to do it, next deer I kill I'm gonna leave one backstrap on the carcass overnight and bone out the other and see if there's a difference.

Mtmiller, didn't mean to come across as a wise ass. On the contrary, my experiences are not more "diverse". In fact, my experiences are very limited compared to most on here. I deer hunted a little back in my teenage years but ended up giving it up on favor of waterfowl, upland birds, trout and the occasional turkey. Just picked it back up a few years ago. Of the deer I have managed to kill, most I considered tough. And most have been field butchered and packed out. So while I'm not exactly a newbie at all this, if someone is on to something about deer being more tender if allowed to age a bit on the bone, then I'm game to try it... because my experience butchering is NOT diverse enough to draw hard and fast conclusions.

Don't let that stop you snubbie, it doesn't stop the rest of us.

Ha! True that!

I'd go gutless if I ran over the elk, because it won't fit in a Jeep Wrangler, and I couldn't pick it up anyway.