Some of the posts on another thread got me to wondering how guys can post the live weight of their deer? In the north we always refer to a deer's dressed weight. I've read that removing the heart, lungs, liver and entrails represents between 21 and 23% of a deer's live weight. I for one sure don't want to drag out any more deer dead weight than I need to to say nothing about being able to cool the meat down faster. The varmints need to eat too and I sure don't want that entrails mess back at camp. What is the rational for doing it later?

Certain areas I prefer not to leave a gut pile as in spot I killed deer yesterday...I also wanted a true accurate weight of this deer because he was so big.230 lbs guts in 190 after dressing at home. 2 hours after deer was dead he was weighted and gutted at my house guts in trash bag and garbage man arrived in afternoon to take trash easy peasy . It was 38 degrees yesterday morning so not an isssue

I gutted them before I brought them back to camp, but that was before I learned you could clean a deer without gutting one.

drag a deer? Whats that? LOL

When in that situation I don't want to drag either, I quarter and debone and carry not any more than I really have to.... out in my backpack.

Just another reason to shoot the dink!

Now that we have e-check in both states I hunt, the next one I kill far from the car might get the gutless treatment. Have to buy some bags, I guess.

Guts come out where deer fell.

It's a shame to waste the liver and heart, however.

Where I usually hunt deer a long tough drag is involved most times, so they all get gutted where they drop or close to it.

Yep, I gut 'em where they fell.

One place I hunt records the live weight of deer....so there they don't get gutted in the field.

I'm one of those guys who talk in live weight over dressed weight. There are two reasons for this.

Reason 1: Our hunting property is such that unless the deer runs down into one of the ravines, we are able to drive the truck right up to the carcass. We bring them straight out to the meat pole, gut them at the pole and drive straight out to the processor. Often times, a deer is on the way to the processor within an hour after being shot. We have a scale for purpose. It's fairly easy to hang them off the scale and get the weight before unzipping them.

Reason 2: For the deer that do run down into the ravine and we have to gut in place, we have a measuring tape that fairly accurately estimates weight based on chest circumference. Since the vast majority of our deer get an actual weight recorded, we record the liveweight for these deer as well. The live weight, dressed weight, and yield weight are marked on the tape.

I field-dress all the deer I kill so I don't have to drag the extra weight. I've never hunted in those fancy places where you can drive up and to a fallen deer. Where I hunt is usually public land, too swampy, too steep or to thick to get any type of vehicle near a downed animal. With that being said Using a deer buggy to help retrieve your animal is a back saver!

About that gutless dressing: I've done 4 or 5 elk and 2 moose that way. Every one of them was extra tough meat. The muscle fibers will contract as they cool. Contracted muscles are very tough. Leaving it on the bone until it's cool will keep the fibers stretched and much more tender. Leaving it overnight before boning is the best but not always practical. I try to gut and skin them for faster cooling but of course the skinning isn't something you want to do if you need to drag it.

I don't see the point of field dressing it. If it's a long way from the truck, then it gets quartered and packed out. Otherwise, I'll drag the whole thing out, even in my pirogue and bring it out. I don't want to leave anything to attract coyotes when I don't have to.

We have a place on the property called The Garden of Stone. I have a blind and a stand that overlook it. It is a tennis court-sized chunk of pasture that has some mystery forb growing in it. In the late season, the deer congregate there to feed. I usually fill my last tag hunting that patch. I play eenie-meenie-minie-mo looking for a doe that will fit in the space that remains in the freezer. I've sort of made a science of it.

From Bang! to pickup can be as little as 10 minutes if someone is already in camp. Last minute of shooting is before 1800. The processor closes at 2000, and it's a 30 minute ride. If there are any hitches, we have to wait until 1000 the next morning. Last year both Angus and SuperCore got deer within a half hour of each other. I was tagged out, so I was running the deer wagon. We made the processor with 30 minutes to spare.

This.

shaman,

Is that deer-weight tape the one from Pennsylvania, designed by the game biology department at Penn State? I tested one of those, thanks to a reader from Pennsylvania who sent one along. That fall Eileen and I took five whitetails here in Montana, three does and two bucks, and compared the "tape weight" to the actual field-dressed weight according to our freight scale--which had been tested for accuracy with check-weights.

All I can say is the Pennsylvania deer-tape is designed to make hunters feel good, since on every deer it grossly over-estimated the weight. A good example was the whitetail buck my wife took, a pretty heavy one by Montana standards. The tape said it should field-dress 198 pounds, but on the scale it went 154.

Part of the problem, as we discovered, is that tape's estimate is totally based on chest circumference. Two of the does had exactly the same chest circumference, but the body of one was several inches long from chest to butt. It field-dressed quite a bit heavier than the other doe, but neither weighed anywhere what the tape estimated.

I never weigh my deer but I don't field dress.unless I have to drag a big one a long way. We shoot them load them up skin them and cut the legs, neck meat, and loins off. Then I open up the stomach and take out the tenderloins and heart. It all goes in a cooler gets iced and salted. I cut my own meat up and I get the best cleanest results doing it this way.

Thanks guys and I'm glad to read that post from dvdegeorge that confirms that 21 to 23% gut weight that I posted. 230-190=40# so 40 divided by 190 is 21.05%. Heck of a deer too. We can't use any motorized vehicle here on state land off road, so I deer cart, sled or back pack mine out too. Just a few years back we were allowed to cut our deer into up to five pieces, so now I carry two small pulleys and rope to get them up in a tree to cool and away from the varmints.

Because it’s much easier to do at camp than in the woods. Plus you get much less blood on you when you load it in the truck.

It takes what, maybe 2 minutes to unzip one. It's killing, it's supposed to be messy.

I spend more time digging out my knife and rolling up my sleeves than it does to unzip one.

I grew up "gutting" a deer immediately after killing it. We then took it home and finished cleaning it and either cut it up ourselves or took it to the processor we had in that day. Now, I hunt within 15 mins. of our house. It is actually closer to the processor than it is my home. 95% of the time I hunt by myself and because of my back condition, I cannot lift a deer into the back of the truck by myself. So, either I find someone on my club to help me, or I back up my truck to the deer (when possible) and drag it out to the nearby road, back up my truck to the ditch which allows me to just drag the deer into the truck bed. Since my processor will completely dress the deer and I can be there usually under 30 mins. from time I shoot the deer, I no longer even gut the deer. If I stay bent over these days to field dress the deer, I am done for the next several days because of my back. No brainer for me.

Same. Taking my time to get it really good, 10 min max. Usually more like 5-6.

I started hunting in the Catskill Mountains and Adirondack Mountains. I always gutted deer where they fell. When I moved to the Southeast I was totally taken back by gutting deer back at the cabin. I think it might have something to do with the generous tags. Maybe folks think it will booger up an area if they want to hunt it again. I think it's a regional thing. I never used a 4wheeler back in the day either. It's the way I get around on the farm now.

Damn if I know why you wouldnt gut your deer on the spot, where Kill deer its a hell of a drag to get em back without the guts, these guys got to huntin farms where they can drive right up to them with there truck or ATV, I hunt rugged steep Mtn terrian, no ATV's and no roads for F150's....Lol.....Hb

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

If I want to hunt the same stand again, I don't need coyotes, wolves, ravens, eagles, etc. buggering me.

This is a good post with a lot of valid information.

Depends on circumstances, but I prefer to hang them for a few days once gutted/skinned...proper temps/facilities, of course. I’ve hunted places that didn’t allow gut piles outside of a specific spot, required whole weight for biology records, and had scales on the gutting/skinning hoists. I’ve also packed them out of hell’s half acre in pieces. I’ve also had mature bucks walk within 10’ of a fresh gut pile on the same day. Do what you gotta do.

Well we are hunting small farms in the east and frequently the deer is only a short drag from vehicle access. We use an Amish procession and I usually have the deer there within a hour or so from killing it two hours tops . The Amish boys will dress it for $10 so after 30years of doing it myself I splurge and let them do it whenever possible. I've done enough postmortems to know what a bullet wound looks like and don't care if I ever do another.. besides not fi eld dressing in the woods means no dirt, leaves grass & twigs get inside the deer.

Today I drug a blacktail buck whole 30 yards to a creek, got the Jeep to the creek, and still quartered it so I didn't have to open it up. Nothing hits the dirt if the quarters get dropped in a bag and set in the creek to cool.

Here's my tape:
[img]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51F1aJJrxYL.jpg[/img

It could be the KY deer are closer to the PA deer. I've had the tape for 16 years and the scale for about 14. All I know is the scale and the tape agree fairly closely at our pole. I don't mean to say I've made a science of it. However, for a few years, we were doing both, and now we mostly do the tape. The tape is a pretty good indicator of yield. If I get one that reads 90lb or more processed weight, I've learned it is a good idea to wait and see how it fits in the freezer before taking another one.

Another thing: I gut them hanging from the neck. That stretches out the rib cage. If you hang from the back legs, it makes the rib cage expand. I measure just before I open them up.

i guess if you are going to soak your meat then not gutting right away is ok but i don't want the blood staying in my meat any longer than possible. i always gut them as soon as i can get to them.

Huh? Other than cooling considerations, unless you gut shoot your deer or they’re alive for a long time after the shot, it can’t matter. Deer live all their lives with their innards and body fluids. Being dead a few minutes with them doesn’t magically chang the meat.

Pretty much.
If you're looking for other pieces of wisdom, srw can advise on how to long-arm a deer for picts too.

I eat liver and heart....soo...fk the coyotes. They can get their own.

Mostly gut them where they fall, but sometime Ill drag them off a bit, so I dont mess up the stand. the yotes Coons, ect will have the gut pile gone in a day or two anyway, heard a rumor today that the Michigan DNR because of the EDH problem, are talking about passing a Law that would make gutting in the woods a No No! I think that would SUCK!

How did you get the tenderloins inside the lumbar spine without opening it.

not gutting is a southern thing

We all don’t like to gut deer way down here.

For me it just depends on the situation. I'm usually only a short ways from my 4 wheeler and if I can drive to the deer, then I usually don't gut it until I get it out. But there is a deep creek that splits the property I hunt the most and sometimes I can't cross it on the 4 wheeler and it takes me an hour or so to go out and back in from the other side. In that case, I usually do gut them, especially if it's a warm day.

I've never quartered and/or deboned one in the field though. I've thought about trying it, but just never have.

Dead right there. Guts right there.

Neither do we. Lot of interesting takes on this.

I haven't gut one out in ~20 years. I take it whole to the skinning rack and quarter it out. If you left meat on the bone/hide and hung it in the South, the only thing you'll be feeding are the bees, flies and buzzards. Aging the meat in a cooler for 4 days +/- will give the meat the chance to go through rigor and let the bacteria break down the muscle fibers - bones have nothing to do with it. I can understand if you're hanging it in the northern areas where the temps allow the process to occur without freezing the meat solid or spoiling from warmth and bugs, critters, etc., which is really not much different than using a cooler; I can see where the hide would probably help insulate the meat if the temps are too low. I keep my cuts out of water, away from debris and prefer to age them in larger cuts.

If I can't get it out whole, it's gutless method time with a backpack.

No processor for me, I butcher my own.

+1

I was taught to field dress the deer in the field. That's the reason. I've usually got somewhat of a drag to get the deer out to the vehicle, so it lightens the load. I've got friends that don't, and it just seems weird to me.

same here. Take it to the skinning shed. Out of the weather, Drink beer.


I've just about gone to deboning while hanging. Reach in to the get the sweet meat, closest i get to the guts.

Buzzards got ta eat, same as worms.

One of the highlights over lots of deer seasons was when I shot a buck on Saturday, gutted it and hauled it back to camp and sat in the same stand on Sunday when a family of four bobcats came and ate at the gut pile. Neat memory. Two years ago I dropped a deer with my crossbow and gutted it at last light, but pretty close to the landowners house. The next morning I went back with a shovel and a big garbage bag to clean up after myself and all that was left was a blood stain. Back in my youth I worked in a packing house and once those cows were knocked, hung, throats cut, hide off, gutted and cleaned, a cow was into the cooler every thirty seconds once the line got moving. Guaranteed those were cleaner kills than any of us can make with a rifle.

Drug out a 125 and a 146 in the last 5 days.
Saves a gym day.
Don't skip leg day.

I have gutted one dear in the last 4 years.

All others were done gutless. The places I hunt are not conducive to dragging a deer out, I hiked 3.5 miles and somewhere around 1900 vertical feet on a deer killed a week ago. Gutless only.

The loins, heart and liver are easy to extract.

Moving forward from hip bone on each side, nick the fascia and reach in, pushing down mesentery. Loin is right there.

Remove one rib, Heart pops right out.

Nick diaphram, liver comes into chest cavity and is pulled out same way you just pulled heart out.

+1 - mountains and elk, deer, etc are too far from a vehicle to even consider trying it whole. Gutless method is perfect. One rib sawed, then get the heart and liver.

I have to say I'm jealous everytime I see a whole animal in the back of somebody's truck. Around here it usually means that they hunt private land. I'm happy for them, but still keep hoping for an easy elk or deer.

The guys with quarters of animals in the back of their truck- always get a knowing nod--- because I know that it took some work to get it out of the woods.

+1 - This year my buck came out in 2 pieces - still not whole, but better than most years where about all I have to do is wrap them up and put em in the freezer because they are already nearly butchered just to get them out!

I gut'em where they fall. I ain't draggin out all of that extra schit. Based on where my stands are in relation to where I can get my truck to, I usually have a 200 to 400 yard drag. That's enough. Plus, I'm usually alone, so I ain't loading all of that extra schit into the truck either. 99% of the time, the gut pile is gone by the next morning.

Yep, 5 minutes max. Just yank it out and go.

I had 9 tags, but only used 4, and that filled the freezer.

This doe I gutted with a pocket knife and one paper towel. [no saw] I got my hands bloody, but not my sleeves.

By the time I got to the 4th deer, I was starting to remember how to gut a deer.

Thank you. I've always wondered about those but never used one.

^ This.

So you leave behind the best part.

I have done it both ways, field dressed where they fell and brought them back to the barn below the cabin and field dressed there. I don't believe that dressing them near your stand or blind location does any harm, I've killed deer on successive days out of the same stand where I field dressed a deer the previous day.

You don't get the tenderloins?

Unreal.....

Where I hunt, the coyotes make short work of any gut pile left behind. Last year I made the faux pas of leaving my knife behind- when I went back at first light the next day to retrieve it you couldn't find any sign of a gut pile.

Gut where it falls basically.

Drag out.

We have a few coyotes in the UP - it's never been an issue with seeing deer in that same stand again. Pile is usually gone by morning.

Most places I hunt are no vehicles. So I will gut and drag if its less than 200yds or so, any more than that and I do the gutless quartering and carry out in a backpack. Frankly I am getting to dam old ( and fat) to drag a deer a half mile or more.

This

I just consider the source. Wasting meat is for slobs.

Pretty easy to get the tenderloins with 'no gut' method. Just make a slit behind the ribs up near the spine and you can get them right out. The guts will shift down and give you room to work. Get one, roll the deer over and get the other. I do the 'no gut' method all the time on elk where dragging one of those big suckers is not an option. On a deer it depend on how far the truck is. FWIW the ribs meat is also easy to get - same way. I remember a guy that had never seen it done before examining a spike bull I'd shot and used the gutless method on. His words "damn, there's not even any meat left for the magpies". Worth trying if you have to pack more than a 1/2 mile or so.

This may sound wierd, but I have always wanted to hunt somewhere so far off the beaten path, that I had to quarter my harvest up and pack it out on my back. It just seems like that kind of work would add some extra joy and satisfaction to a successful hunt. You don't really get the opportunity to get way off the path here in Kentucky.

The no gut quartering isn't all that much extra work. its maybe 20 minutes and is a lot cleaner than gutting.

There's a place I go where public ground backs up to private and I can kill a decent white tail every time I hike in. No one else will go back in there because they don't want to work that hard for a whitetail. There is something uniquely satisfying about a 7 mile or so round trip to shoot a deer that most only want to put a foot outside their truck to shoot.

Cleaner kills. Not sure how taking out the brain with a rifle is less clean than a bolt to the brain....

You sound like my type of person. I enjoy the extra sweat when needed.

I also appreciate loading one on and taking back to camp on the samurai. And then a nice mixed drink while hanging it and anotehr after skinning and gutting.

OTOH if headed home in a hurry and its cool, not uncommon to rip the guts and grab two 20 pound bags of ice and toss in cavity and leave deer in the bed of the truck in the camper....only a 2 hour drive.

Come out west and pack an elk out by yourself. You will swear you'll never do that again.........until next year! lol There is a true satisfaction in hunting and packing solo that many will never experience.

I gut them where they fall leaving heart, lungs and liver in. Take those out at home cause I don't want to waste the heart or liver.

some folks like lungs at home. Others take bags for the organs and leave the lungs in the woods....

My paternal grandmother was pretty tough woman, who homesteaded by herself in central Montana shortly after World War one. She was also a very good rifle shot and avid hunter. When she was in the hospital with terminal cancer in November of 1960, several family members came to visit--and when not visiting Grandma B, went deer hunting. She kept a supply of plastic bags in next to her hospital bed, handing them out all the hunters, telling them not to forget the heart and liver.

I have yet to meet a Montana hunter who brings a deer back without gutting it in the field, but life is different in various parts of the country.

Was on a deer lease in SE Alabama, none of the locals would dress their deer. Most hauled them to the sign in shack and waited for their buddies to show up so they could show them off. Nothing like watching a 60# doe swell up in the 80 degree heat. Then off to the processor.

I asked the processor about it, said it was a local thing and that only a small number of folks from that area dressed their deer in the field.

Very likely. I went on my first real deer hunt when I was in college 32 years ago in middle Georgia and killed my first deer. It then occurred to me that we had to "do something" with the dead deer and when I mentioned it my hosts said, "we'll take it to the processor", and thus I was introduced to the concept. It cost about $35 in those days to take a deer in whole and come back in a few days and pick up your cubed steak and hamburger all nicely packaged for you. It is about $75 or $80 now depending on what you have done. Unless logistics dictate that you need to gut the deer to make it easier to drag out, if you are going to go the processor route, there is absolutely no need to gut it. Most guys I have hunted with go this way. I know guys who have hunted their whole lives, killed piles of deer, and never cleaned one.

It makes sense in a lot of ways. If you are working a job, have kids, and honey-dos, processing a deer takes time away from that, and you probably only get to hunt on the weekends as it is. Obviously because of the warm weather, hanging a deer and letting it age outdoors is off the table, so you are going to need coolers and ice or an extra fridge or some arrangement out of the norm. You will need a grinder if you want burger or sausage. The processors make all that go away for a reasonable fee.

I do my own because 1) I have the time 2) I am picky and nerdy about making sure the meat I get was from the deer I killed, and 3) I am a cheap bastid! I've saved enough on processing fees over the years to somewhat offset the gas, license and lease fees, and other expenses that come with hunting...probably about 3 grand over a decade.

Even so, I don't gut the deer in the "field" because would you believe it, the place I get to hunt now forbids it because the owner does not want "guts and carcasses on his land". I could try and explain to him that the yotes and buzzards would clean it all up over night but choose to keep my mouth shut and just thank him for letting me hunt because the hunting on this property is tremendous and it does not cost me much. Plus with the temps as they are now, if you open one up in daylight hours, the blowflies will just about take it from you, which personally grosses me worse than one possibly swelling a little before I can get to it. In my experience, that does not hurt a thing.

My home is very close to where I hunt so I take my deer back to the house and do everything there. Guts, heads and hides get buried in my garden.

As Mule Deer says, things are different in different areas of the country. I guess we all do what we have to do, what works best in each situation.

The processor there charged $60 to dress/cape. Then more fees for doing the meat. Ground was 50 cents a pound. Everything else went up from there. The old lady that checked stuff in and took the orders always said they didnt make any money off of me, cause my stuff came in quartered.

I've lived and hunted in the midwest, east coast, Texas, and Montana. I can tell you, you're not weird. There is definitely something rewarding about.




Dave

I haven't hung a buck in years. Everything comes out quartered and in game bags. I could care less about the guy who kills a trophy on the beach, in a clearcut, or on the side of the road. More power to them though if that make them happy. Killing them in the mountains on a difficult hunt is what floats my boat.

i call them Mountain bucks. I don't want an alfalfa buck. Or a windshield stalk. Make mine the same as yours.

Most times I can pull Atv/UTV right up to it or within a small drag. Usually can have it skinned, deboned, and on ice within an hour or two. If it’s hot I’ll gut if it’s going to take me more than an hour to get it on ice. If I had a walk in cooler or lived in a cooler climate and could let it hang before processing I would gut it.

I rarely shoot a deer that’s easy to get to or that is a short drag. But, I always get my deer out whole even if it’s an all day project. I make minimum cuts while field dressing to protect the meat too. Just around the anus and from in front of genitals to sternum, I reach up in to cut the windpipe.

I can't fathom dragging a deer all damned day, but if it makes one happy, have at it.

Left the guts in 2 deer for the first time ever this year. Both early season archery bucks by my wife and my son. We didn't want to leave too much stink and coyote attractant on our 60acre honeyhole as there are some good deer crossing it.

But we could get an ATV close and I had a buddy help me with the drag!

In Iowa deer get field dressed where they drop and transported out whole. Our regulations require the head to remain attached to the carcass until processed. Even when temperatures would allow I never saw a reason to drag or carry the extra weight of the guts. Even a good shot that looks nowhere near the stomach can result in a rupture. I shot an antelope doe once well towards the front that had a chunk of rib or something open the guts. It was warm so I was going to get the meat off quick regardless but that would have been an unpleasant surprise to find later at processing time.
Where regulations allow out west I have field dressed and skinned an antelope before putting it whole in a large cooler when I was close to the truck. The next couple had to get quartered and packed out due to location. The last couple I could have potentially gotten them to the truck whole/skinned but have become a big believer in the gutless method.

Its easy. Make a cut on either side of the spine and just reach in with your fingers to work them loose. On a deer, you can just pull them out without cutting them. An elk takes a bit more and a knife helps.

I used to do a lot of hike-in-hunts when I was younger and lived closed to some bigger pieces of public land. I really enjoyed it.

I enjoy a lot of things the hard way it seems sometimes. Starting a fire without matches or a lighter, building a shelter instead of camping in a tent when backpacking, and walking into places I hunt/fish/explore instead of taking the truck or atv, among other things I'm sure. I get a lot of joy out of those things.

I can only imagine how tough yet satisfying that whole experience would be. Hopefully one day I might.

Another point I'll make is I often donate all or part of a deer to the local food pantry. They can only accept venison packaged by a processor no home butchering. Not a matter of field dressing but enters into the processor or not.

We gut em fairly close to camp. Lots of coyotes in the area, so if they can sneak in and clean it up they get a free feed. If they can't, we get a deer AND a coyote.