Does anyone have a good video link for the gutless method of field dressing an elk.

I'm at home and there sure isn't anything good on tv, figure I'll spend some time watching a few videos to try and pick up a thing or two.

Just google 'elk gutless' and quite a few sites come up. Elk101.com has a couple good ones, part 1 & 2.
I don't like a few things he does, though. This guy could do it a lot better with a different knife. The one he's using is way too slow with the skinning. Also, he needs a knife sharpener. By the time he's done with the 1st side, he's hacking instead of cutting. He also leaves way too much meat on the carcase. He'd get fined for waste of meat in Idaho. He took no meat at all off the ribs.
Otherwise, he does it pretty much like I've been doing it for years. I take the heart, too, which he apparently left. At the end, a couple whacks with a saw to cut 2 ribs makes the heart very easy to get.

Just checked out the one from elk101, that was good thanks! The only tricky part seems to be getting the tender loins out, everything else seems pretty straigt forward.

My three year old sat in my lap the whole time, loving it. "Daddy I can help you cut up the elk"

yes one day son I sure hope so!

I have an easier way to get at the tenderloins. After everything else is done, I slit open the belly and let the stomach roll out. Then I go to work kind of like he did it. This takes the pressure off the spine and makes it a lot easier to get them out without cutting the gut. At also makes the liver easier to get if you want it.

The whole reason they call it "gutless" is so you don't open the guts.Push the paunch aside and make a cut one each end of the tenderloin with a non pointed knife and they pull out easily.

My first exposure was an Alaska moose video non residents were required to watch. Don't know if it's available via the web or not.

what saddlesore said...

Me 2

Order Field Care of Big Game Video from here:
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cf...ticle&articles_id=23&issue_id=12

matthunter

Don't knock it until you've tried it. 444 wanted an easier ways to get the tenderloins and this works. It's not defeating the gutless method because you have the job finished 1st except for the TL's. Just a quick slice and it's done.

I have tried it and it still reeks of guts when the paunch is opened,and I don't relish trying to step around the slush.

I try to use a rock or log to support the pelvic area of the stripped carcass allowing the belly to hang when I make my cuts to reach in for tenderloins. If you can make that work it really helps, takes the pressure out of that area making it easier for your hands to manage a small knife inside there to free the tenders.

I don't hunt near vehicle access, so when I get one in the evening at least a few quarters will be left to hang overnight. I'll use the gutless method and then when I'm done, make a quick cut to let the guts spill out, gives the scavengers something to focus on besides the hanging meat.

Good point smokepole. If I can't get the quarters out same day I move them away from the carcass and open it up. The critters will usually eat off the gut pile first.

I once had 6 bald eagles almost devour a front quarter on a cow elk in one day before I could get it all packed out.They much prefered that to the gut pile it seemed.

Well, nothing is perfect. I once had a bear go pull both front quarters out of the tree and eat them... but my experience has been it's usually the gut pile they go after first.

I'm curious how long it takes to process an elk using the gutless method?

How about a deer or antelope?

Time: I can do a cow elk in about 45 minutes , start to hanging and I'man old fart.

I don't do antelope as we usually throw them in the back of the pick up and do it at the farm.

Deer. I usually gut as typically I then cut the deer in half at the last rib ,thru the spine and put a half in each pannier.

Small game like deer and antelope,you can muscle around.The beauty with using it on elk is that you don't have to try to roll over 300-500 lbs of dead weight, and doing it while trying to stay out of the blood and gut pile

While fighting gravity on the side of a mountain either.

It looks like a good approach! I've been meaning to buy the "gutless method" video but the elk101 videos do a pretty good job.

Eric

I have done the gutless method when I'm in a remote location and must carry it out on my own. That means boneless. The only problem with that is you diminish the ability of the carcass to "hang & age" properly. There has been many pages of discussion here from writers and well seasoned hunters who know the need to physically hang the carcass. For me, the gutless method is the last resort.

Why can't you hang the meat to "age" after the gutless method?

Yea, just bag em up. Best have some manly bags though, not those chicken s__t bags they sell down at the Wal Mart...

Never use those $1 cheesecloth things. They don't keep the meat clean and they don't stop flies from laying eggs right through the fabric. Get some good, tight weave bags and they'll last for years.

Deboning and using the gutless method are two different operations.

The more surface area of meat exposed,the more drying out you have. With the true gutless method, you start at the brisket( or spine), and fillet down along the ribs to the brisket,leaving the front leg attached,stopping at about the 1st or 3rd rib from the back and going up along the neck as far as you wish.
Then you fillet the loin along the spine to the pelvic bone,cut around the forward wing of the pelvic bone and then to the hip socket, severing there. The leg bone stays in the meat. So that quarter, you end up with a strip of loin and the rear quarter.

Then you roll the elk over and repeat for the opposite side.

Finally you push the paunch aside and cut out the tenderloins and strip any meat between the ribs you want.The rib meat and tenderloins go into a separate bag.

There is very little difference in how much meat is exposed whether you just quarter after gutting or use the gutless method.

There is no difference in the ability to age the meat.Sucessful aging depends on the temperature control and humidity control of the meat,not how it is taken off the animal.

Deboning and stuffing the meat into sacks without cooling first is a recipe for spoiled meat.

I have both butchered and processed elk without aging and also aged it for two weeks in a walk in cooler.It has more to do with how the animal was taken care of when first killed and how old it was than by how much aging is done.

I buy bed sheets for Goodwill.Cut them in half and sew up to make a bag.I have been using the ones I have for about 5 years now,. You just have to remember to wash them out with bleach when done.

Saddlesore, the elk101 video showed them putting the quarters/meat in bags just after they were cut. They then laid the bags in a shaded area. Would you do things differently?

________________
Eric

Eric.That is pretty much what I do.

Last year in ML season, flies and yellow jackets were bad.I bagged the meat right away and went and found my partner.Then we packed the elk back to camp that same day and put it on ice. Next day I went into Craig and bought block ice ,came back and iced it more. Later seasons. I wouldn't do that.

I usually like to let it hang overnight at the kill sight before I pack it. The meat gets firmed up and it is easier to handle.It bleeds out some and I don't get all that blood inmy panniers.If I do have to pack it right away.I stick the bags in big garbage bags just for the pack back to camp. Then take them out.
I do whatever I have to to get it cooled out. Especially getting it in the shade.If I can't hang it,I at least try to get the bags up on some logs to get air all around it.Don't like laying it on the ground.

I cary a thin painter's plastic sheet that I get from Walmart for a few bucks. It is 3 mil I think. While I am working,I lay the meat on that until I get it bagged.

I believe there is something to leaving the meat on the bone to age, all other things being equal. If you take it off the bone right after the kill, you allow the muscle fibers to contract before rigor mortis sets in, which can make the meat tough.

I've seen this happen more than once. I like to hunt in the evening (during September, ML season), and I've taken several animals just before dark in the last few years. One fat mule deer buck in particular stands out. I trimmed off the backstraps and loins to pack back to camp, and hung the quarters overnight on the bone. The backstraps were tough, much tougher than the choice cuts from the hind quarters.

Ideally, for the most tender meat, you hang it whole until rigor mortis has relaxed, which can take up to 3 days depending on temperature. Obviously, that's not possible most of the time when hunting, so we do what we can.

I've had mixed results concerning aging on vs. off the bone. I think there is more to it than that.

The best backstrap I ever had was off a mule deer buck I packed out after doing the "gutless" method. I filleted the backstrap off the bone 5 minutes after the shot, and that night put them in the fridge for IIRC 2-3 days before eating them.

+1

Get bags that will support the load that's in them if you pick the bag up and sling it on your shoulder.

Yeh that. Works well

I buy the large pillow cases from Kmart or Wally world and use as game bags

If you want the liver, you still have to open it up at the end. I don't save them but my partner does.

I refuse to save the liver but refuse to NOT save the heart and all you have to do is crack a rib or 2 with a rock to get at the heart. You have to cut the lungs out of the way but that is no big deal and no guts are in the way.

An archery Roosevelt I stuck a couple years ago. No way could I have got him out without quartering and gutless is cleaner and quicker.

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A pard with a spike from last year. He hadn't done the gutless method before. I doubt he'll ever do something else again.

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This was the flatest spot in the canyon. Quite a few miles back into a roadless area. No way a quad could get within 3 miles.
[img:left][/img]

Hams waiting for the next trip out a day later.
[img:left][/img]

I should add that I've used the gutless method on all elk and bears I've killed for probably the last decade.

My 1st try at it was about 15 years ago. I'd read about it and wondered how it would work. Then I shot a 4x4 elk on a steep side hill in snow. Only a small rock kept it from sliding into hell where it would have taken a week to get it out. I tied it to a sagebrush and decided that this might be a great time to find out if gutless worked. It did. We did it by experimenting. We boned the entire thing which wouldn't have been necessary. We laid out the hide and wrapped all the meat in it and used it for a toboggan for the 1st half mile out. Then it was in a wheelbarrow from there to camp the next day.

BTW - the hide will slide ok on snow, but there are better things to use. You have to lace it shut around the meat and if it's not already cooled, the hide will keep it hot.

Gutless for me. Nothing like spilling those guts up on the mountain and getting attacked by a million flies.

Any critter I have to pack never gets gutted...

Guess I've never seen an advantage to it. If done right, gutting doesn't make much of a mess anyway. I also usually always take the liver and heart, and like to open up to see bullet damage. Recently, I've been taking the ribs out on the bone. Can't do that gutless. mtmuley

It all depends on how you have to pack it out. Regardless, skinning first will get the meat cool much faster than just gutting. If you look at a gutted elk, you'll see that most of the meat still isn't exposed to the air.
If you're going to pack out whole quarters, bone in, then gutless won't save you anything.

"If you're going to pack out whole quarters, bone in, then gutless won't save you anything."

Not true, you won't be hauling spine, neck, or ribs. In addition,if you are in a CWD area, there is little chance of severing the spine and coming into contact with CWD bearing areas

...bet this guy wishes he went gutless;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0E8DcNm1Fs

I'm referring to WHOLE quarters, where the guy splits the spine and leaves the entire neck on a front quarter. I don't think too many hunters do it that way any more but when I was a kid, we'd see it all the time. In those days, though, a lot more hunters had horses.

The biggest push to do gutless in Colorado was brought on by the CWD conditions.I pack with mules,but still use the gutless method. Not bringing out the rib cage makes packing front quarters so much easier. Cows and smaller bulls may be packed out on one animal.

I have split a lot of elk with two hand axes or a saw and beleive me, that is alot of work compared to filleting meat off the spine.

Ours usually come out on our backs. Less is better.

So far, CWD hasn't been found in Idaho that I've heard of...subject to change.

That and a bunch of others are available as downloads.

Here:
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=multimedia.main

I've used gutless on moose many times and would never want to try it any other way.

About 10 years ago, my partner shot a bull moose that went down on it's belly between 2 big boulders. There was no way he and his son could move it in any way. We'd been experimenting with the best ways to gutless dress at that time. We'd done 2 moose and a couple elk before that so he knew the general game plan. He started at the spine and skinned & boned his way down. He had to sit on it's back as he worked because it was wedged so tight between the rocks he couldn't get his feet on the ground. It took him about 6 hrs altogether. It was about as nasty a job as I've heard of.

Then I read an article by Jim Zumbo. He shot an elk in really nasty brush. He said it took him 3 hrs just to turn it over to start dressing it. What a waste of time. If he'd done it gutless, he'd have been done before he even started.

Zumbo might be a decent cook... Not to sure about his real world hunting ablities? He seems to go on a lot of decent hunts and doesn't do much better than a fair number of public land hunters here.

our grandfathers i bet never did this " gutless" method. probably because they weren't " gutless " people who do this are urban wusses who don't want blood and guts on there fancy 500 $ hunting outfits. real men roll up there sleaves and get bloody. my 2 pennies

Oh boy...

i get bloody !
but when it comes to getting an elk off a mountain side quite aways from a road, chocked with oak brush.

it comes out in pieces, and now we're gonna go boned out to boot !

we usta just quarter it and haul out whole legs with bones, and as much meat as we could cut off the rest of it.

getting too heavy now as the years go by and the age sets in.


but i guess i am just an old wusse !

brains over brawn......

Keep your pennies. They have no value.

getting tired of finding elk carcasses with 15-50 pounds of edible meat left to rot ! this year i will have my gps with me and will report to fish and game. if you arent man enough to take the whole animal home than don't hunt. also sick of people boning out muleys and bringing out a little kid backpack full of meat and not even having the head or evidence of sex. ( idaho ) my pennies may have no value but i am a sportsman and use ALL of the animal i harvest.

I guess you crack the bones and get the marrow out too.
With the high incidence of CWD in certain areas of Colorado, the DOW reccomends the gutless method. Besides the spine,brain matter, neck lymph nodes needs to be avoided also. If you care to come to Colorado and eat these have at it.
Ignorance is not excuse for being stupid.The wussies just might know tad more than you.

I leave a lot of bones in the woods. I don't leave much for the coyotes, crows, or yellowjackets except the guts and blood.

I don't like the gutless method, and yes I do know how to do it. I can filet anything, including an elk, which is all the gutless method is.

The reasons I don't use it are:

Elk are heavy and no matter which method you use you have to move them around. Removing guts drops their weight by 35% or more.

Guts come in handy for an attractant. In an area with lots of yellowjackets rolling the guts away from the beast keeps most of them well fed, happy, and not around you to sting you.

Rolling the guts out of an elk takes a few minutes tops so any time or effort savings you think you're getting are small in proportion to the extra effort leaving them in will cause you. Clearly your milage will vary as it seems like there is almost a cult like following behind this "new" method of dismemberment...:)

I've taken elk apart alone more than a few times. It's a two hour process and I end up with bags of clean meat with very few bones in it.

I dunno, that's pretty cheap, for a trolling motor.

Until now we've had a pretty good discussion here about the pros and cons of gutless dressing. We don't need this kind of crap. Boning in the field says nothing about wasting meat. You can waste just as much at home.

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

The Indians did it for 1000's of years before sport hunting was ever invented.

I'll bet they often took what they needed for their immediate requirements at the time and then moved on. Today that would be a felony in Colorado.