Field Dressing??

[gl]

I just ran across this post and had some input on the field dressing here in the south.

I just got back from a trip to Illinois, and being from Florida I found it different(and awesome) to field dress and hang the deer up in the barn for several days. But I also realized that it didn't get above 50 during the hottest part of the day. In Florida you only have a couple days a year where the temps stay below 50 all day so we generally cannot leave deer hanging unless we have a deer cooler. We have no choice but to take care of the deer quickly whether its cleaning it ourselves or taking it to a butcher. For me there is no sense in gutting my deer and dirtying up my hunting area when I have to get it cleaned in an hour or so before it spoils anyway.

I would love to hang my deer and let it age a bit before cleaning, but until I win the lotto and get a bad azz walk in deer cooler I am limited on my options.

That gets me thinking, I wonder if I could make an insulated box and put a window unit AC to act as a cheap portable hanging cooler just to use for a small amount of time?

That's just my input.

[redneck75]

I've always, always, always made a point of gutting an animal immediately upon locating it after the shot. I've had several gutted in less than 5 minutes after the shot. Even in snow I do that. Getting the heat out of the animal as soon as possible is important to the quality of the meat...not to mention whatever internal fluids that are oozing around inside the body cavity since a bullet went through there at a high rate of speed. No, it ain't going to be ruined or anything like that in an hour or two (especially in cold weather) but it also can't help anything to keep all that heat and goo inside so I get it out asap.

That said...my hunting lease here in Florida is literally just down the street from the house. My furthest stand is less than 5 miles from the house. The animals that drop where I can get them out in a few minutes (all 5 pigs and 2 of the 3 deer so far) end up back at the house in less than a half hour after pulling the trigger so they have all been gutted and skinned while hanging in the carport...it's just so damn convenient!

I have to weigh in on the hosing the pigs off before skinning...Yes, all the jokes are hillarious about it. I used many of the same jokes on my buddy who told me he washes his when I found out about it. That was about 3 years ago. The next time I was hunting with him, I killed the nastiest hog I've ever seen or smelled. It had about 3" of caked-on cattle poo that he had obviously been rolling in for weeks or more and we spooked him out from inside a carcass of a 3-day old dead cow it was feeding on/sleeping inside the rotten gut cavity. It was rather awful. Neither of us have anything resembling a weak stomache but we were both gagging as we drug it back to the truck on the game cart. We ran it by the skinning rack and he went inside and grabbed mane n tail shampoo and we gave it a very thorough bath. I'm not going to tell you that the smell was clear gone but it was 90% better. Now I don't normally do the full shampoo unless it's awful but most the hogs get hosed off now before they get skinned/gutted. Hell, I've even been known to run down to a car wash on the way to the skinning rack at camp to give one a bath before skinning a stank one.

[redneck75]

gotta start that.

Here you go...follow the link down in the comments if you want to see the full-length video but you'll probably see enough just by watching the short youtube clip. I know that one's an elk but they're all the same...made of meat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E4PCzDRkUA