Field Dressing??

[dkitchen]

OK So one thing i have noticed on most of the pics you guys are posting of your kills is that from the look of it most of the deer make it home without being cut open.
Is there something in FL i should know about? Where I come from the first thing we do when we find a down animal is cut er open and get to cleaning.

When the deer is back to the truck or camp we hang it and skin it. Whats the secret down here? I know a couple guys here locally that have a butcher cut their animals up for them and he will take care of everything.

Unless I am going to have sausage or burger made I cut up my own deer. One thing I will be trying to find is a grinder so I can start doing my own Sausage and burger.

[Iluv2hunt]

I will give you my reasoning. It is based on cleanliness of the meat. I hunt in some pretty nasty stuff, and if I were to gut an animal where it fell, the body cavity would be full of mud and trash by the time I got it back to the truck. I try to get real busy and get an animal out, in the truck and on the way home or processor as quickly as possible. In almost every animal I have killed, I have it home, skinned, and packed in ice within 3 hours maximum. Most of the time, less than that. I can say out of several hundred animals Ive killed, I have yet to have one spoil

Also, I hunt the same stands regularly, and I prefer to not have a gut pile around it

[nachogrande]

if you hunt the wma's down here a lot of them want to see and weigh/eval the animal before cleaned. also all of the wma's I've seen have some type of cleaning station or at least a hangin rack. I too do not like to clean where I hunt and cleaning an animal while it's hanging is much easier and neater for me than doing it on the ground. heat can be a real issue down here so however you do it, do it quick, having a big cooler with you and if not ice at least ice not too far away helps also.

[M12Gunboy]

Time is of the essence espedially if you don't field dress in the South. I have only been in the South hunting since 1998 and have seen hundreds of deer and hogs after three hours or more on the back of a truck or ATV that I wouldn't let my dog eat since they were blouted so bad. IMHO this has alot to do with folks talking about a "Gamie Taste" of meat. I bet it does taste Gamie after sitting in the 40-70 degree temperature for 3-8 hours without being gutted. We use the logic of a 2-3 hr max - until the animal must be quartered and on ice or hanging field dressed in a cooler. As far as field dressing, sometime before the animal hits our truck or ATV my animals are field dressed and off to the cleaning station-home to be skin and quartered.

I have dragged them a quarter mile before field dressing as not to ruin an area with smell or to get to a dryer/cleaner area before field dressing them.

This is an example of how hot venison is on an animal after being shot. Three weeks ago I shot a huge doe in upstate NY that tipped the scale at around 230 lbs live weight. It was 30 degrees, about a 25 MPH wind, snowing it's azz off, 4 inches of snow on the ground, and cold as hell. I field dressed the deer about 300 yards from the tree stand on our property where I have shot 5-6 deer over the last 20 years and then went for the tractor. Got her back to the barn and immediately skun her out and left her to hang all night (no skin, guts, or head), it was 6:30 pm when I finished. At 9:30 the following morning after hanging all night in below freezing temps we went and quartered her. I cut off one of her hams and the meat under neath the ham where I cut it off of her body was still warm with heat... My point is, the quicker you can gut them, quarter them, and get them on ice the less chance of spoiling or our infamous "Gamie Taste" our tastey friends supposedly have... It's not the animal, it's called spoilage at varying degrees... Gut them ASAP and get them quatered on ice or hanging in a cooler soon after. My two cents...

[Greybeard]

I readily admit I'm a rookie to southern hunting. I'm also very willing to be schooled. I think if the law requires the intact animal to be shown at the check station, then that should be done- in as quick as possible time span. But as soon as possible after that, the animal should be dressed out and kept as cool as possible until it can be butchered. I have absolutely no desire to see anything I worked so hard to hunt and harvest go to waste because I failed in the last few steps.
Just my $.02.

[flhuntfish]

I hunt mainly state land and as we know they are all different and have different regs. the main one ive been hunting these past two years doesnt have a check station or rules about keeping the game intact for an inspection, so my intentions are to drop the guts out of it a little ways away from my stand. that also drops about 40-50% of the weight for dragging it the rest of the way. then get back home and skin it and quarter it.

[nachogrande]

I knew some people that would drag it a little ways from the stand and do a quick rim around the rectum and remove the stomach and intestines and leave the diaphram and everything above that intact for later. since I hunt alone most of the time I put a distance limit ( depending on terain ) as to how far out I will shoot game. if I venture beyond that point it's basicly sight seeing/scouting and won't shoot unless it is a truly magnificent animal and have someone to call and help lined up.

[Skunk Ape]

Your not speaking for me. I always gut my animals within at least 1 hr,usually immediatly.

[Papa_J]

Same here. Within the first hour for sure unless the temps are down in the 30s and 40s. And even then, I make sure it's gutted and quartered inside of 3 hours for sure.

[DONY1]

Usually 1-2 hours for me. I'm a little paranoid about letting it spoil.

[frankwt]

I try to gut immediately, 30 min to the corner store, shove a couple bags of ice in the cavity then home or the processor.

[Cr0ck1]

If in on a WMA and dragging it i will gut it and bring the game cart to it and cart it away. IF i got no game cart i dont hunt far from the road so dragging is not a task.. I will drag it to the road and gut it in the woods near the truck so its easier to pick up.

If im on my lease i never gut it cause i ride my 4 wheeler right up to it and load it up. If i cant lift it on to the four wheeler i drag it into the woods behind the four wheeler and gut it then lift it up onto the four wheeler.

And yes allen is right. When your hunting especially for hogs they are the nastiest thick mudd with piss and crap all mixed in 2 foot of swamp mud and water. You DO NOT want that in the body cavity. After you get it away from all of that and feel theres just no more mudd or water around then gut it and drag if thats your last resort.

[vonnick52]

It varies on the outside temperature for me. If it's cold out, or the animal is smaller, I don't worry as much and will get to it within a couple hours. If it's warm out, they might still be twitching when I start gutting them. As far as the inside of the body cavity goes, I don't usually eat the ribs off wild game, so other than the baby loins, there isn't much to worry about inside, as long as you ain't floating them out through the swamp and muck....but even with that...you probably blew a hole through it's body cavity and nasty stuff can get in through there.

I am pickier with my deer than hogs, as I refuse to cook deer all the way through, but hogs always get cooked through.

[Cr0ck1]

i make an effort to take a head shot. and i usually dont keep the ribs on my hogs either or so i rarely gut them at all.

[vonnick52]

You at least reach in and pull out the baby loins dontcha? It's worth shooting a hog just to eat those little pieces.

Cut them into little medallions, lightly flour them, fry them, then make some brown gravy. So good.