to field dress or not to field dress?

[cathryn]

deer?

do you or dont you field dress your deer on the spot of the kill or do you take them home and dress them?

how long do you wait after your kill to gut your deer?

[pitw]

Cathryn we shoot our deer close to home so don't field dress them. 

[LORDDAL]

it really jusr depends on how big a hurry I am in most times I dress em where they fall but once in a while if im in a rush I will take em home hang em and skin it out and dress then

[HaMeR]

Where they fell. Less weight to drag back to the truck. 

[Bills Custom Calls]

When I shoot deer They fall down in the back yard,so I am not sure how to answer this one  :roflmao:

But I gut them where the fall
That would be back yard dress

[cb223]

I have been told the sooner they are dressed the better.

I gut em on the spot.

[Tikaani]

Bill, I read your remark and lost it.  :roflmao: :roflmao:

As for an answer, I was always taught to cool the meat immediately.  Caribou I gut and get home whole when cold.  In the fall. gut and quarter moose in the field, hang in tree to avoid a visit from the local bear.

Hunt hard, die tired

John

[alscalls]

I worry only about the meat......temp.....how far I gotta go ect. Sometimes I de-bone it right there on the spot and wrap it back in the hide (Head still attached for checking in) I use strips of the hide for string to tie it and pack it out on my back.
No bones no guts way less weight.
If I am on my farm I go get the Four wheeler and haul it out but I still gut the animal first....to allow it to cool.
If I am at frogmans house we gut it and drag it straight up hill in the dark and it sucks!....... :roflmao: :roflmao:
He has got to get a hitch carrier for the lawn mower or something.....

[Okanagan]

It is interesting to read methods here, showing the wide difference in where and how we hunt in different regions.  I.e. My son killed a heavy bodied blacktail this year that he boned out and packed 8 miles, over the course of two days.  We tend to hunt that way more than any other, though I killed a blacktail 250 yards from home a few years ago, on level ground in the woods.  I gutted it on the spot and dragged it to the house.

We bone a lot of our game without gutting, because we are going to back pack it, and sometimes for space and convenience reasons on a multi-day trip even when a vehicle is close.

If I am going to leave it overnight or for any length of time, I gut it immediately on the spot to help cool it and avoid spoilage, even if I plan to bone it out there before moving the meat.  I recall leaving two deer overnight without gutting, both times due to an evening shot that wasn't quite placed right, and couldn't find the critter till morning.  One was a bow killed short yearling blacktail doe, small body and cold night and it was fine the next morning.  The other was a spike year whitetail buck and it snowed on him that night (tough tracking job come daylight with fresh snow covering sign he made the evening before).  The meat was in good shape, no loss in flavor that I could tell, but I considered that lucky.  I don't think that a thick bodied mature buck would have cooled through the shoulders like the small buck did. 

By contrast, I was visiting a friend in Texas last month when a dandy big buck came out in his pasture during our dessert course of supper.  His wife stepped outside and shot the buck.  Instead of gutting, we finished dessert and then threw the buck in the back of a pickup and hauled it whole to a deer processing place where they gut it for an extra $5.    Amazing.

[coyote101]

I generally field dress them where they fell.

Pat

[vvarmitr]

I gut 'em imminently after the hero shots.
If I could though I'd cut off the musk glands before I shoot 'em.

[msmith]

I gut them where they fall, except in the back yard. Then I drag them over to the pasture field to gut them.

I do it quick. I ring the bung hole and tie it off. Then I unzip  them from just above the weiner to the sternum, roll out the guts, cut the diaphram, then the esophegus, and  pull out heart and lungs. I get the carcass home as quick as possible to hang it up and skin it. That's when I split the crotch and remove the bladder and the rest of the plumbing. From the shot to getting it skinned is usually less than an hour.

[SCcoyotehunter]

I just load mine up on the 4 wheeler and take it over to the processor and let them deal with it. My rule of thumb is the warmer it is the faster you better get it in the cooler.

[KySongDog]

I field dress a deer immediately.  I feel I must cool the meat quickly to avoid spoilage.  My $.02.

If it is much above 40 degrees outside (early bow season) it is a race against the blow flies. 

[Todd Rahm]

Heck last time I was home I came across a young fella standing over a nice buck with a knife in his hand and just look'n at the darn thing. I walked out there and said "What ya doing?" He said "trying to figure out how to gut this thing". He was for sure a first timer.

Being used to the bou and Moose up here, I offered to help. I had it gutted, quartered, and skinned and asked if he had any game bags. He said "Game what?"    And then he hit me. "Uh, Uh, I'm supposed to check that thing in whole before I cut it up. I'm only supposed to gut it." 

What a pickle.

[Bills Custom Calls]

Thanks for the help but who is gonna pay this fine  :roflmao: :roflmao:

[cathryn]

whoever had to pay the fine should get to kep the meat,lol