How many of you field dress the deer where you find it or take it somewhere else to do it? The buck I shot Sunday I tried to drag it to the edge of the timber by myself and it wasn’t happening with everything still inside him I barely made it after dressing him
Dad used to carry a rope fence stretcher to lift 'em on scene.
But we hunted in east Texas, where there were always trees...
___
But we hunted in east Texas, where there were always trees...
___
Our local butcher charges $10 to gut and skin. Haven't gutted one myself in a few years. If can't drag it out and ATV isn't an option, dress it there and wouldn't expect to hunt around there for a while. Coyotes and buzzards will clean it up overnight.
After elk hunting Colorado I now bone out everything from the back, never mess with guts, cut a couple ribs out to get tenderloin, heart and liver
I gut them in the field asap.
We always got them out of the field and took them to one of two barns to field dress. Normally, if we had to drag them at all, it was a very short drag to a spot where we could access them with a 4-wheeler or pick-up.
Never had a problem with gut piles driving game away. Deer aren't all that skittish around coyotes and screech birds. They keep there distance how ever. If hunting around a feeder I would drag the deer a ways away to drop the cut pile.
In warm weather getting the guts out allows better cool down and of course easier drag out. Even better in warm weather to get the animal gutted and hanging a skinned
Minimize the cuts to keep dirt out. Small belly cut, cut the diaphragm and reach up inside and pull the windpipe down and cut the windpipe up as high up as you can reach. Don't bother cutting the throat you animal should already be dead from internal bleed out anyway. Belly cut will drain the blood.
Make sure boning out in the field is legal where you hunt. It is not legal every where.
In warm weather getting the guts out allows better cool down and of course easier drag out. Even better in warm weather to get the animal gutted and hanging a skinned
Minimize the cuts to keep dirt out. Small belly cut, cut the diaphragm and reach up inside and pull the windpipe down and cut the windpipe up as high up as you can reach. Don't bother cutting the throat you animal should already be dead from internal bleed out anyway. Belly cut will drain the blood.
Make sure boning out in the field is legal where you hunt. It is not legal every where.
Used to gut where they lay, sometimes that was feet from the path or feed pile, it never bothered the other deer. Now I load and take home, bone it out at the house, and place it where I can shoot coyotes off of it from the back porch.
