Why gut a deer

This is a taut membrane separating the chest cavity lungs and heart from the liver, stomach and intestines. Carefully cut the diaphragm away from both sides of the body cavity to the spine below. Using your free hand, reach far inside the chest cavity to the neck and find the esophagus windpipe , which feels like the ribbed tube on an elk call or vacuum cleaner.

While keeping one hand firmly around the esophagus, withdraw your knife and lay it on the ground. Now reach back inside, grip the esophagus with both hands and pull firmly. Watch the innards as you pull them from the abdomen. If the bladder is full, guide it gently with one hand as it slides out with the rest of the entrails. Flip the deer belly down and splay its legs to drain pooled blood from the body cavity.

While it drains, clean and stow your gear for the pack-out. Step 3: Pierce abdominal wall at the base of the sternum. Lift wall away from stomach and intestines; and slice to the pelvis. Step 4: Saw or cut through the pelvis to allow passage of lower intestine.

Step 7: Very carefully, sever the esophagus and windpipe above the heart. Step 8: Starting with severed windpipe, pull guts free of the carcass. Save heart and liver.

This badass blaze orange bandana provides instructions on how to gut your deer. It's the best. That's the flat truth. A hybrid hunting fixed blade with a fine, smooth edge to trim, debone, or slice your preferred cuts of meat. Once you have your deer or elk down, get it laying flat on one side. Now, remove the hide from the knees all the way to the spine.

This exposes the meat you want to get to and also provides a nice big tarp to lay the quarters on as you remove them. When done, you should have the neck, front shoulder, ribs, hind quarter and backstrap exposed. Next, remove the quarters starting with the front shoulder. The only thing holding this together is muscle, so lift the leg and start cutting between the shoulder and rib cage.

Who knew that a huge elk had the same delicate shoulder as a major league pitcher? The hind quarter is attached by muscle, but also a ball joint. Cut through the muscle along the hip bone until you reach the ball joint, then you should be able to twist that free. With the quarters cleared and cooling on the hide, remove the neck meat, the brisket, the rib meat, etc.

Place these all out on the exposed hide to cool or, better yet, get them right into game bags and hang them if possible. Cooling the meat as quickly as possible makes for better results on the table. Finally, go for that red gold: The tenderloin. Make a small incision along the backbone, just above the rear flank.

There lie those tender, juicy, flavorful tenderloins. Now that you have that side done, get the meat in game bags, lay the hide back over the carcass and roll it over. Repeat everything we just talked about on side two. Boom, done. If this is a trophy buck, you need to take a couple additional steps with the gutless method to protect the mount for the taxidermist and cape out the animal. Hunting Gear. Fishing Gear. Brand Gear. New Arrivals. October 6, Bob Humphrey You did it!

The First Cut You have a couple choices here but I usually start by ringing the vent, cutting all the connective tissue around tail pipe anus until it is free. Your second cut will be from the brisket to the anus, being careful not to puncture the paunch. Hold Your Breath Next comes the most important, and often challenging part. Sideways If you did it right, you should now be able to roll the deer on its side, letting the entrails spill out of the body cavity. The Wall Take your time and do it right to ensure the final product will be fine table fare.

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