How To Field Dress A Deer

Learning how to field dress a deer is not the glamorous part of whitetail deer hunting. The first things that young hunters want to learn pertain to everything that takes place before the shot. This all comes to an end if they do not know how to field dress a deer once the whitetail is down.

Field dressing the deer that you have just harvested is generally the down side of deer hunting but with a little practice you can turn it into a quick manageable task.

Without getting too soft on all of you it is good to always step back and be grateful for the beautiful animals that whitetail deer are and how fortunate we are to have the opportunities to pursue these animals.

The first step in how to field dress a deer after properly tagging the deer as per your state’s guidelines is to don a pair of rubber gloves. The gloves will help protect you from any diseases that the deer may possibly be carrying and it seems a little easier to stick your hand in there when you have these gloves on. For some reason I usually end up cutting a whole in one of mine. You can purchase these gloves in several varieties and places.

To begin the field dressing process I make a small cut through the skin that is only about the width of the knife blade. I make sure to place this cut just at the bottom of the rib cage. If this cut is too low you can puncture the gut, which would make this job much more unpleasant.

I then use the Gerber E-Z Zip gut hook to make a cut straight down to the pelvis. Sometimes on the first pass I only cut through the skin and have to go back for a second pass that opens up the body cavity. It doesn’t matter. This gut hook has made the field dressing process a lot easier and faster.

Once the deer is opened from below the rib cage to the pelvis, I roll it over onto its stomach and lift the back legs up. This allows the guts to fall out of the deer. I then roll the deer back over and cut the membrane that holds the guts into the body cavity, I then cut the intestines making sure not to let deer droppings fall into the body cavity.

I try to cut around the deer’s anus so that I can pull everything through with the intestines but this is easier than it sounds and doesn’t always work. I also cut off the reproductive organs on a buck.

Lastly in this area, I pinch the bladder, cut it off and remove it.

The last step in how to field dress a deer is to reach up past the ribcage and cut the windpipe off as far up as you can. When you do this the heart and lungs will also come out.

I then remove the deer from the woods and get it hanging to cool. The quicker the deer can be hung in a cooler the better. My limited taxidermy learning has taught me that as soon as the deer is dead, bacteria start to go to work on the skin and tissue. Do not waste time unnecessarily.

I have not cut the scent glands from a bucks rear legs in quite a number of years. I had read that this was not necessary and leaving them on has not ruined any meat since I have stopped doing this. Now if you would like to keep them to use as scent for your future hunting adventures you can’t get any more real than this. Do not transfer the mess from them to the meat with your hands or knife. Cut them off to keep after you are finished field dressing the deer. The other thing that I have never done is cut the throat of a deer to let it bleed. This is unnecessary, it will bleed out just fine when it is field dressed.

Learning how to field dress a deer is not difficult and all successful whitetail hunters will have to face up to it sooner or later.




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