Gutless field dressing

[joey1656]

you just cut the muscle over the intestines, careful not to poke them. let them hang down just low enought to grab the tenderloins. thats how i learned 20 years ago and have never found a better way. no guts, all the meat.

[BradG.]

Just debone the hams. Or you can locate the ball and socket real
Easy and take hind legs off that way. And to get the loins there is a pocket between the last ribs and hip bone. Just slit the membrane take your hand push the gut back towards the front of deer and then use knife to run along back bone then pull loins out. Some of the time you can do this with your hands.
BRAD

[Bonesplitter]

Its a waste of a lot of useful meat to do this.

[Yardero]

Guess ill have to try it next time

[Knox]

Right at the base of the hams

O ok must of read it wrong the first time. He is just talking about how to get the back leg/ham off from the body?..gotcha

[BradG.]

Ok after I reread what I wrote. We skin and debone our deer in a frame or C channel about 9 inches wide up on legs. It's wide enough to hold the deer when you lay it on it's side to get the back straps. And long enough that just the head and neck hang off.

[Knox]

So you take the loins before you the the back legs off correct?

[bps3040]

Its a waste of a lot of useful meat to do this.

Not really. I do not keep the ribs, not much meat there

[Knox]

Its a waste of a lot of useful meat to do this.

All I can think of is the ribs?

[Skyjunky]

So you take the loins before you the the back legs off correct?

Yup

[Kdog]

Its a waste of a lot of useful meat to do this.

I tend to agree with this but this is how quite a few people do it. I also save all the blood for working with my dogs and it is pretty hard to get any if you don't open them up. Here is my method. This is sort of a combination of what I have learned from others in my deer camp.

1) Hang them by the back legs.
2) Cut around the legs and pull the skin off as close to the head as possible.
3) Cut off the head.
4) Take out the backstraps.
5) Get the meat from the neck and cut off the front shoulders.
6) Gut the deer.
7) Get the tenderloins
8) Cut off the ribs with a saw. There isn't much meat there but I make what is there into jerky pretty easily.
9) all that is left is the rear quarters. Cut all that off.....

Everything goes in the ice chest. All the cutting is with my knife except cutting the ribs off. I normally have a couple different knives. For example I use a different one for cutting around the butt hole than for the skinning/meat cutting.

For sure I am not the fastest and I have probably only killed about a dozen deer but this works for me.

[TBH JEG]

I cut into the joint of the hind quarters and pop it out then just trim them out just like the front quarters. Last year was the first time I did this, and is the way I will be doing from here on out. Still get the flank streak and neck meat...no tenderloins though. On a side note I used the skinning knife that I have skinned every deer me and my daughter have shot to pop out the ball joint, and snapped the blade in half. Next time I will have a craftsman flathead!

[CaptainDave]

It's really simple. I hang them from there back legs and skin them. Then remove the front shoulders. Then take the backstraps. After that use a bone saw or lopers and cut the base of the backbone off right at the hind quarters. Done deal!

That's pretty much how we do it as well.

Sure there is a little wasted meat, however, at least in my opinion, the wasted meat is not what I consider the good stuff. It would be going straight into the stack to be grinded for sausage. But that's just me, I process everything into sausage except for the back straps for the most part. Most of the wasted meat is on the ribs, where there is not much there anyways.

The method is simple and can easily be done in the field. I have a rope and pully; find a tree limb, hang up by the legs, and hook the other end of the rope to the Ranger and use the Ranger to pull the deer up. This method works great at night as I use the Ranger's lights for working light. Obviously, we don't have a cleaning station on our lease. It's also easier to dispose of the carcuss in the woods where the varmits can have a snack rather than doing it at home.

[duckman49]

We do it like that but trim rib meat and get lions with out messing with guts

[jesterdoc]

Search Youtube, Fred Eichler has a pretty good video on the the gutless method. He does a Cow Elk (including the tenderlion) in about a 7 minute video. Pretty cool.

I have a hoist, stainless table, and walk-in cooler at my disposal, so I don't really see me trying it anytime soon. But I think it would be a cool trick to know.