Oct 16 - Field Dressing and Skinning

Oct  16 - Field Dressing and Skinning 

Tools of the Trade!

After my last posting about my deer hunt I was asked to post a blog detailing the skinning process from start to finish.

Now the smart way to do this would be to post pictures to allow my “visual learner” readers to follow along with the process.  Unfortunately, I never bothered to document the process with pictures so I’m going to have to ask you all to indulge me and follow along as best you can.  If I confuse you I apologize….send me an email at slieberman03@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to clear up any misunderstandings!

First….let’s talk about tools:

You need a knife, a sharpener, a hack saw and some way of hoisting the beast to make your work easier to perform.  (Actually the hoist is more of a luxury…you can easily do all this work on the ground….and I’ve done it that way before….but if you can hang your game you will find that this whole process works a lot easier.)

Ok…so let’s start out immediately after the shot has rung out, and your game has just been converted from a free creature of the wild to your own personal property.

The first thing you need to do,  as quickly as possible, is remove all of the internal organs of the animal.  This is essential to protect against meat spoilage, and helps to do two things:

1) Reduce the amount of acids that can effect the quality of the meat.

2) reduces to weight of the creature and makes it easier to drag out of the field.  (There is an additional benefit as well…the forest creatures will love the free meal of iron rich tripe you leave behind for them!)

So….how do we cut this thing open?  First turn the game on it’s back, or side, and spread the hind legs as far apart as possible.  Now using your ultra sharp hunting knife insert the blade around the anus and cut a circular incision around the entire sphincter.

Now isn’t this fun?

Next find the sternum.  With a light sweeping motion of the freshly sharpened blade, create an incision from the sternum down to the anus.  Be careful not to cut too deeply…you want to gently split the skin keeping the internals intact.  I have seen hunters use a gut hook to literally “unzipper” the skin….I’m not a big fan of this as too often the gut hook nicks an intestine and the resulting bile creates a mess.

Once the organs are exposed it’s time to get dirty.  Grab hold of them and pull them out! If the incision you made around the anus was deep enough and through the colon should come out as well.

If you did this right you should now have a steaming pile of gray on the ground next to you.  You should also have exposed the diaphragm still inside the beast holding back the heart, and lungs.  If you shot the animal correctly there is a good chance that they have been liquefied, and your next step is potentially very messy.

Using your knife cut out the diaphragm, now CAREFULLY reach inside with your left hand (assuming you are right handed) and feel around for a hard tube near the inside of the throat.  This is the windpipe and the esophagus.   Now with your right hand take your knife and reach up and cut that pipe.  This is kinda hard since you will not be able to see what you are doing…just be careful not to hurt yourself.

Now that the pipe has been cut put your knife to the side and scoop out the internals.  The animal is now field dressed….the next step is either to drag it out of the field or  to skin it right there.  We will assume that your going to get it out of the field and will be doing the skinning job at home.

Ok…so now your home and you’ve dragged your deer into the back yard or your garage.  You could do the skinning process in your front yard but for obvious reasons I don’t recommend it.

If you have the ability to hoist the animal that will help tremendously. 

Cut an incision in each hind leg right below the knee joint between the bone and the Achilles tendon. The cut should pass completely through the leg and allow a hoist or hook to go through it.  Now, using a rope and some buddies, lift the game up and tie it off so that the game is hanging upside down with the butt about shoulder level with you.

Now….using a newly sharpened knife make a slight cut just below the hooks all the way around the knee.  (Do this on both knees).  You should not see any blood….what you should see is the bright white of the dermal layer.  Next cut an incision up the leg towards where the anus used to be.  (Again….do this on both legs.) 

With that complete, pull the fur on the leg towards you and sweep the knife lightly under the incision points.  The skin should immediately “pull” from the body.  Start at the highest point and work down.  So…you start at the original incisions near the hooks and slowly work towards the butt.  Once you’ve arrived at the butt you can now start pulling the skin down over the back of the animal. 

Do this work slowly!  The inside of the skin should be white.  If you see red chunks of meat hanging onto the skin you are going to fast and need to slow down.  (If you want to keep the hide you will need to go back once it is off and remove all of that meat).

When you have the skin down past the stomach grab a hacksaw.  This is now the time to saw the pelvic bone in half.  Again start at the anus and work down.  Once the bone is split, the entire animal should open up even more.

Ok..back to skinning.  Continue pulling the skin down the body.  By now the skin should be hanging down over the head.  You will need to work around the shoulders and find a point on the front legs to make a similar “ring” cut as you did on the hind legs.  This allows you to slip the skin off around the shoulders and begin peeling it away from the neck.

Once you have the skin down around the top of the neck it’s time to grab the hack saw again. 

Time to saw the head off! 

This is usually surprisingly more difficult than you would think.  Just stay with it, the saw will eventually cut through and the neck.   Once this is complete the head and the skin (now called the “cape”) will fall to the ground.

Now is when I usually take a hose to the carcass and remove any dirt or hair that was accidentally left on it. 

This is also the time I remove the non-edible parts of the legs…(the parts where we did not bother to skin). 

Ok….so now we have a huge carcass hanging on a couple of hooks looking like something you would see in a butcher shop.

Grab a couple of large bins to hold the meat, and let’s do some initial butchery!

Take your knife (sharpen it again) and start cutting away along the shoulder.  The joint for the shoulder should come out easily.  Place both shoulders in the bin. 

Next, reach inside the carcass and remove the tenderloins that run along the inside of the spine.  Once those are out remove the meat that runs along the back on the outside.  These backstraps are the best!!!

Finally take off whatever neck meat you want, and lastly remove the hind legs.  (When you do this the stripped carcass will fall to the ground.)

And there you have it!  A fully stripped and processed game animal!

Oct. 15th - Second Successful Deer Hunt!

Oct. 15^th

Often times a repeat of an event leaves a lack of luster.  The original experience stands as a benchmark that rarely is overcome.  With the passage of time, memories tend to sweeten, and what was originally pleasant is thought of as ecstatic.  That in and of itself is not a bad thing.  Like the pain of child birth the discomfort vanishes, and the only the glory remains fixed in memory.

Hunting and hunting stories are a lot like this.  The whole concept of an oral history tradition comes from hunting.  (Along with it, the resulting inaccuracies of history and the coloring of the transcript).  When the story slams up against a second chance to relive the experience the result is typically disappointment. 

With this knowledge I prepared to leave for my annual Southern California deer hunt.  A hunt that I had finally experienced success on, the previous year.  The memories of bagging my first California buck after five years of trying still bounced around in my head as a vividly as yesterday, and I was not eager to spoil the “perfection” of that event.

Rather than spike camp as I had the previous year I decided instead to wake up early…really early….and head up to my little hunting area about an hour before day light.  Oct. 13^th was opening day for General Rifle Season and I knew from a previous scouting trip that there were deer present….how many remained a mystery though. 

That mystery cleared up pretty quickly. 

As I drove up to my usual place, I passed two bucks literally standing in the road.  One a nice youngster, the other a mature buck.  It was dark, and I am ashamed to say that the first thought that crossed my mind was how I could shoot one of these guys on the spot  and justify 1) illegally shooting from a road, and 2) illegally shooting before the season officially opened up. 

(Deer season begins at first light on the second Sat. in the month of Oct.  First light is defined as enough natural light to safely identify a buck.  This was not first light….it was about 5 am, and completely dark out.  The only light that was present came from the head lights on my truck ….not exactly “natural”.)

Fortunately my ethical dilemma solved itself.  The bucks ran off.

I drove to my usual parking spot and geared up for my hike to a predetermined blind.  I made sure to also take my shooting sticks this year.  Last year I made a 175 yard shot from the kneeling position.   The shot was true, but I didn’t like the risk I had to take in making it.  This year I would have sticks…just in case.

I found the same nice rock I sat on last year.  There were more chaparral bushes around it this time,…that worked…it gave a little bit more concealment. 

There I sat quiet for an hour as I waited for the sun to work its way up on the horizon. 

About 6:10 I started bleating. 

This is a mimicked sound of a fawn in distress.  The idea is that a buck in the area will come to investigate. 

Sure enough, after a couple of bleats I saw a deer pop up from the canyon and start cautiously making it’s way towards me.  I grabbed my binoculars.  It was still too dark for me to accurately identify if it was a buck or a doe.  I raised my rifle and acquired the deer in my scope.  Still too dark.  I was sure I saw antlers on it…but I could not be 100% sure.  Damn it!  I started calling too early.  This had to be a buck!  But ethically I just couldn’t shoot.

It came with in 25 yards of me.  Now the sun was cresting the horizon and I was relived that I had not shot.  She was a doe.  I bleated again and she strained to see where the “fawn” was in the bushes. 

Well…this might work out.  A doe might serve as an enticement to a buck about to enter the sexual frenzy of the rut.  It is still a little early for the rut…but hey…you never know!

Sure enough, about 15 minutes later as the doe continued to casually feed in front of me I saw a beast of a buck charging towards us about 600 yards out.

I glassed it with my binoculars and almost had a heart attack.  Our deer in Southern California are small.  Antlers and also pretty small, never really exceeding small forks over the eyes.  This guy approaching was huge…and his antlers were down right respectable!

Not a bad buck for Southern California!

I watched as he approached and started to prepare myself.  Suddenly he disappeared behind a small hill.  I raised my rifle and prepared for him to come out on the far side.  Two minutes later it stood majestically in  my scope…a perfect left shoulder presentation, 90 yards away. 

I shot, and he went down.

This deer was “perfect”.  This deer hunt was “perfect” too.  Artemis had smiled on the poor fool again…two years in a row.  While the first hunt had taught me about perseverance….this one taught me about patience and ethics. 

I had two chances to “do the wrong thing”.  One, when I encountered the bucks on the road on the drive in.  Second, when I could have ignored the mandate to “know your target” and illegally shot the doe.

When I did see the buck, I could have fired immediately..(and probably missed)…rather than waiting for the buck to close the distance.

So here he is, right before I started skinning him.  This picture gives a better shot of his antlers.

So now the freezer is full for another year…and my memories will continue to “improve” until next years adventure!

Chaney and her 9mm

Oct. 5^th

A week ago I took my youngest daughter Chaney to one of our monthly Safari Club meetings.  She loves going to these things and hanging around a bunch of hunters and listening to their stories.  The upside for her, since she is an eleven year old kid (and a girl) she is treated as a mini-celebrity whenever she shows up. 

We hunters have an ulterior motive in making her feel as welcomed as we do.  We want her to hunt!  More specifically we want her to grow up and continue hunting.  She is the next generation to go afield, and she is a female to boot.  This is a demographic we desperately need to nurture and increase.

At the conclusion of our meetings we hold a raffle.  We start with a firearm that is donated every month as our “grand prize” then subsequent ticket winners get to choose prizes ranging from T-shirts to knives.  This raffle also included free range passes to a local shooting indoor shooting range. 

Well…Chaney won.  Not the gun (unfortunately), but she did score the free range passes. 

On our way home she asked when we could go.  Now Chaney is quiet the rifleman (well…”riflegirl”) but she has never shot a handgun.  I explained to her that we could go anytime we wanted to, but that the range is really more of a handgun range.  We really can’t shoot high powered rifle there.

She thought about that for a millisecond and said, “That’s ok….I want to learn how to shoot a pistol”.

Ok then.

Chaney the "riflegirl" with her bison she took with a Winchester Model 70 chambered in 30.06

So…a couple of days later we headed over to the range when I got home from work.  I had told her that I would start her off on a .22 pistol (very light recoil) and then, when she felt she was ready I would move her up to the 9mm.  (My concealed carry gun is a Sig Sauer 239 chambered in 9mm.  I felt that this would be an appropriate gun for her because it is big enough to absorb some of the recoil, but not sooooo big that she wouldn’t be able to hold it properly.)

Before we left the house I went over the fundamentals of pistol shooting….grip, stance, breathing and the functionality of the firearm itself.  She handled it well,…but I could see trepidation in her.  She was nervous,…but determined to work through it.

When we got to the range I rented a .22 ruger and we headed to our lane.

She loaded up the .22 and began taking shots at the paper target 25 feet away.  After the first shot, and the fear of the unknown dissipated, she began plinking away with delight.  Now it was time to move up to the Sig.

Again I saw the trepidation return.  She was determined to shoot this larger caliber, but she was clearly nervous.  Other shooters were shooting around us, so she had become instantly familiar with the noise that 9’s 40’s and 45’s make…and frankly they are pretty damn loud…especially when discharged in a building.  Still she loaded up the magazine of the Sig and prepared herself mentally for the first shot. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the Sig…the pistol is a semi-automatic Double Action / Single Action firearm.  What this means is that the first trigger pull requires a full press of twelve pounds of pressure.  This is a lot…and the travel of the trigger is pretty long too…but the action of pulling the trigger causes the hammer at the back of the gun to travel backwards then when it reaches it’s full arch to fall forward and slam the firing pin causing the gun to go “bang”.  The gas expansion of the cartridge in the chamber then forces the slide back…expelling the spent cartridge, forcing the hammer back, and then chambering another round.  Now that the hammer is back, the second trigger pull is a “single action”…pull the trigger and the hammer just falls.  This second (and subsequent) trigger pulls now only require three and a half pounds of pressure.

So…Chaney concentrated…pressed the trigger, and put her first round in the center of the target!  She shot a second time and placed the bullet about 4 inches from the first.  Then…without me coaching, she raised the gun slightly and did a third round in the “head” of the target.  Then she calmly looked down her sights waived the gun back and forth in a scanning motion then looked at me for direction.

I was stunned.  She performed a perfect “failure drill”.  (Two shots center mass, and a “failure” shot in the head.  Then the scanning for additional threats). 

“Where did you learn how to do that?”  I asked incredulously

“I’ve watched you shoot dad….I just figured that is how you do it.”

Hmmmm….children do pay attention to your actions apparently.

So…after burning through another hundred rounds or so we packed up and headed home.  

Did she enjoy shooting the pistol?

Well…based on her incessant demands on the way home to check our calendar and set up anther time to go back, and her asking me if she could get a semi-automatic for Christmas, I would say yeah…she enjoyed it!