How to Field Dress a Deer
If you enjoy hunting deer, there’s one important task you need to do before you can haul your prized catch back home: you’ll need to field dress it. Field dressing is the removal of the game’s innards, to reduce the weight of your hunt. Here’s how to properly field dress a deer.
What You’ll Need:
Latex or plastic gloves
Sharp knife
Large, Ziploc-type bag
Wet rags (for cleaning up)
Hand sanitizer
Water
A strong stomach
Procedure:
Check and make sure that the deer is dead. If it’s not, shoot it again. Never try to slit a wounded deer’s throat, or it might become erratic and accidentally hurt you.
If you’re hunting in an area that requires tags, tag your deer immediately. Let the tag stay on the deer at all times, otherwise, your deer might be confiscated. Slip on a pair of plastic or latex gloves for protection.
Cut a circle carefully around the deer’s anus, so it can be freed and removed from within. If you want, you can tie it off with a string, so the contents won’t taint the meat.
If the deer’s a male (buck) remove the testicles and throw it away, then cut the penis, so it can be taken off the same route as the anus.
Starting close to the pelvis, open the stomach cavity to the ribcage with one hand. After you’ve started the cut, use your other hand’s first two fingers to guide the knife. Remember, cut only through the skin and the thin layer of meat, not the entrails.
Cut through the skin and ribs, following the breastbone, then continue on up to the neck. If you’ve going in between bones, don’t twist the blade, or it might break.
Keep cutting until you’re at the skull’s base.
Cut the esophagus and windpipe at the skull’s base. Then, remove the diaphragm. This is a sheet of muscle that separates the chest cavity from the stomach.
Roll the deer on its side, then let the organs come out. They’ll easily come out, but you might need to pull a bit.
When removing the bladder, be careful. Reach up in the pelvis, then pinch it shut with one hand. With the other, cut it free. If any urine spills on the meat, rinse it immediately with clean water.
Remove debris from the cavity. Stomach contents and other substances must be immediately removed.
Put the heart and liver in a Ziploc bag or a cloth bag.
Clean up your mess, and put all the trash in Ziploc bags. Wash your hands and use hand sanitizer. You can bring your hunt back to civilization after a while.
Knowing how to field dress a deer is a very important factor when you go hunting. Just follow these steps and you’ll bring your prized catch home without any trouble.