slightly off-topic, but in the cool northern climates, the deer can hang, with the hide on, for 10 days, 2 weeks, sometimes even longer. my preference is for about 10 days. the colder climate makes this possible, and leaving the hide on keeps the meat from drying up.


i wouldn't recmmend this down south or in warmer climates humidity may play a role as well as it is very dry up here.

I am with tasunkawitko,
In cooler climes you can and should leave the hide on your gutted deer. Deer are small enough that they will cool properly in 32-50 degrees. Moose and elk should be skinned/gutted as a rule to cool the meat, no matter what the temperature. Although if it is very cold I have seen quartered moose hanging with the hide on without detrimental effect, actually greatly increasing the meat yield and keeping the meat clean during transport.
However this is not the way in milder temperatures.
If it is too warm, skin/gut the deer and leave it hanging at least overnite. Then butcher it the next day at earliest.
Nothing is more pathetic then seeing skinned black mummified shriveled to nothing deer carcasses. Supposedly "ageing". They are ageing alright, with almost nothing left to eat.
For those unfortunate gutshots where you fear serious meat contamination by rumens, skin the animal without gutting it, then remove the hind quarters/shoulders/backstraps/neck, ribs at the very end and leave the messy gut bag for the ravens/yodel dogs/whiskey jacks or whatever.

Ted S, I've skinned numerous coyotes using your method. A tennis ball rather than a rock but sameo sameo.

I don't see why it wouldn't work with a deer.





If you skin your deer out in the woods, how do you get it back to the truck without it getting covered with dirt, sticks, leaves and such?

Around these parts, the euphism is "hydraulic halter."

Hang deer, skin out around rear legs and anus just enough to loop a cable around the ends. Anchor to a ring cemented in the floor. Push the button for the overhead hoist. Works fast as long as the skeleton isn't so shot up that it rips apart.

Never heard of the compressed air trick.

I have used the air method for doing a couple hundred muskrats when I was still trapping. I dont see why it wouldnt work on a deer as well, but if you are only doing one deer it dosnt take anytime to skin out anyway. There is probably no advantage to it.

For those who are serious about top quality meat , you should research the scientific studies of the USDA. Meat spoils at temperatures above 40 F. Meat spoils when subjected to alternating freezing and thawing..Oils in the hide become rancid and contaminate the meat.ETC

etc -

you are right, that is why i recommended the hanging and aging only in cool-to-cold climates or if you ahve access to a locker. i suppose that a refrigerator would work as well.

Ouch... It appears that the backstraps are coming off with the skin in the above photos...



I've seen the "golf ball" method used on deer and hogs which is very similar to the above photos and since I prize my venison so much I prefer to skin, gut and quarter my venison immediatly in the field and put the meat in a cooler with ice.



I VERY carefully separate the skin from the deer with a knife and my hands. If the knife is very sharp this is easily accomplished and the whole process (after the deer is hung with a gambrel) only takes about 20-30 minutes from whole deer to cleaned quarters placed in coolers.



In our fairly warm southern climate (uaually around freezing at night and 60's in the day) the ice in the cooler melts gradually and we just keep draining off the water and adding ice for 4-8 days and it's ready to butcher, wrap, and freeze.



Oh yeah... We also use a battery powered reciprocating saw to sever the legs and head. Often the deer is split in half by sawing right down the spine from the rear to make it easier to quarter and fit in coolers.



$bob$

I hunt in Maine and NH. In these states you must go to a tagging station with the deer Whole minus the guts. Once properly tagged, you are allowed to process the meat. For us processing the animal in the field is not an option.

We do get weather here that allows for hanging deer. Some people do it for a week outside. For me, if you hang your deer in 38deg weather, yet it is sunny, what temprature is that dark hair/deer rising to?

My Uncle had a farm and ran a butcher shop for nearly 60 years. He was a hunter and processed game. I asked him about hanging deer to "age" the meat. He walked me into the cooler and asked me what I saw. It was easy, I saw lots of meat hanging, aging. He then said, " How many hides do you see?". All the hanging meat wether beef or venison was skinned. My Uncles version is that a lot for the glands are just under the skin. If you allow the hide to stay on any animal and hang, some of the liquid in the glands will pull back into the meat. The glands will change the flavor of the meat. His theory was, at the most, hang over night if it is cold. Do not allow it to hang in the sun. If you can't hang it with the hide off, process it asap.

There are alot of pictures around this area of "Meat poles" with an array of bucks hanging. Here where 6 deer sq. mile is average, they were not all shot in one day. Alot of these old photos were taken in the winter, in the northern part of the state when the weather never got above freezing. The deer were frozen solid. So the meat in the old photos was not aging, it was preserved. That has happened to a few of my deer from hanging overnight. Try processing frozen meat, Your hands become numb quick and the hide comes off like a pair of OJs gloves.

Any ways, on a hunt in NC we brought the whole deer out of the woods, guts and all, They did the winch hide rip off thing. It worked well so when I got home I tried it. Well that process seems to work better on an animal that is still warm, almost like skinning a rabbit or a squirrel. The sooner you do it the easier it is. For me it pulled off too much meat with a field dressed deer that had been allowed to cool.

I have been around a lot of people who have saind they hate the flavor of venison. They have had venison given to them and and cooked it themselves and have also had others cook it for them. They still hate the flavor. I always try and talk these people into trying venison again, most once they do, can't believe the flavor. They ask why this venison tastes so different. The only thing I can attribute it to is the non-hanging process. For me it works. Time for breakfast, venison steak and eggs Happy butchering!

Mete,
Just splitting hairs here, but, the 40F threshold is to inhibit "pathogen" growth, not psycotropic spoilage agents. But you are totally correct in stating cold is good.
Mike

I dress my deer out the same way LD Hunter. My brother and I hunt within 20min of home and most of our deer retrieval is within one hour from time of shot to dressing out at the house. We don't gut our deer in the woods and have never once had any problems with meat due to the deer not being field dressed.
We hang the deer upside down and take the hide off from the back legs down to the neck with a sharp knife.

Remove the front shoulders and neck. We also use the battery operated reciprocating saw to cut the bones.

Cut out the back straps as far down as you want to take them.

Cut out the genitalia / anus and let them fall into the stomach cavity. Carefully cut the flank tissue down and toward the spine to expose the tenderloins on the inside of the backbone. Remove same.

With a large container under the deer, use the reciprocating saw to cut across the backbone below the hind-quarters until free. The ribs and the guts fall into the container for easy disposal and you never had to fool around with the guts or organs. I am sure this is a devided issue(field dressing), but we stopped doing it years ago and have never had any problems with meat spoilage.

Now split the hind quarters down the middle and cut off the legs and you are done. It takes me about forty minutes by myself and about half and hour with help. To me it sounds like rigging up the air compressor would just be a pain in the ass compared to the benifit gained, but I may try it next year just out of curiosity.

Perforator,

"Carefully cut the flank tissue down and toward the spine to expose the tenderloins on the inside of the backbone. Remove same."

OK... I've never heard of this one... Are you saying that you have a technique to leave the guts in the rib cage area and yet still retrieve the tenderloins?

If so please expound because this sounds very useful. I've lately seen some people cleaning hogs and deer and never dropping the guts. If you're in a hurry this can be a quick way to keep from having to deal with the guts while attempting to "harvest" the meat from the carcass.

However they're not getting the tenderloins which IMO is even better than backstraps and liver.

$bob$

Indeed the tenderloins are the choicest cut of meat. You have to be very careful with your knife when performing this operation or you can puncture the stomach.

With the deers hide removed, you will notice that the stomach wall comes to a connecting point between the hind-quarters. Cut the connecting muscles and fibers so that the stomach cavity opens up. The weight of the guts will pull the lower portion of the ribs away from the backbone a little bit. Cut the flank down, angling slightly towards the backbone. Take it down as far as you can (about 10"). What you are doing is opening up the cavity from the front of the hindquarter to the attachment point of the lower rib on the backbone.

Now you can access the tenderloin. Look on the inside portion of the backbone and locate the top of the tenderloin. It will be about even with the back leg. Cut the top of the tenderloin straight across and fillet it out very carefully. It is so tender that it will shred apart if you pull to hard. Run it down as far as you can and thats it. An average size loin is about 8" long. Absolutely the best cut on a deer.

For you guys who haven't seen a tenderloin on a deer, they are flat against the backbone on the inside. So don't look for a big protruding muscle. Unfortunately, many hunters never notice them or take the time to remove them and that's a real shame.
I really don't have any use for the ribs and I don't harvest any organs. My method allows me to avoid messing with the guts.

Hmmmm................we did a number of coyotes with a quad runner as power. Worked best for us while the animal is still warm, and shot between the ribs. Assume the same would be for deer.

I have to side with SingleShot on this one. I have seen the blood shot "jelly" run under the tissues into the shoulder of a hung elk and ruin a good portion of the shoulder. This was from an elk shot in the ribs. I am a big believer in getting that hide off as soon as practical, and slicing off any bloodshot areas. That stuff is like fast cancer growth!

We all have our techniques, and I am sure no expert at skinning, but I do believe it should be done ASAP whether its a deer or an elk or a moose!

3584elk -

i've never had this problem, but on the flipside is that mine have all been deer or antelope and the only holes have been in the ribs.

with an elk, i certainly wouldn't recommend leaving the hide on, but for deer i do it so that the meat doesn't try out. this year when i hung my deer, i skinned off about 6 inches from each hind leg up from the shanks, when it came time to cut up the deer, the shanks were shrivled like a mummy, but the meat under the hide was perfect.

I hung a few deer for a week or so and also had several freeze in unheated sheds the night following the kill. Seeing as no ageing was occurring after freezing I started to skin them within a few hours at most and butcher in a couple days. I agree prolonged aging will dry the meat. I just don't see any need to hang venison beyond 36 to 48 hours in order to give rigor time to come and go. Also skinning them gives you a chance to trim off bloodshot meat before the bleeding migrates through the spaces between muscle groups. As for cooling when it is cold here a deer will lose body heat quickly even when the hide is left on.
I know guys that let moose and elk freeze but I can't imagine the time it would take to thaw them enough to skin and all the exra work.