Tag the animal immediately to comply with game laws. Be sure to know and understand the laws in the state you're hunting.

Start by first skinning the animal one half at a time and peeling the hide back to expose the meat as the animal is laying on its side. Next go ahead and cut your quarters and put them in a clean location. Do NOT forget to remove the backstraps. They are some of the tastiest cuts on your game. After the front shoulder, hind quarter and backstrap have been removed you can cut or saw of the ribs and remove the liver and heart if you intend to eat them. Now roll the animal over and repeat the process on the other side. Your animal is now quartered and ready to be packed out.

Caping Your Trophy

Special care is needed if you want the head to be mounted for your trophy room, or if you intend sell the cape. There are two ways to proceed with caping. One method involves cutting the back of the neck for the entire length. This is a common method and makes skinning out much easier, but will require a great deal of sewing on the part of your taxidermist. The other method, will create less work for your taxidermist and often results in a higher quality mount. Begin by making an 8-10 inch cut up the back of the neck. This requires that the head be detached from the body. The cape is detached from the rest of the hide by making a cut all the way around the rib cage just behind the shoulders. When caping the head, pull the hide free from the flesh, taking care not to cut the skin. A knife cut in the head portion of the cape can be VERY difficult for a taxidermist to hide. Be extra careful around the eyes and tear duct area in the inside corner of the eye socket. It may help to put your finger in the animals eye from the outside and cut the connective tissue around the eye, but be careful not to cut yourself. When skinning around the mouth leave as much lip tissue connected to the cape as possible, so that the taxidermist can split the lips from the inside to make a realistic mount. The ears can be cut off close to the skull. Use your fingers and a blunt object to seperate the hide from the back side of the ear cartilage. Do not attempt to cut the cartilage loose from the ear. Simply turn the ears inside-out with the cartilage still attached to the front of the ears and the taxidermist will take care of it from there. Remove all meat from the scalp and salt the hide liberally. Roll with flesh side in and allow to drain for hours. Re-salt until all moisture is removed. Store in a cool, dry place until the cape can be taken to the taxidermist. Antlers should be sawed from the skull and all meat and tissue should be removed.

Meat Preparation and Care

1. Cool It Immediately.
2. Keep it clean.
3. Cool it further.
4. Keep it cool.

By cool, we don't mean just barely above freezing. It's seldom possible on many hunts in this day and age. We mean to cool the meat from the almost 100° F to 70°-80° F as quickly as possible, in the first hour after the kill. Then continue to cool the meat as much as possible during your hunt. That first hour is Critical because if you don't get rid of the heat, bacteria multiply like mad in the 90°-100° F temperatures. Even if you're hunting in temperatures reaching 70°-80° F you can quickly cool the meat. First, recover the animal as quickly as possible. Take your photographs, not spending too much time, and then get to work field dressing the animal. Whether field dressing or quartering try to get the animal skinned as soon as possible to let the meat cool. After quartering or deboning put the meat in a Big Game bag. These allow it too cool and keep it clean of dirt and insects. If deboning be careful not to put to much meat in any one bag. It will prevent it from cooling properly. Hang bags in a shaded area while packing back to camp. When back at camp try to hang in either a shaded tent or the north side of a spruce or other conifer, close to the trunk. If you follow these basic and simple rules, you can keep your meat a week very easily. When you get home, you'll have clean meat to be processed into smaller pieces, such as steaks and roasts.

Initial Field Dressing

Field dress big game carcasses (white-tailed and mule deer, antelope, moose, elk) immediately after harvest to allow the meat to cool rapidly. Animals shot in vital organs (heart, lungs or liver) need not be bled since enough vessels will have been severed to allow sufficient bleeding. Hunters may sever the jugular vein on the underside of the neck to bleed an animal that has not been shot in the vital organs. Skillfully placed shots fired from short distances into the vital organs or head will prevent damage to meat and minimize the loss of animals from wounding.

Hang animals in a tree after field dressing to allow circulating air to cool the carcass from all sides. If an animal cannot be hung, place the animal on rocks or logs in a shaded area to allow air to reach the underside of the carcass.

When field dressing an animal, avoid puncturing the stomach and intestines--gastric juices that spill onto hind quarters when internal organs are accidentally cut will contaminate meat. Remove bloodshot meat from the carcass with a clean knife. Wipe the carcass cavity with clean towels to remove blood, loose particles, and hair. Use water sparingly because wet meat spoils faster than dry meat.

Place sticks between the rib cage to spread the chest cavity open and promote further cooling. In warmer climates or in early seasons in northern latitudes, carcasses can be cooled rapidly by stuffing the cavity with bags of ice. Avoid packing carcasses with snow, a common practice in northern climates, because bacteria in snow could contaminate meat

Tips for safe handling of wild game

• Hunters should not handle or consume wild animals that appear sick or act abnormally, regardless of the cause.
• Always wear heavy rubber or latex gloves when field dressing deer.
• If intestinal contents contact meat, consider the meat contaminated; cut off and discard affected area.
• Handle carcasses properly. Cool carcass rapidly in the field (bags of ice can hasten cooling). Age carcass at or below 40° F for no longer than 5-7 days. Hang birds by feet at less than 40° F for 2-3 days maximum.
• Hold meat at or below 40° F at all times. If you don't plan to consume or process meat within 3-5 days, freeze it. Thaw frozen meat only in the refrigerator, never at room temperature.
• Wash hands with soap and water before and after handling meat and poultry.
• Sanitize equipment and work surfaces often during handling and processing meat and poultry with a bleach solution (1 Tbs. bleach to 1 gallon water).
• Use a meat thermometer to cook meat to proper internal temperatures (see chart). There are several types of meat thermometers available, which are easy to use and can be read instantly or remain in meat while it cooks. This helps ensure harmful bacteria are killed and meat is not overcooked. The color of meat is an unreliable indicator of doneness.
• For jerky, steam, boil or roast meat to 165° F using a meat thermometer prior to dehydrating. Dry at 130°-140° F until thoroughly dry. Jerky is properly dry when it cracks on bending but doesn't break.
• For sausage preparation, keep meat cold (under 40° F) during grinding process and ensure internal temperature reaches 165° F with meat thermometer during cooking.

Field Dressing: There are three major rules to follow as soon as the animal is dead.

1. Remove the intestines, lungs, liver and heart as soon after the kill as possible.
2. Keep the carcass clean by getting it off the ground as quickly as possible and by using clean utensils during dressing.
3. Cool the carcass quickly and keep it cool during processing and transport.

When field dressing an animal, plastic surgical gloves are recommended. Clean your hunting knife often with clean water and a cloth to prevent contamination of the meat.

• Place the animal on its back with the front-end elevated and spread the hind legs. Support the carcass in position by placing rocks or sticks on each side.
• Cut along the midline of the belly from the breastbone to the anus. Avoid cutting into the paunch and intestines by using the handle of the knife and the heel of your hand to crowd the guts away. Cut around the anus, loosening the bung so it will come out with the guts.
• Cut the diaphragm (the thin sheet of muscle and connective tissue between the chest and the abdomen) free from the rib cage by cutting through the white tissue near the rib cage.
• Reach forward to cut the windpipe, gullet and blood vessels at the base of the throat.
• Pull the lungs, heart and guts out of the animal. If you like variety meats, save the heart and liver in a plastic bag and put on ice.

Hanging to Drain and Clean: Put the carcass on logs or rocks if it cannot be hung.

• Remove all foreign particles and loose hair.
• Wipe out excess blood in gutted cavity with a paper towel or clean cloth and clean water.
• Use as little water as possible, because damp meat spoils faster than dry meat.
• Dry with paper towels or clean rags. Prop the cavity open with sharpened sticks and hang the carcass in the shade until the cavity surface is thoroughly dry. Be sure there is good air circulation.
• Do not use grass or snow to wipe out the carcass, because this may contaminate the carcass.

Aging Meat: Aging meat is the practice of holding carcasses or cuts of meat at temperatures of 34° to 37° F for 7 to 14 days to allow the enzymes in the meat to break down some of the complex proteins in the carcass. Aged meat is often more tender and flavorful. Do not age any game carcass if it was shot during warm weather and not chilled rapidly, if the animal was severely stressed prior to the kill, if gunshot areas are extensive, or if the animal was under 1 year of age. Aging is not recommended for carcasses with little or no fat covering because they may dry out during aging, and are more susceptible to deterioration through microbial growth. If the meat will be ground into sausage, aging is unnecessary.

• Leave the hide on and maintain the proper temperature when aging a carcass. Aging game that has been skinned often results in drying and high weight loss. For this reason, properly chilled game should be aged with the hide on unless it is to be aged in a cooler where humidity is high. If you do not have the proper cooler space, spoil-age or dehydration may result.
• Do not trim fat from game meat before it is aged because the fat protects the meat. However, fat should be trimmed after aging to avoid undesirable flavors associated with the fat.
• Limit aging to a maximum of two weeks at 34° to 37° F. At this point tenderization slows down, and bacterial slime develops which then must be trimmed.
• Cold shortening, which causes meat to be tough, occurs if the internal muscle temperature drops to 32° F within 12 hours after the kill, such as if carcasses under 100 pounds are slaughtered when the temperature is below freezing. Frozen carcasses should be thawed and aged at 34° F for 14 days.

Cutting: Many freezer locker stores have power saws and capable meat cutters who cut and wrap meat. Some hunters cut their own roasts and have steaks or chops cut by an expert meat cutter.

Cutting is not a haphazard operation. For easy cutting, hang the carcass by the hocks or hock tendons. Split lengthwise along the backbone from tail to neck, saw with a meat or carpenter's saw, or chop with a cleaver or hand ax. Keep halves well spread while splitting. Cut between the last two ribs and through the backbone to divide halves into quarters.

The simplest way to cut meat is to remove all flesh from bones following along natural seams of muscles. Loins are removed from the back as they lie between the upright vertebra and down-turned ribs. The long, sausage-shaped piece can then be trimmed of loose tissue and cut into steak-sized pieces (similar to cutting a loaf of bread). On smaller animals, a cut twice the desired size is made, then cut almost in two again, leaving connective tissue enough to fold out the cuts to resemble a butterfly.

Good Luck!

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