CoElkHunter
AH ambassador
For many years, we field dressed big game the old fashioned way. Slit the skin on the belly from the neck to the groin and down to the paunch and then "roll" out the stomach and cut around the penis/vulva and hope you didn't get a hole in the stomach and/or feces/urine on the meat. Leave the skin on and haul it out. Then, a number of years ago, someone showed my father in law a different way and he passed it down to us. It works MUCH better. You skin one side from the neck to the anus and around the legs and back and lay the skin down flat. You take off the front and hind quarter on that side. You cut off the backstrap, and any neck/outside rib meat. You reach in between the stomach and spine and pull (sometimes cut a little) the tenderloin out. You turn the animal over onto the flat skin and do the same thing to the other side. Slick! No need to "gut" the animal. The only downside is you can't keep the ribs, but there's not much meat on them anyway. You put the neck/rib/backstraps/tenderloins meat in game bags, and put them and the quarters on a log overnight to cool and come back for everything the next morning with the horses and/or game cart. Or, haul some of it out the same day, depending on the time. Regardless of what you do, you MUST get that skin off the animal ASAP to avoid "tainted" meat later regardless of the temperature. I'm sure many of you do this same field dressing already, but for those that haven't tried this technique, it will be well worth your "taste" later on. LOL