Field Dressing and Butchering Big Game
Field Dressing or Gutting:
The quarry achieved, lying where it was rooting.
Immediately after killing big game, you must fill out your tag, where the law requires.
Pull the animal to a relatively clean spot on the ground and turn it onto its back.
Start the first cut over the sternum, (center, bottom of the rib cage.) *NOTE you will almost never need to cut the animal's throat, since this will only bleed it if the heart is still pumping. Believe me, the bullet will have bled out the animal plenty and this will all come out of the body cavity with the guts.
After the first one inch cut, poke the knife under the skin so you can slice with the blade facing up. This parts the hair rather than cutting it, and insures that you will not puncture the intestine because you are not cutting downward.
Open the skin, right down the midline to the anus, (diverting along one side of the penus opening.)
Starting again at the sternum, with the knife blade still facing up, cut the muscle (bacon) layer over the abdomen, exposing the entrails.
Turn the animal to its side and start pulling out the intestines. Take great care not to break open the stomach or intestines. When you’ve got the stomach and intestines pulled out as much as you can, you will find it hanging up just below the liver. Take your knife and cut it away from the backbone at that point. Now you are at the point of figure 6, (below.)
The bladder is full, but still intact. Run your hand along the intestine on top of the bladder to where it becomes the rectum inside of the pelvic canal. Pull it away from the connecting tissue. If it is empty you can cut it here and pull it out, or you can cut a circle around the anus from the outside. Pull the remaining intestinal tract free- happiness is a large gut pile. Unless you plan to eat them, cut out the kidneys from against the backbone, and cut off the mountain oysters and penis, leaving this meal for the coyotes. Mountain oysters are good to eat, and if you want to give them a try, cut them off and carry them or stuff them up into the chest with the heart to keep them from getting dirty.
The big game is ready for dragging. Heart and liver are still attached. If they are left inside while dragging, they will stay clean. Do not leave these delicacies in the field. Even if you do not like liver, someone who does enjoy it will relish this.
Now attach the dragging straps. You should have made a pair to carry with you from my article on dragging straps. With a pig you attach one belt to the upper snout and the other to both front feet.
Dragging the animal rubs the hair off the hide in patches. It won't rub through to the meat. If your game is one you want to mount, (and you should ALWAYS mount your first buck, no matter what size,) you will have to cape out the head and backpack the head and meat out.
Butchering:
You will need a good knife, a sharpening stone, a bone saw, and game bags for the meat when you butcher your animal.
It is easiest to have help with this stage, and to hang the animal by its rear legs on a gambrel in order to skin it. If you have no help or your animal is an elk you may not have the luxury of hanging it and have to do it on the ground.
Notice in this picture where the hair is rubbed off over the side and shoulder from dragging.
Remove the heart and liver now and put them in separate ziplock bags into the cooler.
Saw off the pig’s tail at the base; this is your trophy.
To remove the first ham, turn the pig on its back again. Cut the skin up the inside of the thigh (knife blade up again,) to the hock joint. Saw the foot off here. Peel, pull, and cut the skin back to expose the ham, then bone it out against the pelvis; leaving as little meat as possible on the bone, and freeing it at the hip socket. Set the ham out to dry in a shady spot, on or in a clean game bag. You DO NOT want to put these pieces on top of the ice in the cooler. Water should never touch the meat at all. It should be allowed to dry off and form a “skin”. Muslim game bags are used to keep the flies away and let the air dry it.
Now you are going to skin the pig halfway, up to the neck, and remove the shoulder. But first, resharpen your knife. Wild Boar and Elk skins are both tough ones on any blade. Saw off the foot at the joint. Set the shoulder out to dry on or in a clean game bag.
Next, saw the ribs off along the edge of the loin, up to the neck, (see diagram.) You will have to waste some of the flank, cutting it away because it will be dirty from dragging. Set the rack of ribs out to dry on or in a clean game bag.
You are halfway done. Repeat the process on the other side.
Now you are left with the back and the loin on the skin, still attached to the head and at the end. Saw off the neck. There’s not much neck to a pig, but on a deer you will want to bone out the neck meat for grinding.
The tenderloin is the two strips of muscle on the inside of the body cavity right below the small of the back. This muscle never gets worked and it is always tender, hence the name. Remove the tenderloin and put it in the baggie with the heart. Later you will want to thinly slice the heart and tenderloin, panfry it in butter, salt, and pepper, and a touch of garlic salt, until it is just lightly cooked- a meal for a king!
Last thing is to saw off the pelvis and peel the rest of the skin away from the back and loin. This has your bone-in chops. If you take it to your butcher he will use his electric saw to saw it down the center of the backbone and slice out the chops. If you don’t want to pay the butcher to do this, bone out the backstrap on each side, refrigerate the straps to firm them up, and then slice across the grain into ½ inch wide boneless chops. Take the hams and shoulders to your butcher to be cured and smoked, or bone all the meat off of them and grind it all, adding cure and seasonings to make sausage. Whenever you make packages for the freezer, wrap them first in cellophane wrap and then in freezer paper to prevent freezer burn. Label and date all packages.
Lots of work? Yeah. Is it worth it? You bet. Learn how to do it competently and get used to doing a lot of it if you are a successful hunter.
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