Boning Your Animal In The Field

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I hear this complaint almost everyday during hunting season. We had a great time hunting, but it was so much work dragging our animal to the pickup. My question is always why did you drag your animal to the pickup?

Overview

Hunters have it ingrained in their minds that they have to gut their harvested animal and then drag it whole to their transportation. It is very difficult lifting a whole animal minus it’s guts into the back of the pickup. Then hunters generally want to hang their animal. The idea is that it will be easier to skin the animal, which it is, and perhaps age the meat. Aging the meat can be argued either way. However, most hunters do not have a way to hang the meat. Hanging an animal like a deer is work in a normal size garage, but an elk will require a large shop.

The first thing a hunter does is skin the hanging animal and either throw the skin away or trade it for a pair of crappy gloves at the local recycle center. Next they carve off all the meat leaving a bunch of bones to discard. So why do hunters drag the hide and bones home just to throw them all away? I have never understood that.

Here is a better solution. Always hunt with a pack frame on your back. Sure it is clunky, but many of the pack frames out their today are made on a flexible plastic frame. You don’t have to fill the whole pack. Just carry the items you normally would put in your day pack. The reason you carry a pack frame with you all the time is because after you shoot your animal you might as well take a load of meat to the pickup instead of going to the pickup empty, grabbing your pack, and walking back to the animal. Lots of walking and you haven’t packed any meat.

Equipment Required

Carry a knife with changeable blades. You will not need a saw using my method unless you plan on taking the horns and if you do many knifes have saw blade attachments. Kershaw makes a wonderful knife with changeable blades, as do many knife manufacturers. Then you will not have to carry a knife and a saw plus a sharpening stone.

Carry a 10-foot sheet of thin plastic that you will use as clean spot to bone your animal. I place this sheet of plastic right next to the animal. I will secure the plastic to the ground using nearby rocks.

Bring along a gallon size Ziploc bag with two pairs of plastic gloves. The Ziploc bag will be a great place to put the 10 plastic sheet and bloody plastic gloves after you have boned your animal. I also include small travel pack of wet wipes to clean my hands after the animal is processed.

Carry a second gallon size Ziploc bag to place your saw or knife blades after you are done boning your animal. In this second Ziploc bag you can store several garbage bags. How many garbage bags you bring will depend on what size an animal you are hunting. For a deer two garbage bags should be fine. For an elk you will want at least six garbage bags. The garbage bags will be used to hold your meat and keep the inside of your pack nice and clean

So we are next to our trophy with our 10-foot plastic sheet secured with rocks, garbage bags out on the plastic sheet along with spare knife and saw blades, and now its time to make the first cut.

Boning The Animal In The Field

Forget about the belly area. We start at the base of the skull and slice the hide down the neck and backbone to the tail. Next slice the hide from the backbone straight down to the knee joint of the front leg. Cut the hide completely around the knee joint. Do the exact same thing for the rear leg. Start at the backbone sliced hide and cut straight down the back leg to the knee joint.

Next start skinning the hide back away from the hind leg. Once you have the hind leg totally skinned you can remove the hind leg if you are working on a deer or if you have an elk you can start boning the hind leg still attached to the animal. The hind leg is attached by a ball joint and can be removed without a saw. Simply lift the leg and start cutting where the leg connects to the body until you hit the ball joint. Once you have cleared all of the muscle away from the ball joint, the hind leg should lift easily off the animal. Place the hind leg on the plastic sheet to allow it to cool.

Move up to the front leg. Skin the hide away from the front shoulder. The front shoulder is not connected by a ball joint.  How this works without a ball joint boggles my mind, but it works. Just like the hind leg, lift the leg and start cutting the front shoulder off the animal. Once the front shoulder is disconnected place it on the plastic sheet to cool.

Next we will remove the back strap. Go to the where the neck connects to the body and start a cut right next to the backbone all the way to the tail. Start cutting the back strap off the backbone in one large piece all the way to the neck. This procedure should be exactly what you are familiar doing with a hanging animal. Place the back strap on the plastic sheet to cool.

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