Field Dressing a Deer: Gear, Safety and Order of Cuts

Outdoor Life offers a step-by-step guide to field dressing a deer, covering gear, safety and the order of cuts. The author stresses working slowly with a sharp knife.

Key points

• Why do it: Removing the guts is the minimum before taking a deer to a processor. It also makes the deer lighter to drag, and earlier gutting improves the venison.
• Gear: A sharp knife is the essential item, with a headlamp if light is fading. Many hunters add extras.
• Safety: Broken bone from bullets, or a lodged broadhead or arrow shaft, can be sharp inside the rib cage, so the author advises caution.
• Cutting order: Keep the first belly incision shallow, with the blade tilted upward, to avoid the stomach and bladder. Then open the abdomen from pelvis to breastbone, cut the diaphragm and pull the organs free.
• Timing: In hot or mild weather, within an hour of the shot is ideal. In cold weather a deer can wait hours or overnight.

Quick take

The author says there is no single right method, and that a punctured stomach is unpleasant but not a disaster. Avoiding a cut to yourself matters more, according to the article. Hunters planning a shoulder mount are told not to split the ribs.

Read the full story at Outdoor Life.