Question for you warm weather hunters

[Chipdasqrrl]

For those of you down South that deal with 80+ temperatures during hunting season, what do you do with the deer immediately after you shoot it? I would imagine that as soon as you take the shot it's a rush to get it to the freezer. Here in Michigan, it's not uncommon to have a deer hanging in the garage for a week or two.


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[DocHolladay]

I dont do anything out of the norm. After the shot, I let the deer lay for 30 minutes to make sure it has died. I then begin my tracking job, if I didn't see it fall. Field dressing is the key, once found, to the cooling process. That lets LOTS of heat out. If you are taking it to a processor, pack it full of ice. If you do it yourself, go home, skin it, debone it, put it in a cooler and cover the meat with ice. You are done until you are ready to start processing. Somewhere in the middle, take trophy pics. The only thing that I would hate to do, is let it lay over night, unless we were going to get down into the 50's and I would still hate that. I DO NOT want to show it off to my friends, they can come to my house or look at photos after the fact.

 

[PineSapJunky]

The first time I hunted up North you would of thought that I was a 2 headed snake when asked for a "gut bucket". Down south most folks do not field dress their kill. We drag it out whole. I don't like the idea of gutting an animal where I hunt. We normally take it back, skin it out, put the quarters in a cooler and haul off the bones and guts to the "gut pile". I kill most of our coyotes hunting over the gut pile when we get bored. Hanging meat down south isn't an option.

If the shot is a marginal one we might let the deer sit a couple hours. Where I live we have a great blood tracking network. A bunch of those guys have "catch dogs" to help in the recovery of a wounded animal not wanting to go down. To them tracking is there passion and run themselves ragged.

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[SwampCat]

I dont meat hunt when the temps are upper 80's and 90's. I am extemely careful of shot placement. I will get on the blood trail quicker. If I am not hunting at the house, I gut them in the woods and carry ice in an ice chest to throw on them for the ride home. When we get home, we immediately skin, quarter, and get it in an ice chest. We dont leave one overnight before tracking even in cold weather. It wont be anything but a skeleton the next day anyway because of the coyotes.

 

[THE LLC]

I don't hunt until it cools off so I can't help. In Nebraska we let them hang with the skin on as long as possible. Southern hunting and weather SUCKS any way, so I don't do much of it any more.

 

[weekender21]

I grew up in the south, lived in southern CA for 15 years, and Hawaii for 6. I'll have to second what pinesapjunkey said; people in the south tend not to field dress deer for some reason. There are processors everywhere in SC and most deer are dropped off whole.

It's a completely different story out west. Almost everyone does their own processing and it's over 100F regularly during the season in the Southwest. There are really two basic methods out west; field dressing and de-boneing. I've done a lot of each but really prefer to de-bone game in the field when it makes since. Both methods begin the cooling process immediately and I've never lost meat with either method.

I've hung field dressed and skinned deer overnight with nighttime temps in the 60's with excellent results. I've also hung cloth meat bags filled with boned out elk meat in the shade all day with similar temps. As long as you either remove the guts and organs (field dress) or get the meat off the bone using the de-boning method, there really isn't anything to worry about.

 

[DocHolladay]

I've lived in Mid Tennessee my whole life. I field dress them where they land. If they are DRT in the field, thats where the gut pile ends up. The only time I have taken a deer out without filed dressing, is the time the land owner came and picked me up with his tractor and we loaded them on the brush cutter. I shot 2 deer about 30 minutes into the hunt and he heard me shoot and called, it was also 35* out.

 

[gasman]

Best part of field dressing them is there is a lot less weight to drag out of the woods. Have never had a gut pile effect deer movement.

 

[lakngolf]

If the deer has to wait awhile before delivery I like to find a cool stream

 

[PineSapJunky]

Best part of field dressing them is there is a lot less weight to drag out of the woods. Have never had a gut pile effect deer movement.

You're probably 100% spot on. I know in Kansas we field dress our deer. Had a friend shoot a buck in the afternoon in the exact stand that I shot my buck out of and field dressed a short distance away. Honestly for me it's just easier bringing the whole thing back to the house. I live on the property I hunt and never more than a 100 yards or so from a 4wheeler trail. Plus in my mind I bait coyotes and draw them from other areas of the farm to a guaranteed food source. We kill at least a dozen during deer season sitting over a gut pile

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[THE LLC]

Far as field dressing we don't do that here or in Nebraska. No where we hunt can you not drive a truck within 50 yards of one and we like to skin and de-bone without ever gutting. Never understood the sense it made to leave a gut pile in my hunting area attracting feral dogs, coyotes, and especially buzzards.

 

[Drycreek]

Far as field dressing we don't do that here or in Nebraska. No where we hunt can you not drive a truck within 50 yards of one and we like to skin and de-bone without ever gutting. Never understood the sense it made to leave a gut pile in my hunting area attracting feral dogs, coyotes, and especially buzzards.

Much the same here. I always move them out of the immediate area to field dress. I don't need coyotes close to where I'm hunting. If it's as little as 60 degrees, I throw them in the truck and take them to the processor. If it's hot, I skin and quarter. About a thirty minute drive for three places I hunt. The other place has a cold storage, so there I skin and quarter, then in an ice chest to the processor.

 

[useyourbow]

I myself don't field dress my deer. I have killed deer in six different states in the south in temps as high as mid 90's. Field dressing exposes the inside of the deer to bacteria and introducing any kind of water can enhance the growth of bacteria. Indians and early pioneers killed deer all through the year with out the aid of ice or running water. I always wait at least 20 minutes after the shot if I don't see it fall. I have found deer in early September three hours after the shot and the meat was fine.

 

[DocHolladay]

Never understood the sense it made to leave a gut pile in my hunting area attracting feral dogs, coyotes, and especially buzzards.

Coyotes are usually there anyway, whether you see them or not. The county our lease is in doesn't have a lease law and we see a few dogs. We thought the problem was solved when the people that owned them moved and the dogs disappeared. We had 3 new dogs show up early spring..... now there are 2. No collar equals stray.

 

[THE LLC]

Oh, no doubt those critters are already there---especially buzzards. I just don't want to give them a reason to be hanging around my hunting spots. ESPECIALLY buzzards.

 

[Charleston Treeman]

We have a processor about 20 mins from our lease. We just load them on the truck and go. From shot to processer is usually about an hour. When I used to hunt the public land I would field dress it where I shot unless it was cold.

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[gasman]

Interesting to hear how deer are handled in different parts of the country. During many rifle seasons in WI you have to put them in a heated garage for a few hours to thaw enough to skin them if they have been hung outside at camp.

 

[Satguy]

When I was a kid deer seasons were at or near freezing weather and we would hang deer for several days field dressed with skin on before processing it. These days I just take it to the processor about 25 minutes from my farm. I have iced down the cavity and left them in my truck overnight wrapped in a moving blanket. Field dressing allows them to start cooling out not bloating up. You want to let the gas escape the deer as they immediately start breaking down. In warm weather you want to keep the flys from blowing on the deer. Wrapping a sheet or tarp around them helps with that.

 

[OkieKubota]

I shot this buck with my Bow on October 2nd 2016. The weather was warm and had been in the 80's all day but I shot the buck near last light with my bow and I didn't know exactly where he was hit. His reaction to the shot was "dead deer". I was hunting deep woods and there were several deer around me when I shot and with all he deer running and blowing and stomping all around and me not being able to find the arrow and not wanting to push the deer onto a neighbor I made the decision to back out until the following morning.

I found the buck the next morning near where I had shot him. The temps were 57 degrees overnight. He dressed out fine and tasted great!

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[JFK52]

I hunt in Central Wisconsin. I always have a few bags of ice in the freezer when the temps are that warm. We get on the deer immediately. It is taken to a work station with lights and running water where it is winched in the air and then gutted. All the guts go into large buckets and are disposed of later. The deer is then rinsed with cold well water and packed with two bags of ice. It goes to a processor right away. If going to a friend, it is skinned as soon as possible, then quartered and put into a fridge.