Deer Hunting Question

[ddog27]

I am a novice deer hunter, (I have only been deer hunting twice and only saw a deer on one of those hunts. And we did not come home with a buck!) I have a question that I have heard debated a couple of times. After you shoot the deer do you need to gut him and skin him right away or can it wait until you are back in camp. I have heard others say if you wait that the meat will be ruined. So tell me what do you need to do and what can wait until later. Thanks!

[DocHolladay]

it depends on how far from camp you are. i try to field dress them in the field, then take them home or to camp and skin and process them. it wont riun, there are ppl every day that kill a deer and let it stay over night before they go and pic it up.

[carnivore]

When ya kill a deer, it needs to be field dressed immediately. and as soon as ya get it to camp or home it needs to be hanging. If ya leave a deer laying on one side or the other it'll have a tendency to hold a lot of blood in the muscle tissue on the side it's laying on, thats not a terrible thing because I usually keep the meat in water as i'm processing it and the cold water will loosen up alot of the blood. I've left deer hanging for 5 days before when the temp doesn't exceed 45 degrees with the hide on, If ya take the hide off ya need to start processing the deer asap. unless ya intend to bathe it in baking soda for the purpose of loosening up the tough muscle tissue on an old deer. if the temp reaches 50 degrees,(after checking the animal with conservation dept) I'll quarter the animal and keep it in the cooler if I plan on staying around camp for extra days.

[progers]

It depends on the temperature. I see you are in Arizona. If it is warm, you want to field dress it just as soon as you can. Do it near a creek so you can wash up afterwards. If it is cool, you can do it at camp or let the processor take care of it! If it is cold, as carnivore mentioned, you can field dress it and let it hang for a few days. You can take the hide off, just wrap the carcus in a black trash bag to keep the flies and yellow jackets off of it.

[bambeklr]

I usually take my deer away from my hunting area to feild dress them. I never dress them near my stand. To me thats a big NO NO. We have a large tax ditch at the other end of the farm, we take them there to gut them. I do this as soon as I am done my hunt. I have shot deer at 4:30 in the afternoon while hunting in 80 degree weather and stayed hunting untill 8:45-9:00. Shot more deer and then went to retreive them. They are still good. But I process them as soon as I get home most of the time.