In this series, we'll show you some techniques to provide a safe, wholesome
source of meat for yourself and your families. As a biologist, I often hear I
don't like the gamey taste of venison. Most of that off-putting taste is a
result of improper handling of the animal. If you follow the tips in this
video series, your idea of how wild venison should taste will greatly
improve. While this video series focuses on white-tailed deer, the tips we show
can apply to almost any wild game. We've just harvested a nice doe, now we're
gonna show you how to do the field dressing. Let's start with some basic
tools. Gloves are important not only for keeping your hands clean, but they also
provide a barrier for potential zoonotic diseases. You need a good sharp knife. You
don't need the Jack Hawke 9000, just any good sharp knife, and I prefer this one
that has a gut hook. Let's get started we're going to start by coring around
the rectum. I'm going to make an incision in here using my gut hook to slice all
along the abdomen, and then we'll get inside and show you the details of the
process. So again we're going to start by making an incision and core around the
rectum.
Make sure you get completely around so that'll pull through in the next stage.
Your next step is to locate the sternum. Make an incision with your knife, not to
go too deep. Use your gut hook, slice right down the abdomen.
Be careful not to cut into the utter or the testicles on a buck. And then you can
take your knife, make sure you get all the way up to the diaphragm. Now we're
going to cautiously cut around the utter.
I'm just gonna slice in between these two muscle groups down to the pelvis
bone and making sure our peritoneum is
clear all the way to that bone. Next, we'll roll her over, get this lower gut
system out of the way so we can work up in the chest cavity. This is the
diaphragm, which separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity. We're
going to take our knife slice all around the ribcage down to the backbone so we
can remove the chest cavity materials heart and lung.
Next we're gonna take our knife, reach into the chest cavity, get as far as we
can, and cut her esophagus. And now that you're cut through the esophagus, we can
reach in, grab it, pull that whole system right out. And this is where it's
important that if you didn't cut all the way around the diaphragm, it can hold the
process. And be careful with your knife here because sloppy play can cut into
the inside loins. And now if you've properly cut around the rectum you can
pull it right out. And so since we've shot her in the chest, there's a lot of
extra blood in the cavity. At this point, we need to roller onto our belly and
drain all this extra fluid out.
Now that we've harvested the animal, as hunters, we need to transition from
thinking about this animal as a successful hunt, to that this animal is
now food for our table. So our final step in the field dressing portion is to get
the animal hung up and cooled as quickly as possible. Thanks for joining us on
this segment of the video series. Please join us again for the next segment of
how to properly skin and debone a hanging carcass.