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Hi, I'm Lucas Bond with the Missouri Department of Conservation.
And today, I'm going to show you how to field dress a white-tailed deer.
Once you walk up to the harvested deer, you'll immediately tag it to show that you are taking
possession of that deer.
Next, I always like to carry some gloves with me - some shoulder gloves and some latex gloves.
I like to put these on just to avoid a mess.
So, I like to grab out my knives here. I have two different knives I like to use
when I field dress my deer.
One, this knife here. And this is more of a type of knife you would
use, actually to make a slit to start your field dress.
It also has a gut hook on it.
I don't like to use that.
I have this knife here that I really like.
It is pretty much a gut hook. it also gives you the opportunity to ratchet up the sternum
to get to the windpipe and we'll show you that here shortly here in the video.
So, let's get started
Alright, we are going to start here.
I'm going to make a little cut right here in the sternum to start the field dress.
I have this knife here, and we're going to cut...
So, I am going to switch this knives to this gut, to be careful so you do not cut the gut.
Get it right in there.
Let it slide along right down.
We are going to go all the way down to the butt.
And then, here's the sternum.
Bring this ratchet strap up like this. It's like a ratchet that will cut right up that sternum.
Just like this.
Alright.
Got it cut pretty good.
Going to switch out back to my other knife here.
And I am going to try going here and try to cut up a little more and try and get that
windpipe.
Because when I get that windpipe, the guts should start going.
So, I am going to cut some of this membrane right here, as I do it.
You see the heart and you see the liver.
You can pull it back Get it right in there and get it.
You can see this deer was well fed- a lot of fat in here.
Let me stick that back and do a little more pulling.
Alright, I got the windpipe I'm going to make that cut.
Now it should come.
It just should slide on down.
This is where it comes to some fun.
If you've got a buck or a doe, in my case a buck, you need to actually cut
off its tentacles before you cut the rest out- and finish cutting the butt out before
you get all the guts out.
So, I'm going to do that right now, and then
I'm going to finish gutting.
You cut right around the testicles.
To get those off.
And just cut it.
There we go.
Now I am going to finish getting the guts out.
You see I'm cutting the butt out.
I'm going to pull the rest of the guts out.
There's all that out.
Alright.
Once you are through field dressing the deer, one of the last steps I like to do is to turn
the deer over to get some of the excess blood out.
Then the fun begins - getting the deer out of the woods.
Once you get it out of the woods, you can take it right to the processor, or if you
plan on hanging it overnight, be sure to open up the chest cavity and put something in there
to let it air out.
Thanks for watching!
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