Early season Field care

Seeing all the post on early season deer hunting got me to thinking about how you all handle the care of deer harvested early in the season. Being that I only deer hunt with a rifle and muzzleloader I’ve never had to worry about the care of a killed animal in warm weather. With the daytime temp’s still pushing upper 70’s and the nighttime temps not dropping much below the low to mid 40’s these days I’m guessing that these deer are not just hung in a tree to let cool/season. How long do you have with the current temps to get the animal skinned and into a cooler? For those of you who process you own, Is it possible to cut them up without cooling the meat first. With all the great early season post and warm weather I was just curious. Best of luck to everyone out there and as always BE SAFE !!!!

im pretty lucky we have access (any hour of the night) to a local locker plant as we are regular customers

First, make the shot. Don’t take iffy shots in 70 degree weather. Double lung, broadside!

After gutting, I get the deer registered asap. Sort of a pain sometimes, considering I sometimes hunt 100 yards from the house, but you gotta do it..

Back home, I hang it and immediately go to work. the skin peels off very easily when warm. Quarter, cut into steaks/roasts/scraps. Takes under an hour for me to butcher/package meat at home (doe anyway). I often put the scraps in the freezer to grind at a later date or take to the sausage maker.

Field to freezer in under an hour would be possible if WI had phone in registration.

Mike

We process our own deer, so they don’t hang very long. And when we have warm temps, I will purchase several bags of ice and pack the deer in it to cool the meat down.

I quarter it as soon as I get back from registering and put in the fridge for 12-24 hours and then cut it up and freeze.

thats pretty much what we do.
i have an old beer fridge in the garage. and it dont take long to hang the deer, skin, quarter, strip out the loins and put in fridge to cool until next day.
only problem is sometimes i have to make room in fridge.
in illinois, we have until 10 pm the day of the kill to register the harvest by phone or online, so thats usually the last step.

We skin them right away and then plug in the old Tomestone pizza trailer and then cut them up as soon as we get time.

The most important thing to remember is to fully and carefully field dress your deer. That means to get all of the entrails removed without contaminating the surrounding meat and then to fully wash the chest cavity to prevent anything that is unwanted from staying there to ferment the bacteria caused during the field dressing job. Also you want to prevent the blow flies from getting to your meat by covering it with black peeper or to use the commercially available cheese cloth wrappings. Ken

Welcome to iDoHunting I BOW 2!

Never heard the pepper trick. Thanks

Stacie and I had to put some of these tips to use this past weekend as we shot it in the am and was out of town and hunted the PM. Once we had her doe all gutted out I had brought 6 gallons of water and we completely rinsed her out. As I held her vertical off the edge of the tailgate Stacie washed her down. Once the meat had cooled a little. We had a heavy duty tarp that we wrapped the deer all the way around. We had bought 3 – 10lb blocks of ice at the gas station that was shoved inside her cavity and then 2 – 20lb bags of ice that we laid on top of here. Then we snugged up the tarp and folded it over to completely enclose the carcass. When we got home, we bought 3 more blocks and cut her up the next morning. The tarp held the cold awesome as we still had cubed ice in the am from the morning before.

I do the same is Gut the only other thing is I have a key to the local butcher shop.
That is my dads butcher shop

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The most important thing to remember is to fully and carefully field dress your deer. That means to get all of the entrails removed without contaminating the surrounding meat and then to fully wash the chest cavity to prevent anything that is unwanted from staying there to ferment the bacteria caused during the field dressing job. Also you want to prevent the blow flies from getting to your meat by covering it with black peeper or to use the commercially available cheese cloth wrappings. Ken

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Welcome to the site Ken

Another that knows about the black pepper

Jeff

Welcome to In-Depth Outdoors I BOW 2!!!

I never heard of the black pepper. How must or how thick do you need to put the black pepper on?