Boning Out A Deer In The Woods (MN)?

Out west carcasses are way more visible than they would be in Minnesota.

Maybe if we are so concerned about what anti’s think, alcohol and bars should be off limits for hunters for the bad visual they give the general public.

So if you can quarter a deer, you have to take the spine out too? That’s idiotic on so many levels.

Why can we leave the gut pile?

Rate of decay?

That thought process is on the same lines as food plots being the same as baiting and if we are going along that mindset, maybe food plots should be illegal cause they alter the landscape and deer patterns for the sole purpose of drawing deer in to kill them.

Sorry but that’s ignorant on so many levels it’s hard to even grasp. If there was some scientific reason behind it, it’d make a tiny bit of sense, but if it’s for keeping the woods clean, that’s horse crap. A skeleton is biodegradable, period. Roundup should be illegal too, there’s an actual reason I could see that or bar oil that gets all over the forest from chainsaws. A carcass left to decay and get reabsorbed into the soil isn’t even on the same playing field imo.

Huntindave wrote:

Re-read your quote, You are the one that implied a hunter should be capable of dragging an entire deer out of the woods. Do you drag the quarters of a deer if you quarter the deer for removal?

Re-read my post, carefully this time. You’re missing a key “or” because you’re too busy looking for inferences that aren’t there.

And I’ll add, “or pack it, or carry it on your head, or throw it over your shoulder.” Just to make it even more clear.

You have plenty of options for getting all those 225+ pounders you’re coming into MN to kill off of public land without having to leave heads, hides, and bones behind on land that belongs to the people of this state. If you don’t like it, buy some land of your own here and then you can bone out the deer wherever you want.

Grouse

I believe those that are oddly against someone wanting to bone out and pack a deer out of the woods in MN are greatly underestimating the pace at which scavengers take a carcass down. I also couldn’t give a hoot what an anti thinks. Me hunting and providing meat for myself in a more efficient way via not packing out bones is a work smarter not harder scenario

The trouble I see is not everyone has common sense. You say you don’t give a hoot what an anti hunter thinks. My concern is turning non hunters into anti hunters.

Take the e sherburne wildlife refuge. Other than a couple weekends a year most of the users arent hunting. You allow this in public land some idiots leave their carcasses by the parking lot or wherever is easy for them. What do you think it leads to? Good luck selling people on it who don’t want to see it.

If your going to do it far out where no one sees it I’m not going to say go for it, but who’s gonna know and what are you hurting. I’m sure it happens more than a person Would think

slipbob_nick wrote:

The trouble I see is not everyone has common sense. You say you don’t give a hoot what an anti hunter thinks. My concern is turning non hunters into anti hunters.

Take the e sherburne wildlife refuge. Other than a couple weekends a year most of the users arent hunting. You allow this in public land some idiots leave their carcasses by the parking lot or wherever is easy for them. What do you think it leads to? Good luck selling people on it who don’t want to see it.

What about the gut piles? Non hunters like seeing those?

I think this is getting exaggerated. Pretty much every one would still just gut it out and drag it back to camp for pictures on the meat pole. After that it is brought to a butcher. If they don’t bring it to a butcher than you would still see the carcass dumped on the side of a dirt road.

I hunt deep in the bwca and other public land and would love to see this law change. I highly doubt you would notice a difference in the landscape. “Don’t hunt deep” mentality is what is wrong with a lot of hunters today. Get away from the road and your cabin, it is very rewarding.

It’s interesting it’s ok for Minnesotans to go out of state and leave a carcass behind afield, yet in Minnesota we can’t leave a carcass. With not being able to transport spinal cords and brains across state lines, or leave them afield, hmm, what’s a nr guy supposed to do with that carcass? Put it in the trash, but who’s trash, the hotel he’s staying at and keep filling up the landfills with more garbage or dump it in the ditch? I see a ton of carcasses dumped in the ditch around the north metro on back roads, that bugs the hillbilly beans out of me.

When I wolf hunted with a buddy it was legal to bait. He got road kill tags and got multiple road kill deer. We put one on my property. It was completely gone in less than 2 days, skull, spine, bones, hide, flesh, meat, guts, everything except a little bit of hair. Had a tcam on it and it was all eagles, crows, ravens, gray Jay’s, other birds and mice. Less than 2 days, nothing left at all but hair. If that’s that big of a problem, my word, we got bigger fish to fry with issues in the outdoor community. The amount of dead deer in the ditches should be taken care of by the person driving the vehicle that hit them under that same logic, but nobody gives a hill of beans about road killed carcasses I guess. Unless you’re in Edina lol.

There always seems to be a few guys on here who no everything. And if you disagree with them then your what’s wrong with the outdoorsman society. It’s pretty crazy how much a select few of these guys know and police

I don’t claim to no everything, but until the law changes leaving a carcass on public land is a know know.

Don’t complain on a website, contact people who can do something if you want the law changed.

Gut piles are usually where the deer dies not by a road or parking lot. I agree 100% with how practical quartering it is I just see a few ruining it for most. Hunting on private land I’m scratching my head as to why we gut the deer when we butcher it ourselves for myself.

Side note: forum would be rather dull if we all had the same opinions.

Bearcat89 wrote:

There always seems to be a few guys on here who no everything. And if you disagree with them then your what’s wrong with the outdoorsman society. It’s pretty crazy how much a select few of these guys know and police

I’ll give that statement a “100% disagree”. and I do agree with Slipbobs statement

Quartering and de-boning are different things, am I correct?

Id say their different things. Temperature has to be a bigger factor than a person would think. Up here it’s the norm to let it hang. In a warmer climate there is no hanging the deer overnight.

A proclaimed nanny state I hear a lot of why can I not do this by those that protest why do they get to do that.

ClownColor wrote:

Quartering and de-boning are different things, am I correct?

Yarp

Deboning is all meat.

Quartering is breaking down the four quarters with bones intact, and then deboning the “backstraps”, neck, and inner (tender) loins.

When you quarter a deer, the spine and ribs are left behind.

When you debone a deer, the leg bones are also left behind.

To legally quarter a deer in Minnesota on public land, you would still have to carry the entire animal out, minus the guts. If it’s not registered, you would also have to leave a front quarter attached to the head.

Some guys out west quarter an animal and leave the hide on pieces to save time and some-what protect the meat.

1hl&sinker wrote:

A proclaimed nanny state I hear a lot of why can I not do this by those that protest why do they get to do that.

In reality probably less than 5% of Minnesota “hunters” would be capable of field processing a deer.

If it takes you 15 minutes to field dress a deer or two hours to debone one hanging, gutless deboning in the field probably isn’t for you (even quartering for that matter).

I get it, you want this and someone wants that. You’re upset because you’re not getting what you want. I would love to fillet a fish on water and discard the remains on water but I have to take into account of the runoff by local lands so not to affect the balance of the echo system.

1hl&sinker wrote:

I get it, you want this and someone wants that. You’re upset because you’re not getting what you want.

?????

your thinking to much into it. Both arguments are compelling I can not say what is best for you or me. The thing is its not always about me and a lot of times I forget that.

1hl&sinker wrote:

your thinking to much into it. Both arguments are compelling I can not say what is best for you or me. The thing is its not always about me and a lot of times I forget that.

You’ve out-thought yourself on that one

I thought boning a deer in the woods was more of a Wisconsin thing…

Boils down to tradition in an area or state.

Some states think baiting bears is terrible and unethical, others it’s status quo and not even thought of as being unethical.

Some states still allow baiting for deer, some don’t and horror the idea.

Some states allow shooting upland birds a half hour before sunrise till a half hour after sunset.

Some states allow party hunting, most don’t allow it in any way, shape or form for big game.

Some states encourage fish entrails to be put back in waters, others don’t.

Personally just don’t understand why quartering a deer out and leaving biodegradable items in the field is scientifically or factually bad for anything back off main trails, paths or roads. In park hunts or on refuges that receive a lot of non hunting public use, could maybe see it then or in other areas it could be problematic for so reason or another. But not in other areas where there’s little chance it’d be an eye sore or detrimental to habitat or critters. If there’s factual, scientific based reasons for it great, if not, it seems more feelings based or a non traditional idea more than anything.

Have hunted out west and quartered up critters and been checked by CO’s and have had no issues with it at all. So maybe after quartering and being comfortable doing it, maybe have become biased to having it as at least an option if you’re back in a long ways and dragging a deer is just way to much work vs carving a critter up and packing it out. Don’t plan on doing it personally, but not against it for guys who could really utilize it.

We’ve come a long, long ways on easing up on being able to register a deer via a cell phone, so hopefully it can be looked at and if it’s an option that’s not to problematic or detrimental, it could be an option for guys that could really benefit from it going forward.

Oh boy…

basseyes wrote:

Boils down to tradition in an area or state.

Some states think baiting bears is terrible and unethical, others it’s status quo and not even thought of as being unethical.

Some states still allow baiting for deer, some don’t and horror the idea.

Some states allow shooting upland birds a half hour before sunrise till a half hour after sunset.

Some states allow party hunting, most don’t allow it in any way, shape or form for big game.

Some states encourage fish entrails to be put back in waters, others don’t.

Personally just don’t understand why quartering a deer out and leaving biodegradable items in the field is scientifically or factually bad for anything back off main trails, paths or roads. In park hunts or on refuges that receive a lot of non hunting public use, could maybe see it then or in other areas it could be problematic for so reason or another. But not in other areas where there’s little chance it’d be an eye sore or detrimental to habitat or critters. If there’s factual, scientific based reasons for it great, if not, it seems more feelings based or a non traditional idea more than anything.

Have hunted out west and quartered up critters and been checked by CO’s and have had no issues with it at all. So maybe after quartering and being comfortable doing it, maybe have become biased to having it as at least an option if you’re back in a long ways and dragging a deer is just way to much work vs carving a critter up and packing it out. Don’t plan on doing it personally, but not against it for guys who could really utilize it.

We’ve come a long, long ways on easing up on being able to register a deer via a cell phone, so hopefully it can be looked at and if it’s an option that’s not to problematic or detrimental, it could be an option for guys that could really benefit from it going forward.

But isn’t quartering a deer (or moose) in MN LEGAL?

I had never had a tender loin from a deer that wasn’t bloody from the gutting process. The first time I did the gutless method I got a beautiful tender loin with no blood on it. Make small cut at base of short rib and remove loin.

I was happy to leave the deer tick infested hide behind. Not related to topic but I see a benefit for leaving the unediable portions of the deer in the woods.

I also believe Hides for Habitat is the reason that deer ticks are in every part of the state now. We brought them to every neighborhood and dumped the in a box. All to raise a few dollars for deer projects.

I do not agree with the DNR stand on not allowing boning out and leaving skin bone in the field. What do they think happens when an animal dies from disease or a natural predator? It gets scavenged then decompose’s back into the earth. Hauling it away to landfill it does not benefit anyone. Same with fish entrails when fish die they get scavenged or decompose putting nutrients back into the lake or stream. That is how nature works. I scratch my head at the state of where nothing is allowed.

Mwal

ClownColor wrote:

But isn’t quartering a deer (or moose) in MN LEGAL?

But you have to take everything but the gut pile.

wildbeaver wrote:

I thought boning a deer in the woods was more of a Wisconsin thing…

That literally made me LOL