How to Dress and Skin Game

The trend in big-game hunting today is to hunt for sport and trophies rather than for meat. This is opposite to the practice of fifty years ago when hunters shot for the skillet, chose the youngest and females of the species, and heaved the antlers of the males into the brush on the premise that "horns don't make good soup."

However, many men believe there is no better steak on earth than one from a wild ram, and the meat of elk, deer, moose, caribou, and antelope is similarly good if properly cared for. The taste of meat depends, of course, on the age of the animal, its physical condition, and general tensile strength. But in a basic way, the quality of wild meat depends on what the hunter does in the first half hour after it is downed.

MAKE SURE OF THE KILL

First, it should be ascertained that fallen game is dead before beginning to carve it. A definite sight picture as the bullet was shot, how the beast reacted, and the position it assumed upon falling all help determine this. Neck-shot game falls instantly, and hardly moves or quivers after hitting the earth. So does a brain-shot animal. A heart-shot animal often springs high into the air, or violently forward, usually jerking its forelegs upward under its chest. Occasionally one runs rapidly, giving little indication of a heart hit, so long as it can hold its breath, then topples or staggers over. A gut-shot animal humps up, and sometimes bites at the wound. Bear espe­cially do this, and I've seen bull caribou do it.

The position in which game falls helps to indicate whether or not it is dead. An animal that falls in a sprawled position, or rolls downhill and then lies sprawled, is usually dead upon the hunter's arrival. If its ears also lie in flopped position, with mouth open and legs at loose angles, it is further indication.

A beast that falls suddenly, or goes gradually down after a fast run, and lands in a bunched-up position with head erect and eyes alert is not dead. Neither is a beast whose head is upright and flat against the earth with the ears laid back. In the case of a carnivore, it is likely just waiting to graze upon the hunter once he gets in range. The rifle, in any case, should be kept ready.

One of the best ways to determine whether an animal is dead is to approach it from above and pelt it in the ribs with rocks or chunks of timber. If dead, the animal will simply wobble with the rock's impact. If alive, it will generally spring up, or give other indication.

Wounded game is best dispatched with a brain or neck shot unless the cape-and-antlers are to be used as a trophy. Then a heart shot is best. A trophy animal's throat is never cut.

Any pictures for later bragging purposes should be taken immediately before the beast's eyes glaze over, or before it stiffens up and begins to look like an old salt mackerel.

DRESSING THE ANIMAL

Several things will cause game meat to become tainted. One is body heat. Another is blood coagulating between muscular tissues. In certain species, contact with the musk glands or with the sebaceous glands will cause meat to taint. So will any contact between flesh and intestinal fluid, or body excreta.

The thing to do immediately is to remove these causes. This is accom­plished by a quick, clean job of dressing the animal and getting it rapidly cooled out.

Before starting to dress the animal, it should be decided if the headgear is to be saved as a trophy. If so, any cuts made while dressing the animal must be made so that the trophy will remain uninjured.

Once the question of a possible trophy is settled, the actual dressing is begun. This is basically the same regardless of game species, with minor differences to be considered later. Let's follow the step-by-step procedure with the most common species, deer.

First, the animal should be placed on its back, head uphill if possible. The least moving of the carcass possible the better, since any moving tends to spread loose blood into the tissues, scatter fluid from shot-punctured organs, and similar "messing up."

The carcass may be anchored onto its back, either by tying the legs out­ward to handy trees or brush, or propped up by pushing available lengths of wood, or rocks under the lower side, along the ribs.

MUSK GLANDS

With any species of deer, the next step is to remove the musk glands lying on both sides of the metatarsal bones below the hocks. These glands appear as puffed areas of uncombed hair, and are filled with a musky green fluid which is nauseating to the smell, and will taint meat if allowed to touch it. In removing these, use only a finger and thumb to pinch and pull out the glands, while running a sharp knife under, taking all hide to the bone. Throw the removed glands away from the carcass and wipe or wash the hands afterward, before touching any meat. These glands, incidentally, occur in both does and bucks.

GENITALS

The testicles of bucks are removed next. A length of string, cord, or strip torn from a clean handkerchief is tied solidly around the penis. This prevents urine from a suddenly relaxed beast from flowing. A similar length of string is then tied all around the anus, after this organ is cut all around with a knife, and to as great a depth as possible (without cutting the colon) from the outside. This prevents excretion from the intestines from touching the meat when later moving the carcass. With does, the genitals and anus are tied off similarly.

INTERNAL ORGANS

The abdominal incision is best begun by lifting the belly meat as high as possible with one hand, and a small downward cut started with the other, just ahead of the pelvis bone. This, together with the animal being already on its back, helps to lift the flesh away from the intestines so that they are not cut—a thing to be carefully avoided.

With the incision started, two fingers of one hand are run, in forked position, under the abdominal flesh and over the intestines, pointed forward, and the incision through the belly meat continued by cutting between the two fingers with the knife point. Doing this separates the intestines and the belly meat, and prevents cutting into the intestines.

With trophy animals the abdominal incision should never be cut farther forward than the point of the sternum at the rear edge of the rib cage. With meat animals, especially the larger ones, it is often best (to promote a rapid cooling of the carcass) to cut all the way up through the ribs to the throat, opening the carcass its entire length from the anal vent.

With the beast's head uphill, the intestines have a tendency now to sag backward in the abdominal cavity, and the diaphragm may be reached. This is severed all around, largely by holding the stomach away with one hand, and cutting with the other. The diaphragm should be cut as near to the ribs as possible, each side in turn, until the back is reached.

At this point, in deer-sized game, it is now possible to reach one arm, full to the elbow usually, up inside the thorax past the lungs and grasp the animal's gullet and windpipe. These are pulled vigorously backward, gain­ing as much of their length as possible; then with the other hand, similarly reached forward inside the body cavity, the windpipe and gullet are cut off as far forward as possible.

The best knife for this purpose is one having a thin blade, very sharp, and about 4 inches in length. Indeed, that is the best type of blade for dress­ing any game animal. Possibly the best type of knife available is the folding sheath knife. This is just like a huge two-bladed pocketknife, 5 inches long overall, and with two 4-inch blades, one thin, one heavy. As an indication of what such a knife will do, I have one which has now dressed and skinned six grizzlies, one moose, a half-dozen elk, dozens of deer and antelope, two rams, a black bear, and a 5-foot sturgeon.

With the windpipe and gullet severed, it is possible (with the one hand still holding them) to strip out the entire innards all the way back to the colon by a vigorous pull backward toward the rear of the carcass. Oc­casionally this will have to be helped with a judicious cutting of the tissues holding these organs against the back.

HOW TO DRESS AND SKIN A DEER

First step in dressing a deer is to cut off the musk glands, which look like tufts of hair on   both  sides  of   hind   legs.

Begin the abdominal incision at the pelvis bone. Fingers of one hand reach inside belly flesh while knife hand cuts forward with the sharp side of the blade up.

After the animal is dressed, it is laid belly-side down for a few minutes to drain blood from the cavity.

To remove only the cape-and-antlers, cut along white lines. Shoulder cuts continue be­neath the animal and come together behind the brisket.

Skin hind legs at the hocks, sever the joints, and leave the legs and hoofs  intact.
Hang the deer from the hocks and complete the job by rolling the hair side of the hide under and skinning downward.

After deer have been skinned, enclose the carcasses in cotton meat bags to protect them from flies and predators.

The colon is then cut all around, at the forward edge of the pelvis, and as deeply back as possible. If a small ax is available, the pelvis may be split all the way through, carefully stopping before chopping downward into the colon. If not, the colon may be pulled forward and free anyway, if it has been cut around from both sides of the pelvic bone, fore and aft. Often this cutting is helped by pulling free with the fingers the threadlike tissues holding this organ normally in place. In any event, sufficient cutting around the colon should be done so that it may be pulled out intact, with no danger of pulling it apart and spilling the contents.

The heart and liver, if not shot up, are then removed from the offal, and the remains dragged off some distance. This is important as these remains later help to attract predatory birds away from the hung carcass.

CAPE-AND-ANTLERS

Next, with bucks, the cape-and-antlers are removed. To do this, the skin is never cut by splitting the hide along the underside of the neck, or by cutting the beast's head off. This effectively ruins the cape, and is the bane of every taxidermist.

Instead, the carcass is carefully rolled over onto its side, and a single cut made from a point just on top of the shoulders, or withers, up the center line of the back of the neck, to 2 inches back of the antlers. Next, beginning again at the withers, a cut through the skin is made down towards the ani­mal's chest, and as far back as the center line of the shoulders, on each side. These opposing cuts are brought together well back under the chest, to a point well behind the brisket.

These are the only cuts necessary to save the cape; and by allowing that much hide (all of it forward of the three-way cut), the taxidermist can make a full shoulder mount, without any seams showing in the finished trophy. The seam sewing up the skin at the back of the neck doesn't show in a finished mount when viewed from the lower side in normal wall position.

With these cuts made, the neck skin is carefully skinned away until the junction of the head and neck is reached. There, at the last joint behind the skull, the head is cut and twisted free, leaving the head integral with the cape.

If the animal is not to be saved for a trophy, the abdominal incision may be continued forward all the way to the throat. Too, the rib cage may be further split all the way, along the sternum. This greatly eases the chore of removing the lungs, gullet, and windpipe. If an ax isn't available, the entire rib cage may be split with the heavy blade of the knife. This is done by standing spraddle-legged over the carcass, facing the neck, using both hands on the husky knife, and lifting quickly upward after the blade has been inserted beneath each rib end in turn.

This cutting of the rib ends is not done precisely in the center of the sternum, but just to one side. At this point alongside the breastbone there is an immovable joint which permits such cutting. A similar splitting of the pelvic bone is also possible with a heavy sheath knife; the blade is simply pounded through, a half-inch longitudinally at a time, by hammering the back of the blade with a chunk of wood or rock. I've even watched men split the pelvis of a deer with a folding sheath knife, but not with my knife.

With the insides removed, the body cavity is wiped as free of blood as possible with the hands, available grass, pine boughs, or cheesecloth brought along for the purpose.

Dressing out a game animal immediately gets rid of a big percentage of the body heat, and greatly facilitates removal of the remainder by exposing greater areas of body surfaces.

HANGING THE CARCASS

The next important step is to get the carcass immediately off the ground. With deer-size game this usually means hanging the carcass from a tree. Often in the case of trophy bucks, especially in cool weather, the cape-and-antlers are not removed from the carcass until the animal has cooled out—for convenience in getting it to camp. Care must be used in such cases to speed up the cooling-out process, since the heavy hair of trophy bucks, plus only a small abdominal opening, tend to insulate the body heat inside.

Partly for this reason, bucks are best hung by the antlers. This keeps the unopened part higher off the ground, will allow the body cavity to drain better, and will shed rain or snow.

Deer meat meant for immediate skinning should be hung by a gambrel run through the thin skin at the hock joints.

Slit the hide in the hind legs along its forward edge from hoofs past hocks (and similarly along the knees in the front legs); skin out the hide around each of the hock and knee joints; break and sever the legs at these points, leaving the leg bones right in the hide; then complete the skinning. The finished job will have the carcass free of hide and legs, no hair having touched it, and the legs left integral with the hide.

Hanging a deer, if one hunts with a partner, is simple—one heaves it up, the other pulls down on the rope and ties it.

IMPROVISED HOISTS

For large bucks, or where one hunts alone, several devices will enable the hunter to get his deer off the ground. One method, in hill country, is to skid the dressed carcass downhill, head first, to an available tree. Then, with the heels uphill, the head is tied as high up the tree as possible. With that done, the heels are moved around the tree to its downhill side. Where the steepness of the hill is not acute enough to permit complete hanging, the hams are propped away from the tree trunk and off the earth.

A better way is to carry a tiny block-and-tackle in the rucksack or on the packboard. This may be homemade from two 2-wheel awning pulleys, and 30 feet of nylon rope, threaded appropriately. With it, one has a ratio of 3 to 1, and can hoist most any deer off the ground. One pulley, of course, is tied up the tree, the other to the game.

Another method is especially useful in jackpine country, and requires only a length of rope and a pole, say, 12 feet long. Three feet from the butt end of this pole, a length of rope, or better, doubled rope, is tied. Another length of the rope is tied to the pole's butt, and the longest length of rope tied at the pole's small end. The rope tied 3 feet from the butt is tied as high up a tree—to a limb or around the bole—as possible; the butt rope is tied to the deer's antlers, pulling the butt end as far down as possible, and allowing the small end of the pole to rise upward. W;th that done, the rope tied to the smaller end of the pole is pulled all the way down and tied to the trunk.

This is the principle of the steelyards weighing scales, and gives, with the above length of pole, a ratio of around 4 to 1.

A big buck may also be lifted clear of the earth with some rope and three 7-foot poles cut from available timber. These poles are sharpened on the butt ends, and tied together with several half hitches at their tops. This

Utilizing the lever princi­ple, a hunter can hoist his deer with only a 12-foot pole and a length of rope tied to a tree limb. The rope is secured to the tree trunk when the deer is off the ground.

A lone hunter can hoist a deer on a pole tripod. Antlers are lashed to top of spread poles (above), then each pole is raised a little at a time until deer is off the ground (below).

done, the tops are laid over the deer's head, with the poles pointing out­ward like the evenly spaced spokes of a wheel. The deer's head or antlers is tied short to the pole tops. Next, the deer is lifted as high as possible, so that the pointed butt ends of the poles will dig into the ground. Lastly, each pole in succession is raised a foot or so, and its butt end again dug sharply into the earth. By alternating on the poles, and keeping the whole arrange­ment even, the deer is finally hoisted up under a nearly upright tripod.

The "Spanish windlass" is another device for lifting a heavy animal. First a gambrel (length of sapling or pole) is shoved through cuts made between tendon and bone at the hock joints of the deer so it protrudes on either side. A 2-foot length is about right. Next take a length of rope just long enough so that, when both ends are tied above to a heavy tree limb, the loop formed in the bottom will just reach the gambrel when it is lifted as high as possible. Lastly, an 18-inch green stick approximately 2 inches in diameter is run into the lower loop of the rope, just under the gambrel. This forms a lever, with the gambrel as the fulcrum. By twisting the stick around and around the gambrel, as it itself revolves, the "winch" allows one to crank up the beast to sufficient height. The lever must be lashed to the

Two short strong poles and a length of rope can be converted into a Spanish windlass to hock-hang a deer.

rope or the limb once the deer is hoisted. This device, too, has a mechanical advantage of several to one.

The last way of getting a carcass off the earth, and useful only if nothing better is available, is to drape it over an available blow-down, log, brush heap, or rock pile, open it up, and insert a stick to hold the abdominal cavity open.

Hanging the carcass overnight, or for several nights, completes the cool­ing out process. The meat is then placed in clean cotton bags taken along for the purpose, and hauled home to cold storage. In hot weather, when cooled-out game can't immediately be transported home, it should be un­wrapped and hung in the open air at night; and wrapped in canvas and placed off the ground in the shade during the day.

With larger species, the carcass must always be opened up completely from pelvis to throat (necessitating chopping it with an ax at the pelvic bone and the sternum), after the cape has been removed. This speeds up cooling. With elk, the gullet must be removed soon after the beast is killed, as it sours first. Moose and caribou are handled similarly.

Such large species are usually quartered and hung in trees to cool out. Wherever possible, it is always best to skin out the meat, place the clean meat in suitable bags, and transport. Where there are no such bigs and horse packing is necessary, the skin of these animals is usually left on the meat quarters, as it affords protection from dirt, etc.

SKINNING

The skinning of any animal, whether for meat or for pelage, is done in one of two ways: Either the animal is skinned "open" or it is "cased."

To open-skin an animal, two basic cuts are made. One reaches from the anal vent to the point of the chin. The other cut is in two parts. One cut goes across the animal's chest from one forefoot to the opposing foot, on the under, thin side of the pelage, and in a straight line. The other part of this cut goes similarly across from one hind foot, claw, or hoof, to the root of the tail, and on across to the opposite hind foot. This cut is made just inside the thin hair of the pelage—that is, on such animals as bear, just forward of where the thick hair of the pelt along the hind legs meets the thinner "belly" hair.

For game animals, all these leg cuts end below the knee and hock joints  (unless the feet and legs are to be saved for any special reason such as making a gun rack), where each leg is girdled all around and the skin peeled away.

With furred game such as bears, the leg cuts go all the way to the feet. Each foot is then carefully skinned (after girdling the soft pad), all the way to the final toe joint. The claws are left integral with the hide for subse­quent mounting into rugs. Mountain goats, similarly, are skinned on each leg down to the hoof, which is severed at the last, or fetlock, joint, and the hoofs left attached to the hide.

Smaller furred animals, such as foxes and coyotes are skinned "cased." This means that the skinned hide resembles an envelope or case, and is achieved without any cuts being made up the belly line or down the front legs.

To do this, the feet are first girdled all the way around at "ankle" height, unless the feet are to be saved for any reason. Next, a single cut is made from the girdling on one hind foot, to the root of the tail, and across the opposite hind leg, to the foot. All skinning from there is done by peeling and skinning the hide down over the animal's head, with the hide rolling hair side in.

The tail bone is not cut off at its root. Neither is the hide cut across the tail at its back, or top. Instead, the tail hide, or brush, must be left attached to the hide, and the tail bone must be removed. This is accomplished by skinning around the root of the tail, up the animal's back, and up the tail bone itself, until a space large enough to insert the toe is made. Next, a pair of pliers with the jaws semi-opened is placed around the tail root, and a firm grip made on each end of the pliers. With the toe holding down the carcass and hide at the back of the tail, and a good solid pull made against the folded hide of the tail with the pliers, the entire tail bone will "strip" out in one slick movement.

Where pliers aren't available, a length of willow or sapling, split through the center and the flat halves placed over the tail bone like the bread of a sandwich, then pulled against the hair and hide of the tail, will do the job.
With that done, the hide is simply skinned away over the entire animal. The front legs are skinned without any further cutting—the legs being pulled from the doubled hide. Especial care must be used at the ears, eyes, and nostrils. The ears are cut off deeply flush with the cranium. The eye skin comes off after carefully cutting the conjunctiva (thin skin holding the lids), and the entire snout cut off where the septum between the nostrils joins the skull, and left integral with the hide.

With antelope, the hair must never be allowed to touch the flesh or it will taint it. This can be accomplished by skinning the antelope while it is hung by the neck, and rolling the hair side of the pelt under in a roll as on¿ skins. Or, if in the usually flat terrain where nothing is available for hanging the carcass, the animal can be propped flat on its back, over a piece of canvas or clean cloth brought along for the purpose. Then it is skinned completely on one side, all the way to the spine, tipped a bit and the other side skinned out, and then the entire carcass carefully lifted off the skin, and placed in a clean cotton "deer sack" made for the purpose. Here, too, care must be used to make sure no hair touches the meat.

BONING OUT THE MEAT

With the largest species and in remote areas where any kind of transpor­tation is skimpy, it is possible to bone out the meat and leave all the bony skeleton. This is occasionally useful, too, for an animal which has been badly shot up.

First, the beast is skinned out. Next the ham is disconnected, cut olf at the hock, and boned. The shoulder is similarly cut off on either side. Then, with sort of a filleting procedure the entire strip of the back meat is cut away from the spine, neck to tail, on each side of the animal. It is then peeled down the ribs as far as the ends of the loin and chop cuts reach; then it is cut away and carried in as a strip of boned meat the full length of the animal on each side.

The best way of doing this is to skin out one side, leave the carcass lying on its other side, and pare away all meat; then roll the carcass over and remove the meat from the opposite side in the same manner. For badly gut-shot beasts, this may be done without even disemboweling the animal. Before resorting to this method, the hunter should exhaust every other, and even then make certain that it is legal in his state or area.

CARE OF SKINS AND HEADS

Special care must be used after removal of either pelts or skins to prevent subsequent "slipping" of the hairs during taxidermy.

First, all meat should be pared away from the hide or pelt, all over. Fat should be pared away from bearskins. With trophy capes, the head should be completely skinned out at camp, all flesh removed from all portions, the ear cartilages taken out, and the cape aired and heavily salted. The only delicate part is the removal of the ear cartilages. This is accomplished by folding the ear forward as one works, and separating the rear skin of the ear all the way to the ear's edges and tip. The remaining white gristly car­tilage, which gives the ear its shape, may be left right with the skin, and the front portion of skin, on the ear's forward side, need not be skinned out. No skin cuts are made.

Taxidermists use a pointed stick, anchored solidly, to help in doing this work. The ear is shoved downward over the stick as they work, exposing the junction of skin and cartilage better. Most hunters simply use their fingers. And the best possible way of doing the whole job is to let the guide do it. However, this is not always possible, and the tedious little chore must be done or the hair will slip off the ears in the finished mount.
The basic way of keeping any hide or pelt in good shape for those neces-

Various cuts in a meat animal: (1) hock bone, throw away; (2) shank, for stew; (3) round, for steaks; (4) rump, for roasts; (5) loin, for chops and steaks; (6) flank, for stew or steaks; (7) ribs, for stew or roast; (8) shoulder, for roasts or steaks; (9) knuckle, for roast; (10) shank, for stew or ground meat; (11) knee, for dog food; (12) neck, for ground meat.

sary few days before it can reach the taxidermist is to salt it to~> much. Use pailfuls, working the salt (common table salt is best) all over the flesh side of the pelt, clear to the edges, and thoroughly into every pocket, nostril, fold, and orifice.

With the pelt so salted with a thick layer, it may be rolled into a compact bundle, with the legs folded inward onto the meat side, so the accumulating brine won't run out. The bundle should never be laid on the ground, or exposed to bright sunlight, but kept in cool shade on a box or canvas.

After it has been kept this way for a couple of days, it is wise to unroll the hide, check for folds and unsalted spots, then re-salt the entire pelt (the same salt which rolls off may be used again), and roll it up once more. In the normally cool weather of hunting season, this will insure its getting back to the home taxidermist in good shape.

This all sounds like work, which it is. But the care of meat, trophies, and pelts is the small price the big-game hunter pays for the thrills of the chase. After all, it can't be all fun.

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