I don't have a walk in cooler, but I do have is experience and a basement fridge. This past opening day I got one at 3:30 pm and it was 88 degrees out when I recovered him 10 minutes after I shot him. He died quickly for me.

Anyway, I drug him out of the woods intact...(the flies and mosquitos in the woods are horrible) and gut him on the levee. Then I walk out with him. When I get home I immediately hang him up on my deer pole at the end of my driveway. I skin him (about 10-15 minutes) and start cutting him up. I debone the deer right there...

I start with the backstraps and inner loins (however if gut shot I feed the inner loins to my dogs--had a couple of loins that tasted foul after recovering a gut shot deer--won't do that again[:'(]) Once I remove the straps and loins I put it a zip lock baggie and put it in my basement fridge. Then I work on the rear hams. I cut the hams out in two pieces...the front ham and the back ham. These go into zip lock baggies as well and then into my basement fridge. Next I start working on the front quarters. Take them off, cut off the meat as this is either going to be my grind for burger or stew meat. So its not pretty when I cut this meat off the bones. After these quarters are clean and void of any meat that I feel is salvable for grind, or stew meat then the bones are thrown over the fence to my waiting dogs.

Next I work on the neck of the deer. Since I don't like the neck as a roast I cut off all the meat and throw that into a zip lock bag. Cut the meat off and from in between the ribs, and then work on any section of deer that has any meat left. All of this is considered as grind or burger meat and into zip lock baggies. Finally, when I feel that I've gotten off as much meat as possible I dump the carcass into an industrial black bag and put in my trash can for pick up the next day.

When all is said and done...from the time I get the deer hung up to the time I take it down...about 1 to 1 1/2 hours and that's taking my time.

Next the deer sits in my basement fridge for 7-10 days and I start processing and really cleaning the meat up. From the time I start till the time I finish cleaning up the kitchen (my wife is a saint) it is around 2 hours of cutting, and sealing that the deer is done.

My wife and I had a roast from my buck, and last night we had some steaks from the doe I shot. Both deer sat in my fridge for a minumim of 7 days and both times I could not believe the tenderness of the meat.

It doesn't take me 12 hours anymore to process a deer by myself. Now I'm done in around 3 hours per deer as I've become much more experienced in the process of processing deer.

Paul