Originally Posted by
Kathwacckkk
To me it is part of the hunt. However, I have learned to actually enjoy it. When gutting the deer, I try and figure out exactly what the arrow or bullet did. Damage, entrance, exit, lungs, heart, broken ribs / bones, size of the entrance & exit holes, etc... Also in certain areas, what was the particluar animal feeding on? With this knowledge I can fine tune my equipment, location, technique and aim.
Originally Posted by
fastetti
I think I watched my dad gut one when I was 10 and since then I've had to gut them all. That was 25 years ago. Never had a second thought about it, part of hunting. This coming from a guy raised in the suburbs of Chicago.
Something that may help is to think of it as science, not thinking of it as the same organs and such that you have. I always like to think of it as investigating how a animal works and gaining valuable information on where the deer have been and what they have been feeding on. Open the stomach to every deer you shoot and you'll learn if they have been in the beans, the corns, acorns, green browse and it will help you understand where the deer are feeding and you can get an idea on where to hunt with that info.
I'm just like the two fellows above. I first started gutting out deer by myself in high school, and at the same time I was taking human Biology class. To me it was really neat to see the organs and how they were aligned. I also liked to see what exactly killed the deer (heart shot, lungs, liver, etc.) And Sometime at the very end, I will cut open the stomach to see what the main food is that the deer was eating.
I keep a pair of elbow length heavy duty rubber gloves in my hunting pack, and as long as my knife is sharp, I can gut out a deer in under 10 minutes. IF I have someone holding the legs for me, then I can usually get it done in 5 minutes; including taking the tenderloins out. By using these gloves, I stay blood free, except for the gloves, which I wipe off in the grass/snow, and then clean back at camp.
The only real discomfort I get when gutting a deer; is cutting the sex organs off. Just seems a little weird, but I get thru it, and I'm fine. I have a tradition of hanging a bucks sex organs in the notch of a tree. I do this as a sign of respect to the buck; in that I'm not going to let some low life ground scavenger eat up his man bits. Weird I know, but its just my tradition.