Oh, that's not the way I was taught. I do it very surgically. I trim around the anus, then go to the throat and sever the wind pipe and esophagus. After that I feel for the bottom of the rib cage and make an incision just below the diaphram. Ever so carefully cutting thru each layer at a time. Maybe about a foot or foot and a half long. Just big enough to get my hands in and get the internals out. Then I reach down and pull the anus and colon into the deer and remove the guts and set them aside. I then cut the diaphram, reach up and pull the esophagus down into the cavity and remove the heart and lungs. Every thing comes out as one connected piece for the most part. Then I push the wound back closed and drag the deer out.

If I shoot one during the day, it is most likely being processed by evening. If I shoot one in the evening I will hang it over night and get it done in the morning or next afternoon. Truethfully I don't know what happens to it after I drop it off though. I don't do my own processing.

I was told that how you field dress a deer is very dependant on how the meat will taste. The less it is contaminated by dirt leaves, or the deers body hair, the less gamey it will be. Also the area where you hunt and what the deer eats effects it. Our deer in ohio and lower MI taste a lot like beef because they eat alot of corn and other things beef eat. Go up north and the deer taste different because the have a different diet (Pine needles from what I am told) .

Maybe everything I have been told is a bunch of crap, but I know the deer me and the people I hunt with kill taste very good compared to other venison I have tasted. Not exactly like beef, but pretty close.

I think I remember in hunter safety when I was a kid that they showed field dressing a deer by spliting the pelvis. I didn't really pay attention since I had no intention of hunting deer, or anything else for that matter really. I did pass the test however My step dad wanted to take me squirell hunting and I had to take it to get my small game liscence.

I don't really know how others field dress deer, I've never asked them. I only know how the few people I hunt with do it.

Thanks for answering my question though, and not getting offended or anything.

Paul