It would takes that long too Fieldmouse ,cause I'll bet they are cutting through bone with bandsaws and such.When you filet deer it is in my opinion ,the best way to go,and quickest too.

In the past in IA you just did what you wanted as there was no electronic check in. This year is the 1st year for electronic check in. Just stand in the woods with your cell phone, call the deer in, write a # on your tag that the phone message gives you, and start skinning and boning. This is the 1st year that you could not process a deer for consumption until electronically checked in. I only hunt on private property so this is properly disposing of the carcass. Other animals get to benefit and feed on it. A carcass has to be disposed of somewhere. What do you do with yours? The trash man isn't going to take it in most states and certainly not here. What I am getting at is why drag a hide, hooves, bones, and a head out of the woods up and down ravines and sweat your arse off just to have to load all of this back into your truck to take back to the woods?

Thoughts:

I could do EXACTLY as HCH does....LEGALLY. I have 24 hours in NC to PHONE my harvest in. I don't have to physically put a tag on it.....OR check it in, ANYWHERE. I could absolutely see doing what he's taking about. I just prefer the clean inside of my building to do my butchering.

Atlas:

Having never killed a deer before.....and having never butchered one before......I spent opening day of ML season, last year, at a friend's farm, not hunting. I wanted to see them butcher their animals....so that I'd know how to when the time came. 20-30 minutes???? Oh yeah. I watched 7 butchered that day.....and I'll assure you 30 minutes would kill it. When I shot my buck earlier this year.....he weighed 172 lbs. on the hoof. I called my friend Mark....who's easily killed over 100 deer and butchered 3x that many......to ask if he'd watch over me doing mine. This was 8:00 at night.....and he said they had dinner guests. He's a great friend. He said.....bring him over here.....I wanna see him. LESS THAN 30 minutes later.....I had 2 hams, 1 shoulder (one shoulder was COMPLETELY shot).....2 backstraps and 2 tenderloins in my cooler. Yes....it can be done.

And wasting meat????? I'm sure there are cultures that don't waste anything. Let's don't go there.

I took my 4-wheeler right down into the bedding area of my deer herd when I shot my buck. It was in a ravine.....and I physically couldn't drag it out of there by myself.....and my wife was the only person with me. I thought I might spoil the area with the ATV noise......but I've seen plenty of deer in there, since.....including the 23 I saw, Saturday. When I shot the piebald.....I had my son bring the ATV and the trailer up to the edge of the woods. I'm no mountain man.....and I'll put it in a cadillac if womebody will let me....and it'll save me dragging one 100ft.

There's literally MANY ways to skin a cat....and a deer. I watched a guy on the internet quarter a deer .....remove the backstraps....and never field dress it. Interesting. I'm not against that, either. I'd like to be able to do it. I'm sure he's had lots of practice.

Jeff

Like HCH said, we elk hunters leave carcasses behind all the time. You'd be hard pressed to walk national forest and find piles of bones a year later. We skin 'em where they fall, and debone them. We don't have to call anybody to report the kill. Simply attach your carcass tag to the hind 1/4 and leave proof of sex attached to the hind 1/4 and carry the meat out and process when ya get the chance!
Actually when I deer hunt my family farm in KS. we do drag our deer to a point where the ATV can reach them or the pick up, take them to the farm and hoist them up to skin! Throw the carcass out behind the shop and let the critters clean them up!

I drag my deer. It makes for a good workout. I once dragged a deer 3/4 of a mile. It was about 15 degrees out and by the time I got to camp I had just a t-shirt on. That isn't even the toughest drag I've done. I shot a large doe at the bottom of a high hill as my first deer. I dragged her up that hill an inch at a time. I was sore for days. Like I said a good workout.

Tom

Amen...without my Kubota, my work load with a deer is drastically increased.

When I shoot something down on the river, I have to quarter it and pack it out. I have to do too much climbing to drag a deer up the canyon walls.

We have the same tractor[8D]

I feel sorry for both of you. This is a Hunting web site and every body knows, "Nothing runs like a Deere"!!!!!!!

Or cost as much