Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

:eek: Looking for any help in skinning deer before the butcher shop, that you have found to be helpful?

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

hang the deer upside down, trim around the tail and hind legs, grab a handful and pull....

you will need to do some trim work around the front legs and the neck/head.

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

With a 4-wheeler or pickup truck.
Peel the hide away from the rearend, enough to put a baseball sized rock in the hide, tie a cinch knot around the rock in the hide, tie the other end to a vehicle and pull.
Just make sure the deer is tied up to something very stable, like a big tree branch. If you do this in your garage make sure you don't pull your ceiling down;)

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

To me using a vehicle is rediculous for skinning a deer. It takes about 10 minutes without one...and the mistakes people make when using a vehicle are usually costly. JMO, though.

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

Exactly.

If you run into a sticky spot you will rip half the meat apart before stopping the vehicle...........or maybe you end up pulling down your garage roof. Just not worth it.

I skinned a buck I wanted to have a shoulder mount done on last year so I was REALLY careful when I got to the front legs on up to the skull. The whole job took me about 20 minutes to do flawlessly. Not worrying about the cape I can be done in 10 minutes.

Sharp knife and some pulling is all you need.

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

I'm not what you would call very experienced but I think skinning is the easiest part of hunting after the shot. Easier than gutting and definately easier than butchering. Just my opinion. Atlasman is on the money, a small sharp knife and a little bit of effort, especially if you're not skinning for a mount, in which case, I'd probably need help.

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

Thank you all who responded;)

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

Another piece of advice...Cut from the inside out whenever possible. By that I mean don't cut through the hair anymore than you have to for 2 reasons...

1. It dulls your knife incredibly fast to cut hair
2. It drags the hair into the meat.

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

During warm weather, when you skin right away, pulling the hide by hand is easy, but in Wisconsin, we must wait to register our deer at a registration station and in late season, or during rifle season when we have 8-10 frozen deer to skin, it sure makes alot of work easy using a 4-wheeler. For us it is not rediculous, it's practical, and we have never had a problem doing them this way. We use a big tree to hang our deer from so the garage roof thing is not an issue but is something I am aware of.

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

I've sen a skinning aid advertised that uses air you put a needle in the hide hook it to an air compresser has anyone tried this ? does it work or is it more bs to get you to spend more money ?

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

Dave, You're right...skinning a frozen deer is a different story. I also was saying that skinning "A" deer with a vehicle makes no sense to me. Just me, though. I have also run into having to take them to check them in when the temps are below zero. I just skin them all the way, then throw the skin back over them.

JohnL...Those things work, but unless you have a lot of deer to do, I can't see it being worth it. You can have one skinned by hand almost as fast as somebody can get the compressor ready. LOL

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

that's about what I thought but I am a sucker for gimicks

RE: Tips or Tricks For Skinning?
 

I've heard this as well. I have also heard in big hunting camps they will use a tractor with a loader to anchor the deer. This allows them to skin it and mover the deer around after it's done.

I have friends that now don't gut the deer. They pull the skin down take the meat and dispose the carcus. One of my friends kills so many deer a year he has this process down in 15 mins deboned and all.