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How do you skin a deer? Head up or down?
03-06-2007 | 03:20 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Nontypical Buck
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,401
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From: Lubbock, Texas
How do you skin a deer? Head up or down?
Well, this is another topic that I never would have thought of until I read this board.
Growing up we always hung the deer up by the hind legs and skinned them from the back legs forward. That's just the way we did it. Never saw anyone else skin a deer and never thought anything of it. We cut a slit down from where you already had the deer open from field dressing it to the back knee, got it started and just pulled it down over the shoulders and neck and then cut the head off after you got it down to the end of the neck.
Reading some threads and seeing how people have deer hung up it looks like others may skin deer from the head down.
I'm just curious whether I'm in the minority on this or not.
Nathan
Growing up we always hung the deer up by the hind legs and skinned them from the back legs forward. That's just the way we did it. Never saw anyone else skin a deer and never thought anything of it. We cut a slit down from where you already had the deer open from field dressing it to the back knee, got it started and just pulled it down over the shoulders and neck and then cut the head off after you got it down to the end of the neck.
Reading some threads and seeing how people have deer hung up it looks like others may skin deer from the head down.
I'm just curious whether I'm in the minority on this or not.
Nathan
03-06-2007 | 03:53 PM
#3
Nontypical Buck
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 3,476
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From: Michigan
RE: How do you skin a deer? Head up or down?
I have butchered all my own deer for thelast 20 years, and all have been skinned from the hind legs down to the head while hanging from the rear hocks.... except for one,.. the first dear I did the other way and realized pretty quick that it had to be easier the other way.
I haven't tried thegolf ball trick myself yet but have seen it done a a freshly killed deer....it looked pretty slick.
I haven't tried thegolf ball trick myself yet but have seen it done a a freshly killed deer....it looked pretty slick.
03-06-2007 | 06:16 PM
#5
Nontypical Buck
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 2,509
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From: Sackets Harbor, New York
RE: How do you skin a deer? Head up or down?
i guess im the only "head up" guy so far.
thats the way my father does it, thats the way his father did it, and im going to guess his father did it the same way. Cut from the chest cavity up as far as possible on the neck and then all the way around. Then once you get past the neck it all folds down keeping the hair off the meat. I dont see a need to flip the deer over, I dont see how head down would make it any easier.
thats the way my father does it, thats the way his father did it, and im going to guess his father did it the same way. Cut from the chest cavity up as far as possible on the neck and then all the way around. Then once you get past the neck it all folds down keeping the hair off the meat. I dont see a need to flip the deer over, I dont see how head down would make it any easier.
03-06-2007 | 06:27 PM
#6
Thread Starter
Nontypical Buck
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 1,401
Likes: 0
From: Lubbock, Texas
RE: How do you skin a deer? Head up or down?
I didn't expect it to be this lopsided! I was way in the minority on my last question about waiting before going after a deer when you shoot it so I thought this might be the same way.
We always hung our deer with their head down from the start. We didn't hang them by the head and then flip them over to skin them. Sometimes if the weather was above freezing we would put a piece of wood to hold the body cavity open to let it cool but I'm not sure if that was useful or not and didn't happen very often in Northeast Montana (usually you didn't need to worry about a freezer during hunting season).
We always hung our deer with their head down from the start. We didn't hang them by the head and then flip them over to skin them. Sometimes if the weather was above freezing we would put a piece of wood to hold the body cavity open to let it cool but I'm not sure if that was useful or not and didn't happen very often in Northeast Montana (usually you didn't need to worry about a freezer during hunting season).
