Field Dressing Questions-Gut shots
 

Looking for some advice. So, you shoot a deer with a rifle and its a little further back than you like and you just Knick the guts, full on gut shot, or you Knick guts with your knife how do handle that situation? I have heard guys say leave a gut shot deer in the woods because its nasty and just leave them rot in the woods. I have heard of guys washing it in the creek (idk about that, lots of bacteria IMO) or hosing it off? Was helping some buddies out last week and one just nicked the guts with either his knife or the bullet. I would say maybe enough green matter to fill a shot glass or two and some got on the ribs and he had a full on fit. Another decided to wash his in the creek and a deer I shot I sent one through the lungs and because she just stood there I thought I missed and sent another quartering to me through the guts. Field dressed right away and only a handful touched the ribs. I was told butchers don't debone the ribs so good to go.

How about not getting the colon out the proper way? You think its completely cut out but its not and when you try and remove it the tube rips and you get scat on there? Just scrape it off and wash it and good to go or toss that entire area?

Just things I have run into over the years and figure get others opinions.

Get the deer gutted properly and get t to a place you can wash it out as soon as possible, it will be ok. So far as the colon goes, you can cut around the anus then squeeze out the pellets and tie the colon off on the inside and pull it back and roll it out with the rest of the guts, or you can split the pelvis with a hatchet or saw on the center line of the pelvis and t will be easy to cut free and roll it out with the gut pile or---buy yourself a butt out and pull the colon out from the anus squeeze out the pellets and where the colon has no more pellets, put a twist tie around the colon and twist tight and pull it back through the hole and dump it with the rest of the guts. If you get a few pellets inside the body cavity just pick them up and toss them and wash out the cavity, no big deal.

I don't worry about a few pellets or green matter contaminating the meat. Shot placement or a slip with the knife can result in bad stuff getting on the meat
I wash out the body cavity in a creek as soon as possible or bring the deer home and hose it out then hang by the hocks for aging. I have processed around 100 of my own kills and only had 1 that the meat wasn't good and that was an early season warm weather deer during archery that I didn't recover until the next morning.

Gut shot of any type. Gut immediately!
What I do in the field is wipe the body cavity with paper towel as clean as I can get it. If I use water I'll use bottled water I carry. Then Wipe it dry.
Back at camp I always hang by the neck if a doe or antlers so the gut cavity of the deer is chest high to me. Makes it easy to clean thourougly.
Then I trim tallow , take out the loins, open the pelvic cavity better out the rear end and clean further. At that time I will rinse with clean water several times as it will drain out quickly.
I then will wipe dry.
Ive never had a problem and my group has had some very poor marksman.

IMO
A hunter who leaves an animal because he gut shot it. I'd alert authorities in a heart beat.

JW

Agreed, so would I, it isn't the deer's fault it was gut shot it was the hunter' fault..

Yup ...I agree also on all points.

Yes exactly. If I ever heard or saw someone leaving an animal in the woods just because they made a bad shot I would report them to the proper authorities and they would get severely fined likely for several items including attempting to take additional game, not tagging game, wanton waste and probably a couple others.

Use the gutless method. You get the meat without fooling with the guts

well after almost 40 yrs of helping out processing deer, and literally helping butcher hundreds of deer if not into the thousands(back in the hay days it wasn't uncommon to get 1500 deer a yr to buster at the one shop, my friend put his 3 kids thru a GOOD collage from funds on processing deer )
I have seen tons of gut shot deer, some cleaned better than other some brought in hours or a day or more after deer was killed with guts still inside
people WAY over think this stuff
if you GUT shot a critter, simply clean as best you can as soon as you can, remove as much as you can while doing so
get home, or take to a butcher ASAP, and clean out better!
as long as weather isn;t very warm, things will be fine
most of the fears are in most folks minds and NOT a big deal if were being honest!
and I too would consider it very unethical to leave a deer behind out of fears of having gut shot it, and I KNOW Its also illegal in about every state I can think of, its called wanton waste!
and anyone that does it, should be fined and ISN"T a hunter, in my mind!
you made the bad shot, don;'t make the animal suffer for it by being wasted!, punch your tag and learn from it!

also, a GOOD butcher shop will tell you if things are IFFY or not when you bring it in and or start to process it, and will cut off and remove questionable parts, or scrap if needed!
if you butcher at home you should also be able to tell what is damaged or not!

and I'll add this, all you's that FEAR washing a deer out in a creek or stream, I also call BS on excessive worry's there too
knows and processed and even killed many deer that ran into water and dies some sat for hours before being found
all were perfectly fine
when you COOK food there are SAFE temps to be eating meat at, and they all will KILL off bacteria's that MAYBE could MAYBE get into meat!
folks that like to eat more RAW foods, have more worries for sure, but thats with ALL meat, not just ones that got wet or washed out from being a stream creek or??
now I am NOT saying go wash a deer out in funky standing water or likes, use common sense,
but if a clean flowing stream/creek or?? is near by and you GUT shot a deer, you WON"T hurt the meat doing so!, you'd be doing it a favor IMO< not hurting it!
odds are after all that same deer DRINKS and ingest that water so its IN its body already!

I'll also add this, just to add a little more info o gutting deer
about 60% of the deer I have seen over the yrs that come into the butchers shops are NOT gutted very well most ALL have remains left inside , and many have been in there for DAYS, and be perfectly fine
most AVERAGE Hunters don't know enough to gut a animal well
the more experienced and DIE hards are the better at it, but NOT all of them do that great a job either and this again is based on having seen thousands of deer brought into butcher shops, not an opinion, but facts I witinessed and my friends that work in these shops as well
we are ALWAYS cleaning things better after being dropped off on an easy 60-70% of deer brought in!
MOST Hunters are upfront about it, and we THANK them for saying so, so we can get to things faster for them!, but I have seen and KNOW of many 30-40-50+ yr seasoned hunters that bring in deer with entrails still in them due to they did a POOR job gutting them! or never learned how to do it right!
JUST good enough is what they call it!

and the poor gutting issue's , were all the more so, yrs ago when so many hung a deer for a week or more at hunting camps in ALL sorts of weather
and I will also add this

and lastly!
as for HOW to hang a deer, many have there preferred way
BUT hanging a deer by its head is NOT the best for MEAT
as you allowing all the fluids to drain into the hing end of the deer
next if you have ANY plans to mounts a deer, hanging a deer can STRETCH the neck and even damage the hair and hide!
I am NOT preaching here, just adding facts
you DON"T see cattle or likes being hung from there necks for a reason! you can ruin prime cuts!, not to mention critters have built in hangers in there hing legs!