Basic Field Dressing

Here are some basic steps to gut and get your game cooled off. Wearing latex gloves while gutting can help minimize the risk of any potential disease transmission and aid in easy clean-up after you are done. DO NOT leave the gloves at the kill site.

1. If you are not saving the cape of a deer or elk, make a very shallow cut from the top of the neck, all the way along the breastbone, down to the rectum. If you cut too deep, you will penetrate the entrails.
2. Cut around the sex organs to free them from the hide. Be careful not to cut through the sex organs or you may allow urine or other fluids to contact exposed meat.

3. Slice through the meat between the hind legs, and cut through the pelvic bone.
4. Cut around the rectum to free it from the pelvic area. Do not cut through it or you will expose the meat to fecal matter.
5. The esophagus and windpipe are connected to internal organs that must be removed. Severing these items in the upper neck area will allow you to pull them through with the internal organs.
6. Before you can remove the heart and lungs, you will need to split the rib cage along the breast bone, then cut through the diaphragm. The diaphragm separates organs in the abdominal cavity from the organs in the body cavity.
7. Once you have cut through the diaphragm, you will be able to pull the heart, lungs, esophagus and windpipe through the split-open body cavity. Remove all organs from the body cavity.

8. Once all the internal organs have been removed, drain the body cavity and prop it open to allow cooling.