So with the season opener approaching with warm tempatures usually, has anyone ever shot a deer only to not get to it quick enough allowing the meat to go bad? If so, how long did you wait to field dress the deer or clean it and how hot do you think it was outside?

I have waited a few hours and it is fine. First deer I shot it was 93 degrees in Dec and field dressed it a couple hours later and tasted great. Young buck though.

In South Texas we hunt 6:30 am to 10 am and then get picked up so you might have several deer down for hours and all have been fine. Unless I can get that meat on ice or in walk in, I not going to field dress it yet. I don't want dirt, oxygen and ants on it.

I hunt with one guy who wants it gutted asap. I gut mine quickly too but might take an hour to get it hung up at the lease since we drive ourselves and hunt is over at that point. Seems the processor you use makes the biggest difference in how it tastes.

We always gut at camp. Then quarter up and put on ice

I have always picked mine up within the hour.

Don't know why anyone even wait that long, if they did they need a ticket if they wasted the meat.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


Try to have my animal skinned, rinsed, quartered and on Ice ASAP.

Got to hunt down south of Austin, high fence was getting rid of some does. Shot 2, gutted both filled cavity with ice wrapped them up in tarps. Drove to Sanger to have processed. No problem. One was shot on Saturday afternoon the other was Sunday morning.

Gut them as soon as possible, rather do it at camp hanging up but have gutted many in the field. Gut and get on ice or in the cooler asap.

This.

Use to lease a place a 1 hour drive from home. Shot many of my deer around 3pm on an 80-85 degree day. As soon as they were down and we got down it was a 20 minute walk + 20 minute drive till it was gutted then we would put a couple of 3 liter soda bottles refiled with water and frozen into the chest cavity wait till dark when the others got down chat with the land owner and hit the road for home. Never had one go bad. Now we bring a big ice chest and if its not cold they go on ice asap.

A buddy of mine used to bring them back to camp after they sat an hour or two and then cook/eat breakfast first before gutting it. No I never saw any of them spoil, just cant get my mind around why wait gut it and get it cool then eat breakfast.

Personally I gut and skin and (quarter as per TPWD )then get on get on Ice ASAP ... never had a bad one..Just another Point not brought up if its any chance its GUT shot get its Guts out and rinsed out and cleaned up or you will have tainted meat...Remember the skin is Insulation but it keeps flies off

If it is 30 degrees outside you can really take your time, people shoot deer all the time and don't find them until the next morning in cool weather and they are fine. If it is 80 degrees out I would do things as quick as possible but you still have a couple hours before it goes bad. For a hog, I don't care what temp it is, if they aren't skinned and on ice within 1-1.5 hrs of shooting them they go in the bone pile.

Field dress in the field asap. No matter what the temperature.

For hogs, we generally just quickly take the backstrap off in the field and discard the rest.

I am probably overly concerned about spoilage, but since I bow hunt only, I generally have to have my kills lay for at least an hour before tracking them anyway.

I gut my deer within a hour. But I carry a can of black pepper in my pack. After I've dressed the animal, I pepper the inside, then the mouth and nose. This keeps the flies from landing as much as normal. I'll hang the deer in a tree by my blind and hunt until dark.
If it is during the rut and I shoot a doe I try to keep the bladder and drizzle it all around the feeder and the bucks will really come in. What I do might not be for everyone, but it has served me well. Being retired allows me to hunt all season everyday so I've time to try many different methods. Folks give me a hard time about my Indian corn, but if they ever tried it...

I usually gut a deer where if falls if I can and do it ASAP. Even if the air temps are 80 degrees that is still cooler than the core body temps or a fermenting/swelling gut. Then get the deer in the shade to skin/quarter or into a walkin cooler quickly for the best tasting venison. I wash a deer down as soon as I get to camp to clean out insides and that cooler water helps to start to drop the cavity temps also. After I skin and quarter if I put the deer in an ice chest I will fill the ice chest with tap water(if it is cool). I let the quarters sit in a cooler full of water for an hour to soak then drain it and fill the cooler with ice.

this

Here in TX, help a young hunter years ago, he shot a young doe, finally found it that night later, so it sat out all day, then
at 9pm, he found it..... was a bear to skin, and it was warm that day, temps in hi 70's and thats been the latest of i know of
waiting that long to clean an animal..... he made sausage out of her and it was fine,
Venison keeps longer than you think, for me, sooner the better you hang it, skin it, remove the hide, and get it chilled,
the better the texture of meat you will have..... others may argue, been hunting over 50yrs + i ve seen all kinds of crap brought
to the hunting camp......

For our family, venison, antelope is about the best protein meat man can ever have, regardless what ribeye you just got at that high
end steakhouse!......


that my take....

hunt safe all..........

My first 2 steps after getting one down are tag it and field dress it whenever possible! The stomach/intestine contents and wound areas are the first thing to start spoiling. We also carried a gallon of rinse water and if there is even a chance of a punctured pouch we rinse out the body cavity. After 45 or 50 years of this I've never ever had spoiled meat from any animal I've shot!

(except when the freezer at the house quit working while we were on a 3 day weekend)

I always gut mine when they hit the ground and put them in the ice chest when I get back to camp. However when I was a kid we would hang our deer at camp in fly bags and not process them until we got home a few days later. The meat was always fine and I remember hunting some November days when it was warm enough to hunt without a shirt.

We used to leave a gallon of water in every blind for rinsing out field dressed deer/washing hands.

I gut, skin, 1/4 within 2 hours. Process and in the freezer, time permitting, within 4 hours.

I gut or bone them (where legal) as soon as the pics are taken and I get the meat on ice as soon as I can.