Gutless method video (excellent)

[bigbull94]

THANKS FOR POST,NICE TO SEE OTHERS USING IT TOO!I have been using it for awhile now and love it!!!I leave nothing eadible behind.It works well in the heat.The time it takes to gut one,we can usually have one quartered in bags,the rest deboned,in bags in an hour or so after kill.ANOTHER TRICK WE HAVE USED IS PAM COOKING SPRAY TO KEEP ALL THE BLOW FLIES/YELLOWJACKETS OFF OF OUR MEAT DURING THE SKINNING/QUARTERING PROCESS.IT DOESN'T AFFECT THE MEAT IN ANY WAY,WE JUST SPRAY AS WE SKIN AND MAN DOES IT WORK.ONE FULL CAN PER ELK.

[mazama]

I hunt alone and am getting older and can't carry as much weight as i used to,it is a 2 day job to get animal out,how would this method work if you are leaving half behind for second or third day.

[willapawapiti]

Picked up some great improvements to how I have been doing it, thanks for the post!

[Raul Duke]

I can't wait to try this method out. Thanx for sharing.

[brew]

great info on getting the meat off....i know you can fillet the rib meat for more recovery...my only question is how much of the front cape needs to be intact for a taxi to do a shoulder mount??  Would you still skin the front shoulder the same (it seemed they cut up the under part of the neck) or how much of the neck skin needs intact to do a decent mount? Can you just skin it all from the front shoulder up and not cut the neck skin to make a mount?  inquiring minds want to know 

[rasbo]

good clip there ..

[engelwood]

That was going to be my question as well, how do you want to cut the neck area if you are planning on having a mount done?

[Axle]

They don't show much and they give little detail. It's piss-poor at best.

I'll admit, my pictures aren't the best in this tutorial

http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,37569.0.html

but there is much more to learn if you know anything about butchering an animal. Besides, why mess with any bone at all when you go that far? Those guys were leaving the bone on the leg. It takes about 2 minutes to bone-out a hind leg! Why pack out the weight? When you look at the final pictures of my deer, you will see that all the meat has been taken off and it is quite easy to do.

I can bone-out a large elk in 1.5 hours by myself. A small deer in a half hour when conditions are right. I don't pack out bone and you shouldn't have to either. The meat will taste better most of the time when you do this method. At least practice this next time and you will see.

Maybe I should do a video.........maybe I should buy a video camera......

[DeerThug]

I can bone an elk by myself in 1-2 hrs depending on how big and how it is laying.  As for leaving the meat i bone it and hang it right there.  It cools right away and then take the 2 days to pack it out.  Never had any thing eaten by coyotes.

As for caping - make a cut down the spine from the tail to the horns.  Then make a cut in the hide from the spine to the belly right in the middle of the animal around the rib cage.  you now have a "corner".  Skin away from there.  Also to make it easy cut from the knee bone on the front leg on the back of the leg and connect that cut to where it comes around the ribs on the belly.

[THunt]

That is a pretty good way to do it.  It's nice and clean as long as you do it correctly.

[smartazz171]

  Awesome video!  Thanks for contributing!

[Huntboy]

That video is awesome.

[h2ofowlr]

Good post.  If the gut sack is ruptured from someone shooting to far behind like I seen in the field, you may not want to go after the meet from between the ribs unless you are able to get it cleaned fairly quickly as the bacteria spreads fast and will spread to any other meet it comes in contact with.

[buglelk]

Hey guys!

Thanks for the compliments on the video! Our hope was to provide a FREE resource for hunters to learn to use the Gutless method as it saves time and effort and nothing is sacrificed. I usually try to avoid antagonistic responses, but Axle made a comment I'd like to comment on.   

There are a few reasons we leave the bone in...when you're carrying 100+ lbs of meat on your back, the bone adds a nice, rigid frame to secure the load and keep it from flopping around. I have not found a way to load 1/2 of a boned out elk onto an external pack frame and keep it from shifting. Additionally, Axle will be able to accurately tell us what a font leg bone and hind quarter bone weigh, but my guess is it's around 4-6 lbs? The benefit structurally for packing is worth a few extra pounds to me. That being said, we have boned out plenty of elk for long hikes (3+ miles) and when the conditions allow us to cool the boned meat properly for the hike out.

I have NEVER been able to tell a difference in the taste between boned out meat or meat left on the bone. The most important thing I've found is to get the hide off the elk immediately...that seems to be the best way to ensure the meat doesn't have any of the "gamey" taste.

Reagrding Axle's stand-alone opinion of "They don't show much and they give little detail. It's piss-poor at best"...I'll take any and all constructive feedback. I would have thought he would have commented on how dull our knife was as that was the biggest issue I had with the whole process. We certainly weren't prepared for the good fortune of processing 4 elk in a row, 3 of them in the past 16 hours! Our knife was dull and the little hand sharpener we had wouldn't put an edge on the knife at that point. That extra 4 ounces we shaved off our packs by taking out the stone will be addd back in for sure this season! 

Thanks again for the comments guys!

Corey Jacobsen

[JPhelps]

Corey,
Glad you made your way over here.  You have a ton of knowledge about elk hunting that I hope you share.

For those of you who don't know Corey runs elk101.com. Stop in and check it out.

Jason Phelps