Hunting Washington Forum
Big Game Hunting => Deer Hunting => Topic started by: NWBREW on September 11, 2009, 06:23:55 PM
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Two years ago I shot a big 5x5 whitetail an the late hunt...Northeast corner. It was the biggest whitetail I have ever killed. His body was HUGE, at least to me it was. The butcher wieght was 163 pounds, Thats with no head, no hide, no guts and no lower leg portions. And a little fat removed. Can anyone tell me what their best geuss of the live wieght would be. It might not seem that big to some of you but to me it was huge. I've killed a lot of nice whitetail bucks, nothing with this body size. :dunno:
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Most of what I know is this, you lose about a third to guts, and almost a third to head, hide and bones... :dunno:
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If that was a hanging carcass than I would estimate your deer to being around 220 live weight.
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Is 220 live wieght very big or am I just shooting little deer with big racks? If I had a scanner I would post a pic.
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Ive shot a deer that was 165 hanging. Out of 120 deer that the butcher had processed that year it was 2nd biggest. To me it was very big. My biggest one before that hanging was 130ish. So I would say that Is a big whitetail.
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I've weighed wet head and capes before. Big Deer = 35-40 pounds, Smaller Deer = 25-35 pounds.
Guts are a bit less at, 20-30 and 25-35 pounds respectively.
Add say.. 65 pounds to your 163 and you're up around 225ish as Michelle has posted.
Your Whitetail might be a bit above average, but I start thinkin BIG, when they're 250+.
I've personally helped haul out Blacktail bigger than that and shot several over 200. A BIG Muley is pushing 300 in my book.
-Steve
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If that was a hanging carcass than I would estimate your deer to being around 220 live weight.
I think Michelle is pretty close, maybe 225. That is a large whitetail for washington. We normally get 20 to 50 whitetails per year and have weighed a bunch of them. Most mature bucks weigh in between 130 and 190. The heaviest washington whitetail I have seen weighed 214, the hanging carcass, so he might have been about 275 to 290 on the hoof, but anything over 200 is very rare in my opinion.
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I worked at a deer processor in GA for 4 years and have weighed a lot of whitetail. The majority of them being whole. A 220lbs Whitetail is very respectable! I think the largest deer I weighed was 285 lbs. I remember that after skinning and gutting, removing the head and front leg it was one of only a few deer I had to ask one of the butchers to walk behind me when I packed that sucker into the cooler to hang it on the hooks. I think it was still pushing 200 lbs carcass weight.
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I have a friend that is a butcher. He always says add 1/3 of the hanging weight, to the hanging weight and that will give you the live weight. So 1/3 of 163 is about 54 pounds. 163+54=217lbs. So I would say you guys are right on.
