Right after work got picked up by my buddy Red (he says hi Scout! met you @ Rabbitstick) and we went and processed this huge buck outlaw style… it was really fresh and now i have some chunks of meat soaking … the smell this stuff gives off though whew! Potent stuff…
Congratulations!
Which one was Red? Was he the one from Ishcon?
Maybe so… I think he mentioned some events like that too… i wound up deciding that something that smelled this bad (like knock you over) couldn’t be good though and especially after I discovered some green spots after some crock pot time… so I donated it to the coons and possums outside my apt… but I did get a good education… now if I can get this smell out of my apt…
So what kind of stuff can you pass on that you learned from your experience? Had you ever butchered an animal before?
Maybe I can give you some pointers for next time if you can tell us how it went.
Did you keep the hide? The hide usually lasts longer than the meat. Even if it’s a little stinky. As long as the hair doesn’t fall out if you pull on it.
My friend kept the hide, he did most of the work of skinning I mostly held the light… the hair mostly stayed on it when pulled except for a patch in the middle of the back, overall it looked good, but he is going to give me the antler after he gets the brain out for tanning. There’s definitely uses I can find for the antler. (one was missing). My Mora knife got notched (I lent it for the job at hand) so I’ll need to spend some time sharpening it again. I’ve definitely learned that deer stink can get on everything, I’ve had all my windows open since last night to air this place out and burned sage and incense etc. and washed everything I was wearing.
By “stink” do you mean the from the scent glands, or were the guts punctured and spilling out? Other than those two things there shouldn’t be any stink unless the animal had been out in the sun all day or something and was starting to rot. In that case I would pass on that one and let the buzzards and coyotes have it.
The scent gland issue is easily taken care of by removing them as your first step in the processing. This time of year the bucks are definitely full into rutting and can smell pretty strong. The mule deer I shot this year had a pretty strong odor but once I removed those scent glands from the hind legs it wasn’t an issue. The meat tastes really good. Clean your knife off after you cut those glands off and it won’t get all over the rest of it.
Burst or punctured guts will taint quite a bit of meat.
maybe that will help for next time.
Hey Billy,
Can you explain where/how to cut out the scent glands?
They’re on the back legs on the inside of the first bend in the leg (the “elbow”). There’s like a knot of thick hair there, that’s the scent gland.
How do you go about removing it?
If I properly recall the way my dad does it (last time I helped him I was like 12 or something) I think he cuts around them and then peeled them off with the knife. There are different opinions on whether or not to remove them though, some folks are concerned about getting the musk into the meat from the knife. We were in a very “field” situation and trying to work as fast as possible so my friend skipped that and left them alone, they came off anyway when he cut off the hind legs at that joint before we skinned the hindquarters. I think this stuff just went south further than we had believed though initially and my friend is just too used to the smell. When we picked it up it still had clear eyes, insect hitchhikers, there were a LOT of fly eggs underneath it but not hatched yet. When we opened it the viscera there was some ruptured intestine but it wasn’t clear if my buddy did that accidentally or if it was the car impact, they looked mostly intact and clean. When we skinned it the meat on the side that was hit was all bruised inside with some blood clots but the other side like the forequarter was perfect and clear and light pink. The body cavity filled with liquid blood until we hoisted it. I look one of the loin cuts and some from the neck so nothing from the body cavity wall anyway.
Right, those scent glands are on the inside of the hock on the back leg. They are attached to the skins so can easily be pealed off with the skin.
Mostly I was curious about the stink that Mike was talking about. Thought maybe it was from the scent glands of this buck because it was rutting at the time. I usually don’t really pay much attention to them when I am processing a deer. I have learned to just keep my hands off them and peal them off with the skin. I clean my knife if I cut them with it.
I made a tincture with some once by soaing them in cheap vodka. I sprayed it into an active buck scrape to see if the buck that actually made the scrape would feel the need to freshen it up with his own scent. The results of my experiment were inconclusive 