hanging game, head up or down?

[rhshooter]

I've only ever seen them hung head down... What do you do with them head up, noose around the neck?

Jeff

 

[tactical870]

ALWAYS head down.... Windpipe in too as long as it's cold enough. While the windpipe will rot fast in warm temps, leaving it in prevents the surrounding meat from drying out....

 

[captonion]

Done both.....No difference!

 

[BigV]

Although I've never really thought about WHY we do it, our gang hangs head up hide on while we age it, then when skinning and cutting time comes we flip it around and skin and cut with the head down. To the OP when I saw that you started hunting with a new 'gang' I knew you were from Dundas county. I still hunt back there too, but wish I still lived there full time.

 

[John Y Cannuck]

ALWAYS head down.... Windpipe in too as long as it's cold enough. While the windpipe will rot fast in warm temps, leaving it in prevents the surrounding meat from drying out....

We always remove the windpipe. It's easy, and quick.

 

[John Y Cannuck]

Solve that problem by skinning out your animal shortly after the kill...or in the headlights after dark if you have to. Cools the meat faster and if it's a rutting buck getting that smelly pissed up hide off promptly does more for making better tasting venison than anything IMO. Next day remove dirt and hair and wrap lightly with shrink wrap tp prevent drying out. Keep hung,cool and out of the sun.

^ Cannuck....


how long do you leave their coat on for ?

To answer you both, we frequently hang for a week outdoors. Gives the very best tasting venison.
If we took the hide off early, and did that, we'd have a lot of dried out meat.

Obviously, we can't do that if it's warm, but usually, it's not.

 

[dannymat]

We do head down...... until we run out of gambles, then we just tie a noose around the neck and head up.
We take them all down at the end of the week and move to the heated shop to do skinning anyways, and then it's head down!

 

[bushpig]

hanging game

We have always hung them head down.
Deer Moose Bear all head down, normally the hide is off that afternoon for a morning kill, or the next day if the animal was taken in the evening. We put a tarp up above the meat rack to protect the critters from rain and snow.

 

[rebel01]

We lost a gorgeous buck on a Manitoba hunt one year because the fellas while trying to sneak it onto the meatpole(after dark) inadvertently cut into the gland on the inside of the rear leg to make holes for the gambrel.The scent was so strong the next day you could smell it 20 feet away.I guess the scent went down the carcass and through the meat.NOT NICE!Now I hang my deer and moose by the head.I find if you remove the windpipie completly and cut the pelvic bone you get a better drain.Like Gatehouse says I find no difference in skinning and quartering.

 

[archie126]

Head up.

 

[stuckon308]

Where's the poll?

My family do heads down.

 

[bp45cal]

always head down

 

[tigertrout]

down

a picture is worth a thousand words........need I say more.

 

[archie126]

Love the old pic's. Don't know about letting part of it touch the ground though.

 

[tigertrout]

head up

From what my Dad told me about those days......it would not have been hanging for very long antway. It was probably there just long enough to get the skin off and then it was carved up given away to family and friends and in the fryin pan.

 

[hugh manuell]

A friend who was a professional butcher told me it was better for the meat to hang head down. Never tried it upside down.

As an aside, just about all the hunting photos of "the old days" show deer hanging head up. The old-timers knew best about a lot of things, so???

Hugh