I wonder if every hunter is supposed to be good at skinning game.
- Thread starter p226
- Start date
.............Moose hunting is always a partnered affair for me. Once an animal of that magnitude is down, you have to have the mindset that its another whole day just to skin, quarter it and get it out of the bush.
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Find a partner is probably the best advice you could take from these guys. I know I was a bit squemish when I started. Fro the first couple years hunting I always said to my buddies, "Could you show me how to clean them again" And as good hunters they took the time and effort to show me. Not realizing I just got them to clean my game again 
.
Then came the day I shot a 200 + lb doe, with no one around. Well you got to do, what you got to do. Suffice it to say it took me longer to clean and drag out the deer then it took me to get it in the first place.
Again, best advice here, get a buddy and learn.
.Then came the day I shot a 200 + lb doe, with no one around. Well you got to do, what you got to do. Suffice it to say it took me longer to clean and drag out the deer then it took me to get it in the first place.
Again, best advice here, get a buddy and learn.
A hunt is not over unless you are covered in blood, simple as that. Killing an animal is only half the battle. The hard work begins after the kill...when you have to figure out how to get the animal back to the truck. Once you make your first cut, the rest gets easier...
- Location
- marmora ontario
If you cant skin it don't SHOOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
michaelsabre said:
Yup, for sure. Kind of disapointing.
Hunting isnt going to grow or even continue if people have that kind of attitude.
Now, that being said there were alot of people who helped instead of "DONT SHOOT IF YOU CANT SKIN LOL NEWB"
I haven't gone hunting yet but skinnin an animal is the sickest part of the hunt imo. I don't see myself cutting open a animal and taking it's insides out. I think it's easier to point a gun at a animal and pull the trigger. It's part of hunting and I will have to learn how to do it but I still don't want to. I am going on a moose hunt this year and probably with 1 other noob hunter. It is going to be interesting to see how we do if either of us get a calf.
The blood doesn't gross me out, it's the inside of a aniaml
The blood doesn't gross me out, it's the inside of a aniaml
Of course it is. Shooting the animal is the LEAST part of hunting. If that's all you want to do, i'd suggest getting a job in a slaughterhouse.
Well it's part of the hunt. Hunters aren't killers.
Trust me - you'll get used to it very quick. It actually gets pretty interesting after a short while, I personally love taking the time to look at the innards and see what the effect of the bullet was, see how healthy the animal looks, in the case of some animals see what they were eating, etc. Its quite facinating.
After reading all these posts, I have come to the simple conclusion that you really have to want to learn and you really have to want to do it. Then find a good teacher.Goose25 said:you still got a bit of summer left... maybe you can go out fishing and gut a couple fishies. should get you used to getting blood'n guts on your hands
start there and then work your way up....
Had some friends who caught a mess of bass and walleye on the weekend. Once again, (about the 5th time it seems
) I had to teach them how filet properly. They love catching and eating fish, but man watching them 'butcher' a perfectly good walleye filet is frustrating. Once my knife comes out and I get dirty, it doesn't go back until the fish are done. Then again, maybe I'm getting sucked in. If the desire (or stomach) is not there, make sure that you hunt with somebody who has no issues with the 'dirty work'.
P.S. Don't forget to hang the deer head up.
Foxer said:
it also gives the hunter a chance to look for obvious signs of internal parasites
disease and other nastys that might make eating it an issue
P226 if you where closer to ottawa i would gladly take you out with us for a skinning/field dressing lesson i am sure there must be a few nutters in your area that will offer to mentor you at least once
Foxer said:
One of my fondest memories of 'Doc Bob' who came moose hunting up north with us every year, was him disecting an animal. He was the chief neurological surgeon at the U of S hospital in Saskatoon and just loved our moose hunts.
We would haul a moose down onto one of our bridges for cleaning, Bob would dive into the cavity and haul out some big undefined glob of tissue and study it - then give us the latin name for the item, quote all the pathologies and diseases it might contain . . . and then toss it over his shoulder into the creek!!!
Then he would dive back into the cavity and haul out something else. It would take him three hours to gut a moose, but man was it ever entertaining to watch!!!He was covered in blood and guts when he finished - and any time since, when I might think about how gross the work was getting, I thought of Doc and it just didn't seem so bad anymore. I too enjoy looking around inside my kill. And as I like saying to my non-hunting friends; if you don't shoot it and clean it, you won't get it to fit on the barbie!
Well there sure is a lot to learn stewarch.
Do you know, if you look closely at tissue with unusual flexibility such as the heart when a bullet has passed close but not struck it, you can often see the precise effect of the 'shock' or pulse wave the bullet generated as it passed thru the animal in the form of rings of slightly more intense discolouration or damage, and you can actually learn a hell of a lot about how different bullet designs at different speeds have disrupted tissue they didn't strike? I saw a heart last year that was VERY interesting - the bullet didn't hit it, but it was utterly disrupted near the top (as if it had been cooked - meat was grey and hard) and the disruption got weaker and weaker till at the bottom of the heart the tissue was still in good condition. An excellent chance to look at the effect of cavication and pressure wave dynamics inside the body cavity.
I've noticed for example that while the shock wave created by a standard mushrooming bullet and an x bullet LOOKS very similar in ballistic gelatin, the actual shockwave inside the animal is very different between the two. There's also a lot to learn about the biology of the animals in general, and part of what hunting is all about is getting to know the animals.
I was amazed last year after seeing my first 'bow kill' to observe the effects - the arrow struck the animal in the kneck, severing the arteries there and part of the windpipe, and the amount of blood the animal lost from a hole not much bigger than a bullet's was simply astounding. The cavity was practically bloodless when i cracked it open - and 'tracking' the animal wasn't very hard considering the massive spray of blood it'd left.
There's always a lot to learn. And still a lot I don't know - why do ravens and crows seem to tend to avoid bear guts, but love deer guts? Why precisely can even a small grizzlie take hits that would kill a black bear of roughly the same size outright and still keep functioning for a time? What makes elk tougher than moose?
New hunters shouldn't think of it as 'gross' - but rather as a chance to begin to learn more about the animals and become better hunters.
Do you know, if you look closely at tissue with unusual flexibility such as the heart when a bullet has passed close but not struck it, you can often see the precise effect of the 'shock' or pulse wave the bullet generated as it passed thru the animal in the form of rings of slightly more intense discolouration or damage, and you can actually learn a hell of a lot about how different bullet designs at different speeds have disrupted tissue they didn't strike? I saw a heart last year that was VERY interesting - the bullet didn't hit it, but it was utterly disrupted near the top (as if it had been cooked - meat was grey and hard) and the disruption got weaker and weaker till at the bottom of the heart the tissue was still in good condition. An excellent chance to look at the effect of cavication and pressure wave dynamics inside the body cavity.
I've noticed for example that while the shock wave created by a standard mushrooming bullet and an x bullet LOOKS very similar in ballistic gelatin, the actual shockwave inside the animal is very different between the two. There's also a lot to learn about the biology of the animals in general, and part of what hunting is all about is getting to know the animals.
I was amazed last year after seeing my first 'bow kill' to observe the effects - the arrow struck the animal in the kneck, severing the arteries there and part of the windpipe, and the amount of blood the animal lost from a hole not much bigger than a bullet's was simply astounding. The cavity was practically bloodless when i cracked it open - and 'tracking' the animal wasn't very hard considering the massive spray of blood it'd left.
There's always a lot to learn. And still a lot I don't know - why do ravens and crows seem to tend to avoid bear guts, but love deer guts? Why precisely can even a small grizzlie take hits that would kill a black bear of roughly the same size outright and still keep functioning for a time? What makes elk tougher than moose?
New hunters shouldn't think of it as 'gross' - but rather as a chance to begin to learn more about the animals and become better hunters.
- Location
- Oromocto, NB
Easiest way of cleaning rabbits is as such:
-grab one of the back legs around its paw and you can feel two tiny bones...poke a nail between them and hammer it into a tree or something so that the rabbit hangs upside down by it.
-either start by cutting with a knife or peeling with your fingers where you put the nail through...the thing should peel just like a banana...and pull the hide as far down as it will go...it should pull right over its head and after you get use to it you'll be able to completely pull it over its head. now make a slit with a small knife by its arse hole and guiding it with your finger cut down to its ribs...the guts should spill right out...cut the legs and head off with a hatched for one quick slice and your done...oh ya and rinse that lil bugger out.
if you use a shotgun to hunt rabbits, you'll make a COMPLETE MESS and regret rabbit hunting right away. my advice is learn to whistle or buy a referees whistle that you can wear and when you see them running whistle, they'll 99% of the time stop for about 2 seconds and u pop them between the ears with a .22....MUCH NICE TO CLEAN THIS WAY!!!
-grab one of the back legs around its paw and you can feel two tiny bones...poke a nail between them and hammer it into a tree or something so that the rabbit hangs upside down by it.
-either start by cutting with a knife or peeling with your fingers where you put the nail through...the thing should peel just like a banana...and pull the hide as far down as it will go...it should pull right over its head and after you get use to it you'll be able to completely pull it over its head. now make a slit with a small knife by its arse hole and guiding it with your finger cut down to its ribs...the guts should spill right out...cut the legs and head off with a hatched for one quick slice and your done...oh ya and rinse that lil bugger out.
if you use a shotgun to hunt rabbits, you'll make a COMPLETE MESS and regret rabbit hunting right away. my advice is learn to whistle or buy a referees whistle that you can wear and when you see them running whistle, they'll 99% of the time stop for about 2 seconds and u pop them between the ears with a .22....MUCH NICE TO CLEAN THIS WAY!!!
Gutting is not nearly as gross as you thing (most of the time, but gut shots can be nasty). Intact innards are actually very clean. When I first started I used those long gutting gloves. Now I don't get bloody much past the wrists with deer did not even make it to my elbows with a cow elk.
Don't worry once you get past the "food comes clean from the grocery store" mentality you'll be fine. Heck by then you'll be butchering it yourself.
Don't worry once you get past the "food comes clean from the grocery store" mentality you'll be fine. Heck by then you'll be butchering it yourself.
