Field processing techniques

Early last week a buddy harvested another “wall hanger” Wisconsin public land buck. He shot it just about two miles deep into the public land north of Cutover.

The treasures of November. He opted to break the deer down and pack it out forgoing a long hard drag. The option of field processing and packing your deer out is something that Wisconsin hunters have been allowed to do for many years now.

When I hunted deep into central Wisconsin swampland, it didn’t. After we dragged the deer a quarter mile to the edge of an oak flat, we still needed to drag it over three quarters of a mile through a bog swamp.

Deer carts don’t work in bog swamps. If you want to use a sled, you need to get it all the way to the deer first. Walking through a swamp may not be like walking up a mountain out west. But after walking about four miles through one in a day and dragging the deer, you’re tired.

A bowhunter who stopped by the truck to ask if I got any grouse, told me that he wasn’t seeing many deer because he wasn’t hunting as deep this year. Seems he had lot of problems dragging a deer a quarter mile by himself last year and now hunts closer to the road.

He told me that darkness set in by the time he found the deer. After dragging it half way out, exhaustion set in and he needed to leave it in the woods overnight. The next morning much of the hind quarters and backstraps were destroyed by coyotes. “You can’t get a deer up high enough off the ground to hang it,” he said.

It dawned on me that he isn’t the only one that hasn’t heard the tricks of the trade for hanging a deer high enough to leave it overnight in the woods or packing one out.

Preparing to do so is step one. Put together a hanging kit that includes a hanging hoist, a gambrel if you choose, string with a weight on the end, and at least fifty feet of three eighths inch rope. You can add a few carabiners and an extra light if you want. If you need to cut weight, ditch the gambrel.

After field dressing, use the weighted string and toss it over a stout branch. A few large fender washers work well for the weight. I found a snap line that hasn’t been chalked works fabulous and keeps the string organized.

Use the string to pull the rope up over the limb. Then use the rope to pull the game hoist up to the limb. Remember to lengthen out the pullies on the hoist before pulling it up to the limb. Tie the rope off to the trunk of the tree. Use the game hoist to hang the deer. For packing out the meat and antlers, several ways exist. You can quarter it and leave the hide on or skin it. You could field process it. Your kit should include, meat bags, water proof pack liner (food grade plastic bags work fine), cord, bungees, knife for processing, sharpening device, a couple gallon freezer bags, and some hand wipes. Just about everyone around here knows a few people that hunt out west in the mountains every year. Those friends are great resources and have been doing things like this for years. They could explain all this and the field processing methods they like. Several YouTube videos exist showing actual field processing techniques and probably packing videos.

You could also hang the deer from the tree you hunt out of and set the hoist up prior to climbing down. This keeps the coyotes, wolves, and bear off your deer overnight.

Hanging the deer means you could field process similar to what you do in your garage. The average adult deer yields about 50 pounds of meat, give or take. Hide and antlers add more pounds. This will be a heavy pack for one person but far easier than a drag with a buddy.

I wish we had the option to pack out deer when I hunted what we still call the “the swamp.” I never dragged one entirely by myself, always with a second, sometimes four of us – it wore out everyone, every time.

The bucks are still rutting, good luck everyone. But hey, please remember, Safe Hunting is No Accident!

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