# Self Sufficiency/Living off the Land or Off the Grid > Cooking, Food Storage, & Preserving >  check this out on skinning

## trax

I recently spoke with hermitman and said I'd do a piece on skinning and gutting small game, but why re-invent the wheel? This guy's directions are very good, I'm taking a page outta your book surferboy, check out this link hermitman, or anyone else who wants...http://simplesurvival.net/gamedressing.htm

----------


## nell67

I absolutely agree on the part about making sure its dead (ouch)!

----------


## trax

LOL, sorry darlin, forgot that was a 'sensitive' area. But, I was pretty sure we'd discussed this and hermitman said he couldn't find the thread and he had a good point...what's the point of killin' a critter and then ruining it cuz you don't know how to clean it properly....Some things I just take for granted others here can't.

Where is surferboy (Rick) today anyway? Missing his sparkling repartee....

----------


## nell67

No problem,LOL I just wanted to reiterate that I make *sure* it dead now before I cut it :Big Grin:  :Embarrassment:

----------


## pgvoutdoors

> No problem,LOL I just wanted to reiterate that I make *sure* it dead now before I cut it


Sorry, this is not a skinning story but a quick deer story.  While conducting some Marine Corps training, a friend of mine was laying some communication wire.  As he worked his way around a tree line, a deer shot out and ran him over.  He was wearing a helmet and flack jacket but still was knocked completely out!

No major injuries but funny as hell!!! :Smile:

----------


## trax

Poor bugger. That is funny, though, are the deer finally striking back? Attack of the killer ninja deer!

----------


## nell67

> Sorry, this is not a skinning story but a quick deer story. While conducting some Marine Corps training, a friend of mine was laying some communication wire. As he worked his way around a tree line, a deer shot out and ran him over. He was wearing a helmet and flack jacket but still was knocked completely out!
> 
> No major injuries but funny as hell!!!


Oh dear (deer),LOL funny stuff,bet he wasn't laughing about it when he woke up though!

----------


## Beo

You better make sure its dead, we don't want no squirrel or rabbit playing opposum :Big Grin:

----------


## trax

> You better make sure its dead, we don't want no squirrel or rabbit playing opposum


That is soo bad, but yeah I laughed. I know a joke kinda like that, all about animals with "identity crisis"  but it sure isn't rated pg-13 or whatever. Not going into a public forum that's for sure.

----------


## nell67

> You better make sure its dead, we don't want no squirrel or rabbit playing opposum


Beo ,it wasn't playin possum,I thought it was dead,but I only knocked it out,fine time to find that out when I had it half skinned :Frown: ,she cried I creid,the mother -out-law cried,it was awful all the way around

----------


## Beo

Live skinning...... how medieval of you, know wonder i like you.

----------


## nell67

LOL Beo,the only good thing to come out of it,was mother -out-law never stuck her nose into my business again when I was cleaning animals after that :Big Grin:

----------


## Beo

That and a very cold animal :Big Grin:

----------


## nell67

A very MAD animal!

----------


## Tony uk

Thanks Trax,  :Big Grin:

----------


## trax

Arkansas method huh? Well I'll be, isn't that the place where the family members that only got 5 fingers on each hand are jealous of their siblings who got all 6?

Rabbits skin easy, squirrels are bit tougher, most small game will be skinnable and cleanable following the methods illustrated.

----------


## trax

A wee addendum: Personally, I recommend a drop point style knife for animal skinning. You don't need anything huge. I can skin, gut and quarter up a full deer with a 4" blade, for small animals I use a pocket knife with a 2 1/2" blade. I've never used those gut hooks and I find that clip point blades are more likely to snag or cut into the gut.

----------


## Rick

There is another thread on skinning and gutting: 

http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...=skin+squirrel

just wanted to tie the two together.

----------


## hermitman

Thanks Trax

----------


## Sourdough

NELL67,  Think what it is like to have a wolf or lynx you thought was dead, come alive in a small plane like a super cub. Airborn at 2,000 AGL

----------


## nell67

Oh my hopeak,that would scare that heck out of me,bet it didnt do much for you either.Makes me shudder just thinking about it.

My sister hit a fawn one fall,and thought it was dead,so she drug that thing into her car and was headed to the parents house,when it woke up and started thrashing around,tore up the inside of her car pretty good,but she would not stop,because she was afraid that it would get away when she opened the door of the car,stupid girl,she was lucky.

----------


## trax

I hate to do this again, but here I go talking about what the thread is really about. I've been thinking about those who've never skinned out an animal before. Rabbits are the easiest things in the world, because after the initial cut, you just rip the hide of them quick. But, ....if you're skinning something larger say a member of the deer family, you want to get this nice even long stroke with the knife and you want a blade that isn't going to snag. Hang onto the hide as you cut, keep it kind of tight, cut away from yourself and you're probably going to use as much pressure and you'd use cutting through...leather or maybe a rubber boot, with the same knife. It's always nice to have a backup knife too, because if your knife has any problem holding it's edge, it'll get dull really fast. 

I've noticed exact opposite opinions too on when you're cutting through that layer of fat between the meat and the hide, people who want to work the hide say leave it on the meat. People who want the meat say leave it on the hide. I use both meat and hide so, either way I'm going to have to get rid of the fat later. I leave it on the meat because when I do the meat cutting I can cut the fat away and it has acted as a barrier to a lot of gunk that might have stuck to the meat when I'm packing it out. As neat and clean as you try to be in the bush, seems there's alway some twigs or moss or dead leaves or dirt....just want to attach to your good eating. Of course, the fat is useful too, if you're so inclined. Render it and mix it with some pine tar and pine ash and you've got soap.

----------


## Sourdough

TRAX,  As a professional hunter I would carry about 8 to 10 fixed blade knifes, and 3 or 4 muskrat skinners (a two blade folder), a saw, an Eastwing ax, and 8 large game bags. Some knives were for just one job, like the cut on the top of the neck to cape a moose, the hide is 3/4" thick from the antlers back to behind the shoulder blades. I had a special Case knife for only that cut. Whith the whitesox and moose flies biteing, it is better to not waste time sharpening knives, just grab another and and keep cutting.....

----------


## Rick

I was with you right up until you started talking baseball. I've been to White Sox games in the new stadium and you're correct, they bite! But seriously folks, don't you use a head net?

----------


## trax

The bugs are pretty much all froze to death. I've done entire moose with a 5" Russell skinner, but it definitely required sharpening when I got home. Seriously Rick, no I don't wear a headnet, well sometimes when I'm waiting for my rollers to set..

----------


## Sourdough

No headnets are O.K. if your fishing. When your hunting you spend most of your time "GLASSING" and you can't use a headnet. It rains a lot and you wear rain slickers with the hood up.

----------


## Ken

> LOL, sorry darlin, forgot that was a 'sensitive' area. But, I was pretty sure we'd discussed this and hermitman said he couldn't find the thread and he had a good point...what's the point of killin' a critter and then ruining it cuz you don't know how to clean it properly....Some things I just take for granted others here can't.
> 
> Where is surferboy (Rick) today anyway? Missing his sparkling repartee....


Trax!  You _ENCOURAGED_ that guy to post????

----------


## dragonjimm

rick..... youre field and stream link is dead 

you mean youre not supposed to eat the hide...... *phew*I can drop the disposable razor from my kit...lol

@WW..similar experience with my first deer...keep in mind i was about twelve when this happened.
even though i had hit it 3 times with a shotgun, drug it to the truck and drove it home, when my uncle went to cut its throat it woke up,,that was a bad day in flat rock

----------


## Rick

DJ - Thanks for the heads up. It looks like Field and Stream removed the article. I've deleted my post.

----------


## Leon

Good info, i have never prepared an animal other than fish before, i really must get around to doing it. I have seen it done on rabbits before and i remember being surprised at how easily the skin comes away from the flesh.

----------


## Mountaintrekker

I skinned this elk in 45min by myself. I used an Ontario Rtak 5 or whatever they call the 5in knife they make. Only ran it through the ceramic sticks a couple of swipes for the whole thing. I love that knife. 
 Great post by the way!

Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum.

----------


## dragonjimm

good lord thats a mountain of meat and whats that on the table? :Smile: 


would that have been the d2 version? would like to get one from everything i read their a good knife.

----------


## RBB

Two "I thought it was dead" stories:

Until he retired, last year, my brother Dan worked as a deputy in central Minnesota.  People would often bring car killed deer to the SO for a tag.  Called upon to check out a deer, Dan went out to the parking lot and the guy opened the trunk of his car.  As soon as he did, the deer's head popped up.  Dan and the guy who'd brought in the deer were so surprised that neither immediately reacted.  

As the deer got up and partially out of the trunk - Dan grabbed the deer by the neck and the guy who'd brought in the deer grabbed the tire iron and nearly brained my brother.  Dan ended up with the tire iron and rode the deer around the parking lot as it tried to brush him off by running into the cars parked there.  Next he rode the deer across a busy four lane road, cars honking and drivers doing their best to avoid him and the deer.  Dan got in a few whacks with the tire iron, as he wa able, all to no avail.  They ended up against the side of a house across the street, incidently owned by the head of the local PETA chapter.  

Dan thought about shooting the deer, but given the urban nature of his surroundings, and the wild plunging of the deer, decided against it.  In the end, he bludeoned the deer to death, splattering blood and brains all over the PETA woman's house - as she looked on in horror through the window.  When he was done, he did his best to collect the scraps of his uniform and gear which he'd left in a trail across the roadway.  When he got back to the parking lot he told the guy, "There's your damn deer!" and left him to go collect it.

#2:  I was called about a car killed bear just east of town.  At that time it was required that the game wardens be called out for a bear.  Permit for a bear was fairly expensive because people were poaching them for gall bladders and claws.  The dispatcher called and the game warden must have just crawled in bed because he told me I could take the bear, if I wanted it, free of charge.  I told him I wasn't interested, mostly because bear are usually too heavy to lift alone, but when I got there, the bear looked so nice I decided to take it.

The bear wasn't moving, and there was no steam from it's mouth in the November night.  I pinched the fur below the sternum and made my first cut.  The bear came to and the click of its teeth very close to my ear made me sit up and take notice.  He swatted me about ten feet, and if I hadn't been wearing a vest - I would have had some injury.  

I swore at myself for not putting a bullet in its head right off because, as it ran into the woods, I could hear the sound of the bones scraping together from the bear's broken pelvis.

The bear had gone into a small strip of woods between the roadway and Lake Superior, so I turned on my flashlight and followed.  The bear went under and over deadfalls, and was bleeding badly enough so I could follow the blood trail - even at night.  There was more brush and dead falls in that little strip of woods than you could shake a stick at.  

The bear was crying, a noise which seems to come from every direction at once.  Feeling I was getting fairly close, I got my gun out.  About that time, my flashlight went dead and the bear went "Woof"!  This is a bear's way of saying, "You're too close"!  

I usually stop at this point of the story until the listener says, "What happened then"?  My response is, "Well, he ate me, ya damned fool"!

Truth is, I didn't move until my night vision came round, and I was able to see a sillouette of his head, then I shot him between the eyes - just left of center.  Even if it was only ten feet, I've always thought it was a pretty good shot as I couldn't see the front or rear sights of my gun.

His skull is still hanging above the fireplace in the summer kitchen, but boy did I have a time getting him out of that brush!

----------


## Rick

We didn't have many rattle snakes in Southern Illinois but you would, on occasion, come across a timber rattler. One such occasion presented itself to my buddy who clubbed the poor snake in the head and tossed him in his tool box. It happened to be the only enclosed item in his jeep. He drove back to town and a few of us gathered 'round for the unveiling. He lifted the tool box out of the jeep and sat in on the ground and a very distinctive rattle emanated from inside the box. Clearly, the snake was not dead but really, really upset. 

"Dang, man (not what he really said but a cleaner version). What are we gonna do now? 

"It's your tool box." I told him. "Looks like it's your snake." Where upon I left. To my knowledge, that snake is still inside that tool box. He never did admit to opening it.

***********************

Two other acquaintances were driving down a dirt road at night and came upon a possum in the middle of the road. The lights blinded the animal and he sulled up and didn't move. They stopped the vehicle and walked around the edge of the headlights so the possum couldn't see them and one of them grabbed the possum by the tail. Everything went well for about 2 seconds. He had forgotten about the prehensile tail but the possum hadn't. The possum used it to turn around and start gnawing on the guy's hand. All the while the other guy was yelling, "Give him to me! Give him to me!" Happy to oblige but not sure how to do it the first guy gave the possum a mighty fling in the second guy's direction. As luck would have it, the possum let loose and landed smack dab in the middle of the second guys chest. His voice immediately went up a couple of octaves as the possum began to gnaw and scratch his way through the guy. 

He finally managed to knock the possum to the ground. Either that or the possum simply slipped off from all the blood. Either way he was rid of it. Both took a trip to the ER that night. Wound up with both stitches and rabies shots out of the deal.

----------


## Mountaintrekker

Dragonjimm,
 The pile of meat in clothes is me... the one without the skin is a cow elk.  :Big Grin:  I don't tell folks the story behind it because not too many people would believe how I managed to shoot her. Let's just say that elk was an abundance of food that was taken when it was desperately needed with probably my best shot ever with the most unlikely gun ever.  :Wink:  Not that you were asking about how I got her or anything. I'm just incredibly thankful.
 The knife is not the D2 steel model, just the standard. A real nice piece of metal though. I'd like to pick one up in the 3 1/2" to 4" size if they weren't so darned expensive!

----------


## dragonjimm

lol  :Big Grin: sorry couldnt resist... :Stick Out Tongue: 


The following is all true scouts honor...
When I was 13, I spent the summer in Savannah Georgia with my Dad, who was a superintendant on a  large  construction job in town . During the day I was generally left to run amuck around the bunkhouse of a  hunting club specializing in hawg hunts.As luck would have it the manager took a liking to me and put me to work three or four days a week. When I got there I had been told not to play around the irrigation canals because of the alligator some one had seen lurking around.I had also been told  that the 12ga single shot over the door was loaded in case i happen to need it.  A few days later I went out to feed some ducks that had been hanging around only to find the alligator sunning himself on the bank.  I managed to shoot it in the head. When the managers wife drove down a few minutes later to see what the shooting was about. I calmly told her I had shot an alligator. She thought I was lying to her till she sees that  gator laying, all 16 feet of him.
Several weeks later I was standing around with some of the guides when the manager came out of the house with a large croaker sack containing one extremely large frozen timber rattler. He was on the way to the taxidermist to have the snake mounted, and after showing it to us he put it in the back of the truck. Well about thirty minutes go by and some one noticed the bag moving seems the guy had not killed it before he put it in the freezer thinking that the cold would do it. No it just went into hibernation and when that snakes head popped up out of the bag, seven us suddenly found some where else to be. Poor guy never did get his snake mount.
I'll save the story about the guy that wanted to hunt hogs with a recurve. :Wink:

----------


## trax

> Good info, i have never prepared an animal other than fish before, i really must get around to doing it. I have seen it done on rabbits before and i remember being surprised at how easily the skin comes away from the flesh.


Know any hunters that you can go with and learn the hands-on from? That would be the best thing if you have no experience Leon. If not be extra careful when gutting, I believe there's threads in here on gutting but if not we can discuss it. Didn't Beo do one?

----------


## Beo

Yup I did one a while back on several grranimals I believe, maybe it would help him, there also in my blogs. 
Sup Trax, how ya been bro?

----------


## Rick

Does anyone know if it's possible to volunteer at a butchering plant just for the sake of learning? I know a lot of smaller meat processing plants will process deer or other large game so I just wonder if it would be some place a person could learn from.

----------


## trax

> Yup I did one a while back on several grranimals I believe, maybe it would help him, there also in my blogs. 
> Sup Trax, how ya been bro?


All good, bro, nice to see you back.

----------


## Beo

Same here, and good to be back.

----------


## dragonjimm

you could snag a part time job at a processing plant. all of them around here run 7 days a week during hunting season.  a friend of TDW did that when her husband quit paying child support. she worked 16-20 hours a week and swapped it out for meat.

----------


## Rick

Sort of off post but then again not. Oh, who am I kidding, I don't care one way or the other. 

We have a medical research company a couple of miles from here that buys pigs for the pancreas (diabetes research). The processing company will give you a half pig if you buy a half cow. The medical company buys the pig but doesn't want anything other than the pancreas so the processing plant gives it away with a beef purchase.

----------

