Polling our readers (September 2015)

The September issue (Hunting Annual) should be hitting mailboxes soon.
http://www.oodmag.com/community/imag...s/Sept2015.jpg

In this issue we ask:

Do you butcher your own game?

Always have, always will. Until I get too old then I'll ask my son do it.

The only time we used a cutter/butcher was at Hunt Camp when we had 6-8 deer on the pole that needed quick processing and it was just to much to do ourselves. One of the local lads used to do it for us for $35 ea...money well spent.

But individual hunt/kills, I have always done it myself, always considered it part of the hunt.

Why would I want to eat someones gut-shot, left overnight out, mud-field dressed, 5 days sun hung deer and pay for it?
Butchering (at least some basic cuts) is part of hunting just as much as marksmanship is in my books - and yes, both take effort

Used a reputable shop for a few years then decided to do it myself. Not real quick or do fancy cuts but there ain't no fat, grisle, or knuckles in any pieces of the meat. Pretty fussy about what I am doing and prefer to do it myself. My kids say it's the OCD.

outback

I do deer and bear myself. Moose i have done by a local guy that does only wild meat during hunting season. Need a good set up(walk in cooler...) to do moose specialy when its on the warm side,

Have done my own in the past but had ideal weather, do have the name of a local guy who has the chiller needed if weather doesn't cooperate, last thing |I'd want to do is spoil the meat.

I dont butcher my own game but I plan to after reading Steve's article.

Best issue yet, I read every article.

I only hunt birds, so yes. But it's no more difficult than cleaning fish.

I assume "Games" means big games.
We don't butcher deer and moose because one of our good friend is a butcher and does it for us, a lot easier. We drop them off and a couple of weeks later we pick up ground meat, sausage, jerky, steak, roast and so on.... If we had to buy, store and maintened the equipment and the pork, sausage case and so on, plus the time, needed to make all of that I'm not sure it would be any better or cheaper.

I butcher my own deer too.... I do it in my garage either same day or next day (depending on the time and weather)....Hang, skin, cut into manageable portions and place in a basement fridge until I have the time to debone all the meat. Before it goes in the freezer it gets trimmed, removing all fat and silver skin..... The meat portions now get packaged/wrapped tightly in a heavy layer of saran wrap, removing all air before labelling and going into freezer bags (the meat lasts a long time this way and no freezer burn).

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