Watch the Bearded Butchers on you tube. Going to try their method.

Head up,head down, or deer laying on the ground. Don't matter. Probably good reasoning behind getting those hams spread apart.

Exactly why I switched, we always hungum by the head before.

Take one :p

Find proper tree, drag to tree, hang by the back legs, no gutting, skin, remove shoulders, cut out backstraps, bone out hindquarters, and any other parts I want.....I use a self locking block and tackle...pack parts in game bags and walk them off the hill in a framed back pack....can stick 2 medium deer in it...

if no tree, then on the ground using the hide to keep the meat clean ish, lol, a couple leaves or hair is just added roughage! A warm deer peels like a banana , from dead to packed up about 25 minutes and on to the next!

Back hocks if it’s a bear or trophy cut deer/elk. Hang deer by the neck otherwise spread open to cool.

Osky

neck. Easier to break it down.

Bigger thing for many people is having the facility to do it. Many people also the meat is a by product of the hunt. They've already dumped thousands into this years hint, what's s few hundred more?

We do gutless on almost everything now unless a deer falls right by the road.
Some times we hang with the hide on, sometimes we skin if too warm out.
If taken out whole it gets hung from the back hocks, skinned down to the neck then hide and head are cut off.
Guts never go for a ride, they stay in the field.

we have always hung by the neck

then when I started cutting my own up about 22-23 years ago I would let them down from the tree , and hang them up in the garage by the rear legs because that was what I saw at other places

one year I had a bunch to do and no help so I grabbed an orchard ladder and left them hung and did them all hanging in the tree head up , worked good haven't done them any other way now in several years at deer camp

at home I have done them laying on a table and on a tarp in the front yard , because I had one and was just doing it quickly some of those were road kill so it was get the 1/4s and don't open the gut

this is exactly how i do it and it just keeps 95% of the hair most guys get on the meat off the meat super clean and super easy. almost like a skinning machine. its awesome. i dont do it any other way now. can peel a deer in 3 minutes total.

I pull all mine with my skinning machine, just switch out the gambrel for a wider one.

Same boat as Wytex. 99.9% of everything gets quartered out using the gutless method, take trimmings and back straps off the half you are working on at the time. Then everything that comes out with us is edible meat. No hauling guts and useless carcasses out. Dont even touch the guts anymore other than to reach in and pull tenders and heart.

By the legs.

I learned by being a skinner in a deer processing place.

It was easier to do it that way when a person brought one in that had been strapped to the roof of a car then driven 150 miles in freezing weather.

I now skin mine by the legs and using the golf ball method and an ATV method.

if they are gutted and hanging by the neck from the tree

I start by cutting the front legs at the knees sliding knife in then out to cut very little fur

run that up to the inside of the front legs mostly skin out the front legs

then I cut up the sternum and up the neck , I stop about an inch or two short of the rope they are hanging by
that cut turns and goes around the neck just below the rope an inch or two.
everything is slide the knife up then pull out this minimizes any fur on the meat.


then I start working the hide down the back

We hang them upside down, most of the time! We just always did it that way.

I've always hung mine by the back legs because once the hide is off it's easier to split them in half and quarter them. I use a sawzall to split them.

We hang them by the head at camp (field dressed), mainly to let them drain in the beginning. Then at home for skinning and breaking down we hang them by the hind legs.

Just the way we've always done it.

Hang from head if I golf ball skin them and then rehang from hind quarter shanks so blood drains to the head and doesn't pool in the hams.

If I knife skin, then I hang from the hind quarters to start with.

edit: I have walk-in cooler so I always let mine hang about 10 days before processing. If skinning and processing all at the same time, shortly after harvesting, I don't reckon it makes a difference which end you hang them from.

ol' dad