Wolf Wilds › Hunting

Photo Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0

Field dressing

Getting the animal opened, cooled and clean before the meat turns.

What you need

How

  1. Tag it the way the licence says before you touch anything else.
  2. Get it onto its back or its side on a slope, head uphill.
  3. Open the belly from the breastbone to the pelvis with the edge turned up and two fingers riding ahead of the blade so you do not cut the paunch.
  4. Reach up, free the windpipe, cut it, and pull the whole works down and out away from you.
  5. Split the pelvis if you want the back end, and take the bladder and bowel out whole.
  6. Prop the cavity open with a stick, get the carcass off the ground, and let the air at it.
  7. Bag it, hang it in the shade, keep the flies off it.

Watch for

Danger
  • A cut paunch or bladder taints meat fast. Slow right down at the pelvis.
  • A warm carcass left in a pile spoils from the inside out in a few hours.
  • Blood and gut on your hands and forearms belongs in a wash bucket, not on the gear and not on the truck seat.

Notes

Cool, clean and dry is the whole job. The pack out is usually longer than the shot, so work out how the meat comes off the country before you pull the trigger.

mooseguttingmeat care

Updated 2026-09-04

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