The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid (25 page)

Hunting calls are not a new idea in hunting. Native Americans used hunting calls made of turkey wing bone at least 4,000 years ago. After joining the small bones together, they would put the bones to their mouths and suck in air, creating a sound much like a turkey.

Driving

You need a group of hunters in order to “drive” your quarry. Some of the hunters are drivers and some are posters. Drivers spread out across a field or woods and move through the area, pushing the game out of the cover. Posters take positions at the sides and end of the cover to intercept the quarry being pushed out. Good organization and familiarity with the terrain are essential in order for driving to work. Also, for safety reasons, you must always wear fluorescent orange (hunter orange) and make sure everyone involved is aware of the positions of the other drivers and posters. Never shoot in the direction of another hunter!

Flushing

When you “flush” game, you are using noise, movement, or dogs to cause the game to become nervous and leave the safety of cover. Frequent pauses in your flushing activity often confuse your quarry and encourage it to leave cover.

Taking the Shot

Of course your goal is to bring home the game you are seeking. But a responsible hunter will strive to down his game by inflicting the least amount of suffering possible. In order to achieve this goal, you need to understand the anatomy of your quarry and how to position a shot for a clean kill.

Where to Shoot

You want your shot to be the most efficient, and those shots delivered to an animal’s vital organs—the heart and lungs—are the most effective shots
for a clean kill. In large game animals, the vital organs lie in the chest cavity behind the front shoulder. For big game, the most effective shot is actually a lung shot.

The major blood vessels and arteries are also in the area of the vital organs. If you shoot an animal in this area, you will cause considerable bleeding, so if the animal doesn’t die immediately, it will be easy to track.

There are two important points to getting a clean kill: being an excellent marksman and having patience. If you can’t get a shot to the vital organs, wait until the animal presents you with a better shot.

The Proper Angle

The angle of the shot can make the difference between a clean kill, and therefore hunter success, and injuring an animal and having it escape. Part of being a responsible hunter is understanding which angles offer the most effective shots.

• Broadside:
  The broadside shot angle, in which the side of your quarry is facing you, is the preferred angle for both firearm and bow hunters for larger game animals, such as elk, deer, and bear.
  
• Quartering-Away:
  This angle describes your quarry facing away from you, but at an angle that still allows you to shoot its vital organs behind its shoulder and into the chest. This shot is fine for firearm hunters, and in most cases for bowhunters too. The exception for bowhunters would be larger game, in which massive stomachs and intestines would block a clean shot to the vital organs.
  
• Quartering-Toward:
  In this case your quarry is facing you, but at an angle. Although this often gives you a clean shot to the vital organs, the animal is looking your way and will most likely spot your movements. A shot can be taken at this angle, if the gun is already trained on the animal. Bowhunters should not take a shot at this angle.
  
• Head-On:
  This is when your quarry is facing you directly. Your quarry will detect your movements with a head-on shot angle. If your firearm is already positioned for the shot, you should aim at the center of the chest to hit the vital organs. You should note that head-on shots rarely result in a clean kill, and much of the meat is often ruined. Bowhunters should not attempt a head-on shot.
  
• Rear-End:
  This angle, in which the rear end of your quarry faces you, should never be taken by hunters using firearms or bow. Rather than risk crippling the animal and ruining the meat, you should wait for a better shot.
  

Trailing Wounded Game

If you shoot and only wound an animal, it is your responsibility to stop the hunt and search for that animal. Carefully observe every movement of your quarry after you shoot it. You should investigate the ground and trail after shooting an animal before you assume you missed. Once at the site, you should look for blood on the ground or on vegetation; broken twigs or branches; tracks, hair, meat, or bone fragments left by the animal; or downhill trails—especially toward water. You should search the area in a circular or grid pattern if you lose a trail in order to pick it up again. As you follow the trail, use fluorescent orange flagging to mark the blood trail in case weather or the lack of daylight forces you to suspend the search and take it up the next day. Remember, you should remove the orange flagging once you’ve located your quarry.

Approaching Downed Game

A wounded animal can be very dangerous. Before you approach your quarry, you want to be sure that the animal is dead. Any downed large animal should be approached carefully from above and behind the head. If the quarry appears to be dead, you should wait a short distance away and watch the chest cavity for any rise and fall. Wait for at least a few minutes. The eyes of a dead animal are usually open—try to see if the eyes are open or closed. One way to be certain an animal is dead is if the eye does not blink when touched with a stick.

If you find that your quarry is still alive, you should finish the kill with a quick shot to the base of the ear. Bowhunters should shoot an arrow into the vital organ area.

Once you have ascertained the animal is dead, you should follow the state regulations for reporting or recording a kill. Some states require you to tag the animal immediately and indicate the date of the kill.

After the Hunt

A wounded animal that is chased down yields strong-flavored meat because waste products, produced when the animal is in stress, accumulate in the flesh. So a clean kill improves the flavor of your meat. However, the way you handle your game after you harvest it can also have a significant impact on the quality and taste of the meat.

Field Care

Part of your preparation for hunting is to have a well-stocked game care kit. This kit is what you will use to dress out your kill in the field. The reason you need to dress your kill immediately is to prevent the growth of bacteria, which is the cause of spoiled meat. Bacteria grow in the presence of heat, moisture, and dirt. When you field dress, you cool the game by removing the entrails, which lowers the body heat by allowing air into the body cavity.

Your game care kit should include the following:

• Hatchet
  
• Small saw
  
• Knife and sharpening stone
  
• Game bags
  
• License tag
  
• Nylon rope (at least 25 feet)
  
• Black pepper to repel insects
  
• Cheesecloth bags for organs you plan to use as meat (heart, liver)
  
• Cooler and ice
  
• Disposable plastic gloves
  
• Fluorescent orange flagging
  
• Foil
  
• Gambrel and pulley system
  
• Hand towels
  
• Large bag for caped or trophy head
  
• Plastic bags for cleanup
  
• Salt (noniodized) for hide care
  

Field Dressing Larger Game and Transporting Game

Large animals, like deer and moose, have to be bled out. Shots to the head, neck, and spine don’t allow enough bleeding, and shots to the chest or abdomen will probably cause internal bleeding into the animal’s body cavities. You should cut the throat as soon as you can get to a downed animal. If you are a novice hunter, the easiest way to do this is to make a side-to-side cut at the base of the neck. More experienced hunters might prefer a breastbone-to-upward cut. Position the animal so the head is in a downhill position, so as much blood as possible can drain from the animal.

In many cases, especially with larger animals, you may have to skin and quarter the game in order to pack it out to your waiting vehicle. The most ideal situation is to be able to hang your quarry from its back legs from a substantial tree limb. If that’s not possible, lay the animal on its back with it’s hind legs spread.

Remember to do everything you can to keep dirt off the meat. You can use the inside of the removed hide as a protective mat as you quarter the animal.

Using a very sharp knife, you should cut the skin in a straight line from the lower end of the breastbone down to the anus. Cut with the blade of the knife inserted into the skin and facing up. This will help you avoid cutting into internal organs, like the intestines. To be sure that you don’t cut into the intestines, once the opening is large enough to get your other hand inside, hold the intestines away from the edge of the blade.

If your animal is female, with milk-filled mammary glands, cut around those and continue cutting to the rectum, but not into it. Then you can lift and cut away the mammary portion.

Cut around each side of the sexual organ of a male and around each side of the rectum. Because you don’t want anything to spill from either of these openings, be careful not to cut into either. If you do have some spillage, the contaminated meat will have to be cut away and disposed of. Tie off the rectum, so no contents can escape.

With the first cut complete, you will now have to cut around the edge of the muscular diaphragm, which separates the abdominal cavity from the chest cavity, to get to the lungs and heart. The windpipe and the gullet are in the front of the lungs; you need to carefully cut those in order to be able to pull the heart and lungs out of the chest cavity.

When you have freed the contents of the chest and abdominal cavities, turn the animal on its side. Split the pelvic bone by inserting your knife blade into the seam between the two halves of the pelvis, tapping on the end of the handle and prying downward. You should then carefully roll out all the intestines, bladder, and genital organs. Then wipe away any blood. Slit the muscles that hold the gullet and windpipe and pull them out.

To minimize a meat’s wild flavor, hunt early in the season or kill a female. The meat of the male larger game animals becomes stronger in taste as the mating season advances.

There are some organs that are edible and you will want to save them. You should cut the heart free from the membrane pouch. If you want to save the liver, you need to cut the gallbladder from it. In order to do this without cutting into the gallbladder, you will have to throw away part of the liver. Once it’s removed, you can remove both the liver and the kidneys. Put the organ meats in a clean, waterproof bag.

It’s important to keep the dressed game cool and free of insects by covering it in breathable game bags or cheesecloth in the field. With a quartered animal, you can pack the meat in ice chests, in game bags, or by leaving the animal’s hide on and cutting hand-holds in it to carry the meat . See the next chapter for detailed information about quartering your game. You don’t want to process the meat beyond quartering until you are home or until you reach a butcher. You should be sure to keep proper “evidence of sex,” because this is often required by state game laws.

CHAPTER 15
Processing Your Own Meat

Whether you have harvested wild meat or raised your own, the next step is learning how to properly process your meat. How do you skin a deer or dress a rabbit or a squirrel? How do you process a pig, chicken, or beef? How do you get rid of a “gamey” taste to your meat? What’s the best way to freeze, can, or dry the meat? This next chapter will walk you through all of these questions and more.

Skinning Large Game

The most basic thing you should remember about skinning large game is that you want to get the hide off without getting dirt and hair on the meat. If the animal has horns, you may want to skin the animal while it hangs from its antlers, which is the method many hunters prefer. However, if there are no horns, it’s easier to tie a bar or pole to the back legs, just above the lowest joint between the tendon and leg bone, and hang the animal from a tree using the bar. Be sure you choose a strong enough branch or beam to hold the weight of the animal.

You can also skin large game on the ground. In this case, you will skin one side and then roll the animal over to the other side. In this case, you need to have extra help in order to move the animal, and plenty of space for maneuvering. If you decide to skin your animal on the ground, it’s best to use a clean ground cover or tarp underneath the animal in order to keep the meat clean.

A sharp knife and either a sharpener or second knife are essential tools for proper skinning. A “skinning knife” has a curved blade that makes it easier to maneuver your blade around the contours of the animal, but any sharp knife will do. Skinning any large game takes the edge off a blade in a short amount of time. If you skin with a dull blade, you will be putting a lot of extra effort into the process. To help preserve the sharpness of the blade tip, try to use the full blade length as you skin.