Don’t Field Dress that Elk

  You have just killed an elk in the bottom of a deep canyon. It will have to be packed out. Now the work begins. Time to remove a hundred or more pounds of stuff that you are not going to eat. Right? Well, not so fast. We propose a way to get the meat with less mess. If the edible stuff is on the outside why go after it by starting from the inside?

Here is how to do it.

  Lay the elk on its side and skin the hide from the exposed side of the elk and let it lay on the ground.  This gives you a clean working cloth to lay meat as you remove it. Now remove all the edible meat off the exposed shoulder and the hindquarter.  Do not quarter the elk.  Just cut the meat away.  You don't want to pack out the bones do you?  Place the meat in game bags in the shade to cool. If you want the liver and ribs, you can make a small incision behind the diaphragm and remove the liver. The ribs can then be removed along with the tenderloin that runs along the inside of the backbone farther back. Now simply roll over the elk and repeat the process.  A good hand with a knife can perform this process in about one hour.  When your done, you'll have a couple hundred pounds of meat bagged are ready to pack out.  Now all you have to do is fold up the hide and your ready to go. 

Robert Willis

Team AZOD