Vintage Video: Quartering a Deer Video Lecture | Hunter Education: Becoming an Expert Hunter - Hobbies

[Roy]
Okay.
Next thing we can do Mike is go ahead and
quarter this thing but since we're not going
to keep the front legs below the joints, we
can go ahead and take them off first.
And you can take them off with a knife or
with a saw.
Either one you can cut them right at the joint
and then just snap them down
and finish cutting them off with a knife.
Or you can take them off with a saw, either
way.
And generally when I quarter a deer, I start
by taking his shoulders off and then take
out the backstarps and the inside tenderloins.
And to take the shoulders off, all you is
cut right next to the rib cage, staying behind
the shoulder blade.
And you've got one fore quarter.
[Mike]
All right.
[Roy]
And then you can do the same thing.
If you'll hold him there.
[Mike]
Yes, sir.
[Roy]
Do the same thing on this side, staying right
along the rib cage.
And that's got the front quarters.
The next thing I do is take the backstraps
out.
If you'll hold him so he stays still, what
I usually do is just cut right down the backbone,
staying as close as you can so you don't lose
any meat.
And work your knife along the backbone and
cut the tender, or the backstrap off right
below the junction of the ham then as you
work that meat back with your knife blade.
This is the same thing as rib eye steaks on
a cow.
Once you get it started, it will peel out
of there.
Turn loose for me.
A ligament's holding it in there, a membrane.
Hold that a second.
Okay.
I want you to hold that one more time, get
this thing separated from this membrane so
it will come on out.
Now then, it should peel out of there.
And the
backstrap runs all the way down to right at
the base of the neck.
There you go.
[Mike]
That's a good looking piece of meat.
[Roy]
It's solid meat.
And we didn't even leave too much on the carcass.
[Mike]
Uh, uh.
[Roy]
Do the same thing on the other side.
Come right down next to the bone.
And then in front of the ham again.
For right handed people, this is probably
the hardest one to get out because it's backwards.
Once you get it peeled away from the backbone
like the other side.
Get it started down.
If you'll hold this knife a second.
[Mike]
Sure.
[Roy]
This membrane is usually what holds it in
place, makes it a little difficult to get
out until you remove that membrane, peel it
back, and then it comes out pretty easy.
And there's another one, some of the best
cuts on the deer.
The next thing we want to get out before we
get any further and that's the inside tenderloins.
I usually trim this flank meat down.
The tenderloins lay right in against the backbone
on the inside.
And you take them out basically the same way
you take out a backstrap, you just cut it
next to the backbone, staying in close so
you don't lose any meat, and they just peel
out like that.
Once you get them cleaned up.
And do the same thing on the other side.
Just keeping it close to the backbone.
There's the other one.
You want to save the ribcage and the neck
because you can take this and use it for sausage
meat or you can just cut these ribs in half
and put them on a barbecue pit and just cut
them off along the backbone and barbecue them,
and cut the neck off make a roast out of it
or boil it down.
The next thing we want to do is get ready
to take the hams off of it.
To do that we'll take the backbone off right
here and we'll do that with a saw.
There you are.
And we're left with two hams and what I normally
do is just split them right down the middle
of the backbone and you can take a cut them
off with a knife but it's a lot easier to
just go ahead and split them, the hams right
down the middle.
[Mike]
Allright.
[Roy]
Now then.
[Mike]
Set that down?
[Roy]
No, I'm going to go ahead and use it.
Now what we can do is go ahead and take one
of them off the gambel.
Go ahead.
And that one should hang there.
And we'll take the bottom part of the leg
off and again, you can do that with a knife
or a saw.
I normally use a knife.
And cut it right there at the joint.
Be sure to put you knife down on this, and
just pop down on it, and then you finish cutting
it off.
And there's one ham.
And then we'll go ahead and take this other
one down, Mike.
And if you don't want to use a knife, you
can just take a saw and cut this thing off
just below the joint.
It makes a clean cut.
One thing we want to do, we want to make sure
that the meat stays in good condition so we're
going to bag it up, put it in an ice chest
and keep cool while it's being transported.
So if you want to pick those hams up and put
them in here and another reason that we bag
it and put it in an ice chest to transport
is there's no sense offending people that
don't hunt by carrying a deer strapped across
the hood or hanging out the back end of pick-up
truck and it's not good on the meat to begin
with so we'll bag these up within an ice chest
and then we'll put the shoulders and backstraps
and the tenderloins in another bag.
[Mike]
Okay.
[Roy]
See if the backstraps will go in there.
There you are and the tenderloins.
[Mike]
Get the tenderloins.
[Roy]
Okay.
Put that in there.
One thing that you can do with the ribcage
if you want to, you can take and trim a ribcage
out to use for sausage meat.
And you just cut flat along the ribs.
There you go.
Trying to get all the meat off of it.
And you can put the trimmings in a bag and
you can trim out the neck the same way and
on the ribcage you want to be sure and cut
down between the ribs and get the meat that's
sectioned in between, there's not a lot there
but it will all make sausage and you can trim
all the ribs out like that or like I said
before you can just like take cut them in
half, cut them off the backbone and put them
on a barbecue pit but you don't want to waste
any of the meat on the ribcage because it's
good sausage making in there.
Next thing I want to do is roll up the hide,
if you're going to have a deer mounted you
want to keep the cape in good shape so you
need to roll it up and put it in a bag and
tie the bag off tightly around the base of
the antlers so the cape doesn't ruin in transport
and also there's no need to transport the
hide and the head visible in back a truck
so it's not offensive to some folks.
And you can go ahead and bag that and tie
it off.
If it were a trophy you would take this bag
and tie it tightly right around the base of
the antlers so that air couldn't get into
the bag but since this is not a trophy deer,
we're just going to go ahead and cover the
horns and all when we transport it down the
highway.
And that's all there is to it.
[Mike]
We're ready to roll.
[Roy]
All right, take this thing over to the pick-up.