Customer Reviews

Field Dressing and Butchering Big Game: Step-by-Step Instructions, from Field to Table

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This book covers various aspects of game processing for a variety of animals. It is aimed at keeping your trophy clean for the taxidermist rather than for quality meat care for food.

As a hunter for 25 years in Idaho, and Montana who eats what he kills, this book isn't for me. It doesn't cover any proper handling techniques beyond getting the elk out of the field. It breezes over the proper aging of meat, and neglects the benefits of leaving the carcass intact with hide on for aging. The author is from Missouri, where heat and humidity take their toll on an animal, and the book is geared for that. He seems to want to rip the animal into many pieces before you even get back home, exposing way to many muscle groups to air and bacteria that then need to be trimmed away.

The book is ok for an overview but very light on specifics. Almost no pictures just some very basic drawings. I bought it for a 12 year old boy who has never killed a deer. He now knows about as much as he did when he got the book. Very poor if it is being used to actually gut and skin a deer.

My other books on butchering are lacking in field dressing information. This author is very thorough. The only complaints are the instructions for butchering elk, deer, caribou, etc. are essentially the same, so it gets repetitive. Also more ilustrations would have been nice. This book provided the information I was after.