Arizona Hunting Club & Outdoor Adventure Group

Processing the Meat and
Preparing for a Trophy Mount

Big Game Field Care Basics

1. Take pictures. Pictures are one of the most important parts of reliving your hunt. Be sure to position the animal so as to show respect to the people looking at your photos and the animal in the photos. Example: Try not to show exit wounds, excessive blood, slit throats or the tongue hanging out during picture taking.
2. Tag your animal. If it is a buck or bull place your signed tag on an antler, if it is a doe or cow, place your tag through the gambrel on the rear leg.
3. Decide whether or not you plan on mounting your animal. This will make a difference on how you will dress and skin your animal.
4. If you plan on doing a shoulder mount:
• Do not slit the throat, the animal will bleed out from the entrance and exit wounds of your bullet/broad head.
• Do not cut up the brisket too far when field dressing.
• Be sure to leave enough hide behind the front shoulder when skinning.
• Split the animal up to base of the skull on the back of the animal's neck.
• Do not salt capes or hides and do not place capes or hides in plastic bags unless you are going to freeze them right away. Keep your capes and hides cool and dry and get them to your taxidermist a.s.a.p.
5. Depending on the time of the year you will have approximately 2-4 hours to get your animal field dressed and skinned before bone sour starts to occur (see additional information on bone sour). To field dress, position your animal with the rear quarters downhill (this will help with drainage of excessive fluids once entrails have been removed). Make your initial incision and remove all internal organs, this includes the heart, lung and esophagus in the ribcage, the paunch, liver, spleen and intestines in the stomach and the colon and all contents from the pelvic cavity.
6. When possible, transport your field dressed animal whole to a designated area for skinning or hang it in a tree sufficient to carry the weight of the animal for skinning. If you are going to have a bone or cut your animal into pieces to get it out of the field, be sure to keep the inside of the hide clean as it can be used as a tarp to keep the meat or pieces clean. Once skinned or boned place meat in game bags, sheets or breathable material to keep flies and meat bees off during transportation. *Plastic does not allow air circulation thus it holds the heat inside of the meat.
7. After your animal has been skinned/boned etc., placed in breathable game bags or sheets, you are ready to transport it to your processor or home for packaging. When traveling long distances and when possible plan to travel early in the morning or late in the evening when temperatures are cooler. Be sure to have meat tightly wrapped before placing meat on a blue tarp. These tarps when weathered will leave small plastic particles all over unprotected meat. Be sure to get your meat into a cooler as soon as possible when you arrive at your destination. Fresh meat should be stored at 40º or below.

Big Game Animal Bone Sour

Bone sour is defined as having the acid taste or smell of fermentation in and around the bone.

Bone sour occurs when the entrails and hide are not removed within a certain amount of time after the animal dies. Bone sour can also occur in the heavily muscled areas of a carcass even after the animal is dressed and skinned if the heat from the animal's body is not drawn away from the bone and cooled out by natural or controlled means. Bone sour has a distinctive rancid smell and a turquoise or greenish color at or in the meat and bone.

Bone sour usually starts in the neck, front shoulders and rear quarters. Once bone sour starts it is hard to stop. Cooling the carcass will help to slow the bacterial growth but will not stop it entirely. Bone sour can and will affect the flavor, texture and quality of your game meat. Bone soured meat can be very mild and hard to detect or unmistakably rancid.

Bone sour occurs equally in early and late season hunts, and may begin as early as 2 hours after the animal dies if the entrails are not entirely removed. Once the entrails are removed, the animal should be skinned within 3-4 hours. The hotter the weather and the larger the animal, the faster bone sour will occur. Never leave your animal hang overnight with the hide on unless temperatures will be 32º or below.

Our favorite Big Game animal processors are:

• Miller's Southwest Processing