Field Dressing a Sitka Black-Tailed deer on Kodiak

This morning I got up at 4AM to hunt deer. The weather forecast is for rain tomorrow so I figured a quick surgical strike was in order. A dawn patrol so to speak. Good thing I did too because it is already raining, and I got a deer.

I love hiking up to the high country before dawn. Walking through the dark spruce forest with all the marbled murrelets whistling overhead as they fly from their nests to the sea. The birds are on their way to catch fish to feed their families. I was hiking through their nesting country to find a deer to bring back to feed my family.

Once I got to the high country I got a deer pretty quickly. I made a time lapse video of me butchering the deer that I hope to use in a video about where our family gets its food. I assumed that Zoya would think it gross, and I was VERY surprised that she actually liked it. She even helped me make a quicktime movie that we posted to youtube and that you can watch here. It is a 1 min 44 second condensed lapse video of a 45 minute process.

Zoya here....Patrick was going to title the video "Butchering a Black-Tail" and I quickly talked him out of it. I thought of the various facebook friends who may be even SLIGHTLY interested in watching the process and this title would have turned them completely away. There is something more "classy" about calling it "Field-Dressing". A title says a thousand words...

That said-INSERT DISCLAIMER--The video is graphic.


Patrick