Veterinarian takes cautious approach to avoid bacteria
By Craig Nyhus, Lone Star Outdoor News
After taking a mule deer in West Texas, David Dutton, an equine veterinarian from Boerne, began preparing his buck to hang in the cool, arid Delaware Mountains.
Other hunters gathered around to watch his unique, at least to them, approach. “Basically, when dressing the deer out, I split it down the middle and continue up from the chest all the way through the neck to the jaw,” Dutton said. “I pull the skin back starting at the inside of the mandible, and follow down past the windpipe and esophagus to pull them all the way out from the tongue to the chest. Once I split the sternum, I pull everything out with the lungs.”
Dutton, an avid hunter who has taken his sons mule deer hunting in Utah and bear hunting in Wyoming, and also hunts whitetails in Texas, cited several reasons why he makes the extra effort.
“The areas are more susceptible to contamination since it comes out of the deer’s mouth,”he said. “The windpipe is what they use to breathe in and out.
Most people hang deer by their back legs, and there isn’t a way you can let the chest cavity really drain out. If you hang the deer by the head, it drains well, but that’s when the bacteria can move from the windpipe area to the carcass.”
The task gets tougher when caping a deer out to shoulder mount.
“It takes a lot more time then,”Dutton said. “But overall, I think it drains better and leaves everything clean — and you’re going to get less contamination.”
Dutton said he has been dressing his deer this way for decades, but learned his technique wasn’t new.
“I found an article from 1963 in Game and Fish Magazine (then the publication of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department) that had drawings of cleaning out a deer much like I do,” he said. “I wasn’t even born yet but saw the story and kept it.”
The story, titled “Now that you’ve killed it…” was written by Travis County Game Warden Grover Simpson, who became famous for citing future president Lyndon Baines Johnson for refusing to submit to a bag check while dove hunting in 1956.
The cases were dismissed the next day by a Justice of the Peace.
1 comment
As a young, novice, hunter, I had a copy of Grover Simpson’s guide “Now that you’ve killed it” that the TPWD sent me at my request. This took place sometime in the mid to late ‘60’s. While hunting with family members near Llano, TX, I was fortunate enough to kill my first whitetail. Knowing my uncle James Holt would get a kick out of it, I pinned the article by Mr. Simpson to a tree and pretended to be following the steps of how to field dress a deer when my Uncle arrived to help me with my deer. Even after all these years I can still hear my Uncle laughing and giving me a hard time about me following my instruction sheet!!
For years afterward, my Uncle reminded me about this incident!!
Thanks to you for the memories!!
Doug Twitty
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