GET THE HIDE OFF QUICKLY … OR NOT?

A big, mature buck walked out of the trees and offered a broadside shot. My muzzleloader belched gray smoke, sending a bullet into the deer’s vitals. With fresh snow falling, it was easy to track the red spore to my prized animal. But frigid temperatures meant I needed to get the deer back to a controlled environment to prevent it from freezing. After taking a couple of photos, I field dressed the buck and made the quick trip home to skin it.

Skinning a freshly harvested deer is much easier when it is still warm. The fat on a healthy whitetail is still viscous and releases from the hide with ease. Anyone who has skinned a deer the day after it was harvested knows how the fat firms up and holds the hide in place on the carcass. There is a significant amount of knife work required to skin a deer that has cooled with the hide on, whereas you can pull a lot