Photo courtesy of Steve Sorensen Field photos and blood don’t mix well. For bloodless field photos, take them before you field dress your deer.

It was an October morning a decade or so ago when a local deer processor interrupted my breakfast at the village diner and said, “Come rifle season, stop in my shop. I want to show you how many people don’t know how to field dress their deer.”

“What?” I asked, “Ten percent? Twenty percent?”

“A lot more than that,” he replied. “Maybe only 10 or 20 percent know how.”

When I stopped at his shop on a Saturday two months later, the conversation continued and, sure enough, hunters were dropping off deer that weren’t properly gutted.

This guy didn’t clean out the pelvic channel. That guy left the kidneys in. Another guy failed to take out anything in front of the diaphragm. Remnants of intestines remained in a couple of the deer. One guy stripped out the tenderloins. (Horrors!) Some body cavities even had leaves and dirt inside them.

The butcher was working diligently to keep up and said, “Tell that guy. … Tell that guy. … Tell that guy. …” I wasn’t going to tell anyone anything. I knew a couple as longtime hunters, and I wasn’t about to tell them how to do this basic task.

I’m not sure why the butcher thought I knew how to field dress a deer, but maybe he knew my dad, the guy I learned from. I remember Dad’s story about taking a friend of his hunting. Keith shot a deer and went to find Dad.

Dad told Keith to drag it out and he’d meet him at the car. “I didn’t gut it.” Dad said to go ahead and do that. “I don’t know how.” At least Keith was honest about it. (Some hunters are touchy about what they don’t know.) So, Dad field dressed the deer for him.

Later, Keith took it to a well-known butcher. The butcher asked, “Did you field dress this deer?” “No. Roger Sorensen did it.” Keith answered.

The butcher said, “He does a nice job. I hardly ever see a deer as clean as this.”

Dad was a good teacher and, for a long time, I assumed that if I knew how to gut a deer, everybody knew. My assumption turned out to be wrong.

Many hunters might do a passable job, but don’t know how to do a good job. Why not? Maybe because it’s not the most pleasant job. It’s bloody. It takes a certain finesse so you don’t puncture organs or get bodily fluids where they shouldn’t be.

Some hunters haven’t had many opportunities to develop this skill. Others are impatient. Some don’t understand deer anatomy well enough. Others assume the butcher will take care of what they don’t know.

Once in a while a hunter takes his deer to the butcher without even attempting to field dress it. I’m sure every deer butcher has his own stories about the ineptness of hunters at gutting their deer.

So, I have two bits of advice. First, “google” this important but overlooked skill. A knife company once asked me to write an article about how to field dress a deer. At first, I was reluctant because I thought everyone knew. Apparently, everyone doesn’t know because it became the most read article on the company’s website. You’ll also find lots of instructional videos online.

Second, get a knife made from quality steel and put a shaving-sharp edge on it. If you don’t know how to sharpen a knife, it’s time to learn. If you can’t develop a knack for sharpening, get a knife with a replaceable blade. I use a Havalon, which has a scalpel blade. Since I discovered Havalon knives I’ve learned that most doctors who hunt use scalpel blades to field dress their deer.

Learning to hunt is a never-ending quest, and post-mortem work is part of the hunt. After the shot, it’s the first step to high quality venison for the table. That’s why field dressing is part of the hunt, and doing a good job is essential.

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When “The Everyday Hunter” isn’t hunting, he’s thinking about hunting, talking about hunting, dreaming about hunting, writing about hunting, or wishing he were hunting. If you want to tell Steve exactly where your favorite hunting spot is, contact him through his website, www.EverydayHunter.com. He writes for top outdoor magazines, and won the 2015, 2018 and 2023 national “Pinnacle Award” for outdoor writing.