Moose gutless or conventional method?

[AKDoc]

We always harvest the heart, which is excellent eating, and we harvest the liver for brunswagger (liver sausage), which is one of my favorites...especially during March Madness and basketball games with cheese and beer!

I grew-up on a farm in the Midwest, and we ate cow tongue. I remember great sandwiches. That said, I've never harvested a moose tongue. Kind of stupid that I haven't because their tongue is about a half-mile long!

 

[rayporter]

i would go gutless if possible.

hunting bud and i each killed and elk in 84. done a beautiful job of skinning and gutting it only to cut it into pieces to haul out.

the following year there were a lot of questions and thought in getting out 2 more. we cut off legs with hide on and peeled the hide back to get to backstraps and neck. it was a few years before we learned that was the gutless method. usually i get the heart out last. i dont really know why i have never got the tongue as we had it as kids and was good. many a buffalo was killed just for the tongue.

i hated liver as a kid and now know why. it was not fresh. after fresh elk liver on the mountain i was a convert.

 

[mcseal2]

We did it the gutless method. We did not have any trouble sawing off the ribs with 2 of us to do it. I lifted on them while Dean sawed and held back the guts. He did say he wished we had a good folding saw instead of the bigger size Wyoming saw after. He said it would have been easier cutting without the frame.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Even after doing a very good gutless butchering job I walk away realizing there are edible things I could still recover. They are not legally required however.

Heart, kidneys and liver.
Tongue
Side/belly
Caul fat

A true subsistence hunter who believed in using every possible thing would probably bag up another 60 pounds of edible stuff after I'm done cutting.

this 100% where I live there are people who really want lots of the stuff I wouldn't normally eat so I take it all for them, also the unit I do most of my moose hunting in requires you to leave the meat on the bone while in the field.

 

[AK_Skeeter]

Moose heart is huge...if you do not like heart, grind it with the burger or sausage pile...

 

[miloak]

I thought gutless was the convention method.
I only go inside at the end for t-loins and any organ meat I want to salvage.

 

[Kevin Dill]

For what it's worth, I promised my body I would not eat any more organ meat many years ago. I've kept that promise, too. The cleanup crew gets those things after I get my majority share of the animal.

Looking back over the many years and the moose I've been involved in butchering, I can't really think of any which would have been helped by gutting the animal first. I just don't see an advantage, unless there's some extenuating circumstance making it advisable.

With gutless technique I can do 100% of the work and never get any blood above my wrists. I manage to keep my pants and clothing blood-free which aids in my social acceptability upon returning to town.

 

[VernAK]

For what it's worth, I promised my body I would not eat any more organ meat many years ago. I've kept that promise, too. The cleanup crew gets those things after I get my majority share of the animal.

Looking back over the many years and the moose I've been involved in butchering, I can't really think of any which would have been helped by gutting the animal first. I just don't see an advantage, unless there's some extenuating circumstance making it advisable.

With gutless technique I can do 100% of the work and never get any blood above my wrists. I manage to keep my pants and clothing blood-free which aids in my social acceptability upon returning to town.

And you don't have to walk and kneel in guts while completing the butchering.

 

[AK_Skeeter]

For what it's worth, I promised my body I would not eat any more organ meat many years ago. I've kept that promise, too. The cleanup crew gets those things after I get my majority share of the animal.

Looking back over the many years and the moose I've been involved in butchering, I can't really think of any which would have been helped by gutting the animal first. I just don't see an advantage, unless there's some extenuating circumstance making it advisable.

With gutless technique I can do 100% of the work and never get any blood above my wrists. I manage to keep my pants and clothing blood-free which aids in my social acceptability upon returning to town.

Heart and tongue are muscle, not organs. If you don't like, you could simply add to your grind pile....

 

[Kobuk]

We do the gutless method as well. It sure is sad to read how some hunters knowingly leave edible meat behind. Kind of makes me sick and seems disrespectfull. There is one area that we seem to have a little struggle and someone else touched on it and it is sawing off the ribs while the guts are in place. We also use the wyoming saw and I do like it but that frame is what jams us up. Those that use the silky folding saw, do you think if you ground the first inch or so of teeth smooth and rounded that it would keep from poking into the ponch? Just an idea that I was thinking about trying. I didn't have much luck trying the hatchet. Probably me but it seemed like I had a lot of shards of bone and I usually didn't want to pack it into the field. Same for the wyoming saw, I would leave it in the wheeler so when we shoot a moose we would break it down except for the ribs and when we hiked back in to pack it out we would cut the ribs off.

 

[HuntHarder]

I always wondered why Alaska has different rules on how to salvage meat in different units. Seems whatever law they decide is ethically correct in one unit, should also apply to all other units. Is there a reason for the different rules for different units?

 

[Mike Islander]

I found that the best way to access the tenderloins without risk of nicking any bowels is to cut the spine between the last two ribs (before the floating ribs) and then peal it back to expose the tenderloins. For some that might be more trouble than it's worth but I've had great success and my silky saw chews through the spine with no problems.

Here's a video I found depicting the removal process:

Great video and pro tip. Many thanks.

 

[Kevin Dill]

Heart and tongue are muscle, not organs. If you don't like, you could simply add to your grind pile....

Yes...both are indeed muscles though different from the normal skeletal muscles we all love to eat. In any event....those items and others aren't on my desirables list and the state has no worries about recovering them.

 

[Kobuk]

I always wondered why Alaska has different rules on how to salvage meat in different units. Seems whatever law they decide is ethically correct in one unit, should also apply to all other units. Is there a reason for the different rules for different units?

I’m not sure how they come up with some of their rules. The leaving meat naturally attached to bone has to do with waste. It seems that the units that have the no bone out rules also have a federal subsistence hunt in that same area so that might be why. On large game I can’t understand why people wouldn’t harvest the ribs because there is a lot of meat there. That is one of my favorite meals! I wish it was that way everywhere. If the quarters are too heavy or too far to pack out with that much weight you are allowed to cut the quarter down, just have to keep it on the bone. I’ll be the first to admit that those moose seem to get heavier every year! Haha. On the same note, I feel blessed every year and have tons of respect for the animals I harvest and no respect for people that purposely waste.

 

[miloak]

I always wondered why Alaska has different rules on how to salvage meat in different units. Seems whatever law they decide is ethically correct in one unit, should also apply to all other units. Is there a reason for the different rules for different units?

That is a very loaded question. Enjoy.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[HuntHarder]

That is a very loaded question. Enjoy.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Care to explain?

 

[miloak]

Care to explain?

Would rather lick a door knob in a Beijing airport restroom.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[Kevin Dill]

I always wondered why Alaska has different rules on how to salvage meat in different units. Seems whatever law they decide is ethically correct in one unit, should also apply to all other units. Is there a reason for the different rules for different units?

I'm 100% sure the state has good reasons for the different salvage regs in various units. Because I don't work within enforcement or ADFG I'd be doing nothing more than guessing or hypothesizing at those exact reasons. I'd be doubtful about ethics being the reasons....and more about practical considerations, whatever they might be.

 

[VernAK]

Care to explain?

The door knob would be the easy way out on this one....gotta agree!

Alaska has local community elected Fish and Game Advisory Committees [there are 81 ACs] that advise the Board Of Game [BOG appointed by Governor] on F&G situations in their area and what regulations need to be added or changed. Input from biologists enter into that decision process.

Some ACs may be motivated by animosity toward non-local hunters/fishers encroaching upon their traditional hunting/fishing areas therefore lobbying BOG for regulations to make hunting/fishing more difficult for outsiders.


That's my PC at its best!

 

[HuntHarder]

Thanks guys. I never knew about the 81 Ac's. Makes a little more sense now. I remember when I was there, the unit I was hunting, the meat had to be on the bone and ribs removed with meat attached. A few of the rear Moose quarters were 120lbs hanging in camp. I got to thinking, that would be one hell of a packout over the tussocks. In talking with the outfitters elder parents, they basically said they do not Moose hunt for themselves because of the laws in removing meat from the bones. The only ones they will shoot are small and right next to the road or river or access for their plane.