Some gear to make dressing easier

Varminting and vertebrate pest control. Small game, hunting feral goats, foxes, dogs, cats, rabbits etc.

Some gear to make dressing easier

Post by Wapiti » 19 Jan 2026, 7:50 pm

Hopefully bringing some hunting stuff back to the forum, I thought I'd share a few things that really make getting your useable meat cuts back to camp or the farmhouse for boning out.
These two bits of very simple kit make stuff real easy and cut the time down as well as the unnecessary stuff you have to get rid of back at home, where we bone out the cuts.
Those of you brin ging meat home for the family can just pack the meat in your camp fridge on-the-bone, to cut up as you wish back home, inside, without the buzzing of blowies who'll just love to aerial-bomb your meat with eggs from above.

We always gut the animals, because the tenderloins are inside the rib cavity and are not to be missed! Sure the backstraps and rumps can be cut without gutting the animal but then the tenderloins are wasted.
I use a winch on a steel frame on the back of a SxS, to lift the animals to a good working height, and use stainless hooks to keep the legs apart to get inside the chest cavity after the gutting's done.
Remove those incredible tenderloins and put them in ham bags in a plastic tub, skin out if taking all the rest of the shoulders for mince, sausages etc, then up to the backstraps, then skin out one leg.
Then use the Fiskars cutters to chop off the feet at the end of the leg meat, then remove the leg. Repeat on the other leg then the boned out body falls off.
The Estwing "Hunters Axe" is great to use as a gut hook, and you can use the blade to cut any bones if you don't have cutters, especially if you are on foot.
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Regards G,
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Re: Some gear to make dressing easier

Post by Jon79 » 31 Jan 2026, 6:33 pm

I use this hoist, slides in to the tow bar mount and top half also swivels
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Re: Some gear to make dressing easier

Post by Wapiti » 31 Jan 2026, 7:07 pm

Great stuff mate, I do the same on the back of a SxS we run around with mostly.
I even bought an electric winch for it, and all the heavy wiring you need but the good 'ol hand winch, like you have, works bloody brilliantly enough.
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AKA Dr. Doolittle
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Re: Some gear to make dressing easier

Post by Fester » 01 Feb 2026, 2:42 pm

The luxuries of private property hunting eh, SxSs and any gear needed.
I did it once, where you just walk up a hill from the house to a feed field.
Shoot a meaty, and get the owner to cart it to hang in his little butchering shed.

Being more used to public land forest hunting on foot, I only shot the 1 deer and a few roos.
Tried for a goat and heard one, still hunting, but sure was easy hunting.

I take a recipro saw in the ute but never actually dragged a deer back to the car, my body is old.
I just use a small sharp folder and the neat zipper blade gutting knife.
I do take a spare folder in the day pack for Justin.

I butcher the legs down to cuts on the tail-gate with those bigger boning knives, vac-pack and into the esky with frozen water bottles.
It cools slowly until I get home and just chuck it in the fridge for wet aging.
I have never had that warm meat butchering and snap chilling problem when it goes tough, quite the opposite when I select the young Fallow.
If I just get the rear wheels and backstraps, so be it, done a few loads and 2 trips to get heads and skins on occasion but with long waits between drinks, a meaty is my trophy.
I have a mature head in the garage and unlikely to upgrade with more hunters pressuring the local forests close to Sydney and the future looking more like windfarms than hunting.
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Re: Some gear to make dressing easier

Post by Wapiti » 02 Feb 2026, 9:43 am

Yeah I reckon whether you're on foot, or getting around in a buggy, it's best to hang the animal and take the large cuts you want.
Yeah, there are blokes who will want to spend more time bringing the whole animal (minus guts, leave them for other animals to get a feed) and take every bit of red meat for sausages, dog meat, suit your own needs.

I used to use a folding Fiskars saw to cut off the unneeded heavy stuff, big bones and feet, which is the way I do it on foot.
But when you're driving around in a SxS doing other jobs, it's easier and faster to use the cutters, and less messy.
The saws have carbon steel blades and if other things come up to distract, as they do on a farm, they don't take too kindly to not being cleaned and oiled.

If you do the major cuts before coming back to more a comfortable, shady spot with a bench to save the old back, a heap of cotton ham bags or those nifty ones Ridgeline sells online keep the blowy eggs off. Keep an eye out for the twice-yearly online Ridgeline specials, subscribe to the OSA site and you'll get them very cheaply.
Pays to always have a few as a walking hunter, they weigh nothing.

Meat is a luxury to too many people nowadays with the unnecessary cost-of-living pressures the voters have been rewarded with, and that's a terrible thing. Red meat is the backbone of a healthy human body and mind. So if you can get it for free whilst going for a mentally relaxing walking hunt with a rifle, make the most of it.
Regards G,
AKA Dr. Doolittle
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Re: Some gear to make dressing easier

Post by Die Judicii » 02 Feb 2026, 9:22 pm

That post about hanging a carcass on the towbar mounted mast (Jon79) is similar to what I've got on my rig.

Excepting mine is just a short piece of RHS that folds out the side of the ute from the top of my dog box.
When folded down and not being used it just lays flat across the top of the dog box and isnt even visible from the ground.
So much so that I usually forget that its there,, but handy if and when I want to use it.

But prior to making the fold out RHS,,, I just used to string them up underneath the shooting bench for pics.
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I do not fear death itself... Only its inopportune timing!
And,,,,It's been proven,,,,, the most trustworthy females in my entire life were all canines.
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Re: Some gear to make dressing easier

Post by Wapiti » 02 Feb 2026, 9:34 pm

Unreal pattern on that dog's neck, mate.
Thanks for taking the effort to post up a few pics.
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