Gamebags and skinning small game

[Linc]

I haven't seen any mention and was wondering who uses a gamebag to carry the smallgame that they shoot? What do you use for a gamebag and if you made it yourself is it an open weave fabric to aid in the cooling of game? Or is it more or less leakproof so you don't get blood seeping out?

Also the next question is what is your preffered method of skinning of various critters?

Thank you for any and all info. :hatsoff:

 

[BrownBear]

I tried bags and they're fine for birds including pheasant, quail and ptarmigan, but kinda sukky for ducks and snowshoe hare. Ducks and snowshoes are too big and bulky, and snowshoes bleed a whole lot. Haven't tried them with squirrel, but I'm guessing they'd be okay. I hang snowshoe and ducks from loops.

All rabbits I snap the leg bone just above the feet and cut off, then twist the head till the neck pop. Make a small cut in the middle of the back and pull the two halves apart. Done. Takes about 15 seconds, a consideration with 15-20-30 snowshoes in a pile.

 

[david50]

i use a game carrier for squirrels or rabbits,just hook them though the foot.

 

[Supercracker]

Make a small cut in the middle of the back and pull the two halves apart. Done. Takes about 15 seconds, a consideration with 15-20-30 snowshoes in a pile.

Do you have a trick for not getting the hair all over the meat? I do rabbits the same way but I always end up with a bunch of hair to wash off.

 

[BrownBear]

My biggest trick is to save the gutting till all the rabbits are skinned. I get a little hair on the ends of the legs and around the tail when picking off any bits of hide that don't come free, but they're mostly clean otherwise.

 

[jethro224]

No game bag for me either. I just tie a slip knot in the end of a leather string and put it around a foot on the first critter. Additional critters just get a granny knot a couple inches higher up the string. Sometimes I might tie it to my belt, other times I just wrap it around my hand and carry it that way. I can drop it easy if I need to shoot.

Skinning rabbits works best for me the same way Brownbear does it. With squirrels I like the step-on-the-tail-and-pull-'em-out method. Just make two cuts, one down the back of each hind leg to the base of the tail, work the hide loose around the legs, cut the tail free from the body but leave attached to the hide, stand on the tail and pull on the hind legs.

 

[George]

I've used a game bag for several years and find it very useful. I made it of burlap with a fairly loose weave, and it easily washes mostly clean if I do it right after the hunt. I never take more than 2-3 rabbits or squirrels, so it doesn't have to be very big. I wouldn't want to do without it.

I skin rabbits just as BrownBear described. For squirrels I use the "step on the tail" method, which works like a charm.

Spence

 

[Skylinewatcher]

I gut and skin my squirrels right after they hit the ground. I then hang them in a tree with bankline to cool. Pick them up on the way out. Usually bag a few more getting the the cleaned ones. I tote them back to the house in a new garbage bag. If I'm away from the house I put the cooled ones in a gallon ziplock, then into a small cooler I have in the back of the truck for the ride home.

 

[BrownBear]

One insight is worth adding to the discussion. I made a fowler bag with loops for hanging game, but what a PITA in the field when the hunting is good. You end up with all the weight on one side as the dangling game does it's best to tangle your legs in rough country.

A separate game bag on the side opposite your shooting bag or hanging from a line on your belt in your hand is a great improvement.

I wish I was home for photos rather on the road, but I came up with kind of a neat deal that works well. I made a rig that slides onto my belt more or less like a sheath, with half a dozen loops hanging below that. At 5-8# each, half a dozen snowshoe hare will do their best to put your pants down around your ankles on a good day, but it's fine as-is for a couple or so. Not willing to quit with such a small haul, I added a D-ring to the top of the rig, and I can snap a shoulder strap into that to help bear the weight as the load mounts. Kind of like the shoulder strap traditionally worn with a Sam Browne belt long ago.

 

[Stumpkiller]

I use a canvas haversack - much like Spence's but it has three buttons - lined with an old towel. I rinse out the towel after a hunt.

Always handy to have a towel.

Pick a good spot near a creek and start your fire.

For skinning I put a 1" slit just ahead of the tail. Twist my finger in to open an air-space between the meat and hide, then hook two fingers on each side of the slit and pull. Then I work the upper half off like a seater, slicing the head and fore feet off with the skin still inverted over then, and do the rear feet and tail the same way at the other end. I confess to carrying a HD pair of game shears for the feet, tail and head. Makes it fast & easy. Then I slit the belly and pull out the guts, lungs and heart. Ready for the spit.

Now, stop at the stream, rinse off your hands, and fill your boiling pot and set it on a stick over the fire. Trim a green sapling with a point on one end and a couple "Y" sticks and run the sapling through the squirrel. Use a couple sticks from the sapling to hold the legs back against the sapling to keep them from burning before the thighs are done. Set the spitted squirrel across the "Y" sticks and torn every minute or so.

When the water boils put a 1/4 cup of rice in a cup and pour the boiling water in and cover (you can set it on a flat rock beside the fire - and that towel makes a GREAT hot mitt). Put a teaspoon of gunpowder tea in a bamboo strainer and pour the rest of the water through it into a cup or mug and then allow it to steep a couple minutes - don't forget to turn the squirrel.

After a couple minutes add any flavorings you're lucky enough to have to the rice: parched corn, dried beef, jerkey, dried cherries or a slice of None Such Mincemeat (PC Pemmician - as in "Price Chopper". Be sure to use the dry variety). Let it sit a minute or two to reconstitute and the flavors be absorbed by the rice.

Now sit back and have a feast. And top it all off with a pipe full o' tabac for desert. Oh, and sit on that folded up towel from up top to keep your caboose dry. :grin:

By the way - this has been my squirrel hunting routine since THE ADMIRAL decided we had arrived at well enough off and it was no longer necessary for me to bring home squirrels for food. :haha:

 

[Linc]

They are all good ideas. Up till now I haven't done any serious smallgame hunting so I never had to think much on it. If I had a good hunt it was one squirrel and I would just carry it by the tail. LOL. It's been so long I can't even remember how I skinned the last squirrel I had gotten. :redface:

I have a smoked buckskin haversack that I had thought of using but I like the idea of a canvas bag better. Save the haversack for carrying food and such.

Stumpkiller, My better half won't even touch squirrel so I can do what ever I want as long as she doesn't have to cook it or eat it.
:grin:

 

[longcruise]

I gut and skin my squirrels right after they hit the ground. I then hang them in a tree with bankline to cool. Pick them up on the way out.

That's what I do too. Several times I've returned to find my skinned animal gone. :shocked2: Once when there was fresh snow and it was plain that a weasel had come along and helped himself. :haha:

 

[Little Wattsy]

Anything clean, breathable, and that will keep the flies off will work... What do you see yourself using/making? :wink:

 

[Linc]

I have some cotton duck, drill and pillow ticking. None of which I would say is very breathable. So I think a trip to the fabric store is in the near future. But if it came to making with what I have on hand it would be the pillow ticking since it is a lighter weight fabric than the other two materials.

 

[kbuck]

My game bag is made of camo cotton fabric (12 x 15 inches). I've had squirrels and ducks make a bloody mess of the bag and me. Maybe a blood-proof liner on the side next to my clothes is in order.

 

[Vtsmoker]

I use a haversack I got at Fort Ti. and a small trash bag as a liner. works great.

 

[juancho]

For squirrels I have a long cord tied in a big loop that I carry in around my shoulder.As I get some I tie them with a slip knot every inch or so.
Before that I just pick up a sapling ,sharpen one end and skewer the back legs thru the tendons.Easy enough to drop to shoot and as they cool down the fleas drop/jump to the ground.My daily limit is 5 so is not too heavy,and as far as I remember I got my limit only once.Most times I get one or two.

 

[Kapow]

Just out of interest, what does a snoeshoe hare taste like? Is it a dark meat like the European hare (which we have here & call them "trophy rabbits"!) or are they more of a white chicken-like meat like the common rabbit. Sounds like there is no shortage of them and I'm guessing easy to track?

Rabbits were introduced here by first settlers and spread like wild fire. During the great depression (last century, not the one we're in now :grin: ) they were so prolific that they kept Australia fed and many people in employment trapping catching and shooting them. An average haul would be something like 200 - 300 pair each night. They were commonly called underground mutton.

Dad tells me they used to go out with a flashlight and a stick and get a heap. I thought he was full if it until I saw footage of 'the great rabbit plague'. Unbelievable. They actually built a rabbit proof fence across the country to stop their spread. Waste of time.

Eventually they brought in a mosquito born virus that near wiped them out.

That was a bit of a diversion, sorry if I bored anyone. I cut a hole in one hind leg between tendon and bone and feed the leg of the second rabbit through it then hang them over my knife handle or similar. They don't go anywhere.

The cleanest way I know of to skin one is to make a slit across the back skin then pull apart until you reach the ankles and head and cut away. No fur on meat at all. Got there in the end...

 

[Skylinewatcher]

Didn't bore me, I enjoyed it. From what pictures and literature I have seen I figure Australia would be a rabbit heaven. Just about the whole continent is perfect for them.

 

[BrownBear]

Just out of interest, what does a snoeshoe hare taste like? Is it a dark meat like the European hare (which we have here & call them "trophy rabbits"!) or are they more of a white chicken-like meat like the common rabbit. Sounds like there is no shortage of them and I'm guessing easy to track?.

That's pretty close to right on the money. It reminds me of the thigh meat on a chicken or turkey and is just as sweet. Big ones can be tough like large jackrabbits, but a little more moist. The youngsters are as tender as the cottontails I grew up on or a young jack.

As for tracking, that only sorta works. They spend their nights romping in specific areas and leave lotsa tracks, but sneak out of there to day lairs leaving a minimum of tracks. "Tracking" means finding a solo set and following it away from the concentration, then slow stalking the area where the track runs out.