Can You Really Skin a Deer in Under 3 Minutes?

After many years of skinning deer in the conventional way with the aide of a simple knife and brute force, I took it upon my self to find a faster, quicker and most important of all and easier way of performing this tedious task.

After investigating the commercial market place, and many hours spent surfing the web, I eventually came up with a novel and ingenious way of skinning almost any beast !

This I have now performed on sheep, muntjac, roe and fallow deer which all worked perfectly. If the animal has fur, I am convinced this system would work.

All you need to perform this miraculous skinning task is a strong fixing point to suspend the deer or animal to be skinned  from, 3 pieces of strong nylon cord or thin wire, one sharp knife and a means to pull with. This can be a car, sit on lawn mower, quad, winch and so on. 

Ideally the animal to be skinned should be chilled in a game larder or game fridge prior to skinning, or you will find that the underlying fat will be torn away when the skinning process takes place.

 
Skinning a Deer
 
  1. First the beast to been skinned should have its head and legs removed in the usual way.  
  2. The Gralloch can be performed before or after, however before is more commonly done in the field.
  3. Place the carcass on its back and carefully skin back the fur from the front legs and arm pits as shown in image 1 and pull skin towards the back. This task is more easily done if the beast has been laid out on a deer trestle. You could also skin back a section of the rib cage which also aids the whole process. With experience and time you will find your own pre-skinning technique.
  4. Now with the aid of the two shorter nooses, suspend the carcass from its front legs. See Image 2.
  5. With the beasts back facing towards you, attach the other double ended longer nooses to the loose fur you previously skinned from the front legs and arm pit. See image 3.
    You can now attach the twin noose to the fur, by placing a golf ball or a small stone inside the loose skin and securing the noose around the concealed object.
  6. Now attach the twin nooses secured to the loose pelt to a suitable pulling source, winch, car, quad etc. and pull away in a steady and controlled manner. This pulls the skin off like a sock.
  7. Eureka!  the deer is now perfectly skinned  in a matter of seconds without a knife mark.

At the moment I have decided to install an electric winch to perform the skinning process. All you need is a suitable and tall enough point, at least two and a half times the length of the beast you wish to skin, to secure the winch to.  You will also require a 13 amp domestic mains supply.

Directly underneath the winch you will need to secure a  fixing point to which you will tie the nooses that are attached to the skin of the beast. You can buy this fixing from any DIY store.

The Electric Winch you can purchase from www.coolgameuk.com along with other interesting accessories.

Happy skinning

Andrew