How do you dry your bird and deer?

[Thibodeau 0]

I was woundering how would I go about drying my own Partridge and deer skins?

Is there a technique for making the skins very supple. I dried some moose with just salt but the skin came out really white and hard. I'M going hunting next week and I want to dry Partridge skin.

[Guest]

With birds, I simply just open them up, take ALL the meat out (you'll have to cut into the wings and such) and just borax them up really heavily. If you plan to eat the birds, you may want to your cornmeal as you filet them out.

 

Onto deer hides. That's a different beast. I rarely ever do them myself now. But it's a process more then salt. If you do the salt, of course you have the rough/hard skin with fur attached. You have to do a tanning process if you want the hide subtle. If you want the exact instructions, I can get them and post them for you. It's a process of soaking them in a brine, then STRETCHING them on a rack. That's the key. You have to scrape the skin too (the underside of course, not the fur side) inbetween soakings. You have to make sure ALL meat and FAT are off the skin. If not, you may have some rotting occuring later on. I have a buddy who does taxidermy now, so I just swap him flies/jigs, etc for doing the skins for me.

 

Let me know, can post the instructions (for brine). It's not that bad, but pain having to do the rack system.

[Thibodeau 0]

I don't fillet the bird, I just put my feet on the wings and pull the feet to extract the meat.

[3wt 0]

Here is a link that may help you with the birds.

 

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/a...c/skinning.html

[MuskyOnTheFly 0]

What about rabbit? I might get one this fall and would like to make some of my own zonker strips. Thanks.

-Vandy

[3wt 0]

Lots of stuff on the Web. Here is a couple. I think I'd rather buy them than tan them myself.

 

http://members.aol.com/Ambrejem/Tanning.html

 

http://www.cahe.nmsu.edu/pubs/_l/l-103.html

[BusterWolfe 0]

QUOTE (3wt @ Oct 23 2004, 12:39 PM)

Here is a link that may help you with the birds. http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/a...c/skinning.html

3wt,

 

I use this method for mallards, teal and wood ducks. It's time-consuming, but it works great.

[Guest]

QUOTE

How do you dry your bird?

[Guest]

Let my Wife cook it

[Thibodeau 0]

Thanks for the cool web site references. that will be good for me.

[Guest]

This is the process that I use on my elk hides and deer hides.

 

elk/deer hide tanning

 

On my birds after they have been cleaned well. I borax them heavily and let them set in a ziploc bag. About a week later I take the borax off and put them back into their bag.

 

I hope this helps.

Jim

[Guest]

Yea you can't go wrong with Hubbard's method

[3wt 0]

QUOTE (SmallieHunter @ Oct 25 2004, 10:32 AM)

Yea you can't go wrong with Hubbard's method

Yes, Hubbard's method looks very interesting indeed, I'll have to try that. I can recommend Jims method for the birds. I have a couple of his skins and they are great.

[rougetrout 0]

Bird Skins should be preserved with borax as mentioned above. I usually coat with cornmeal as I am cleaning to preserve the meat. I then brush off the cornmeal and put a single coat of borax on. I then change the borax every 12-24 hours until the skin is very dry. Remeber waterfowl have glands that must be removed prior to preservation!

 

Animal skins-- deer, rabbit really anything shoud be scrapped free of meat and all layers of skin except the outer most layer of skin as soon as possible after the kill. The skin/fur should then be pickled in denatured alcohol (find at a hardware store with the solvents) for 72 hours up to 3 weeks or so if you don't have time. If you are then looking to just harden the skin you can tack to skin to a flat surface, skin side out and let it dry out... NOTE: BORAX WILL NOT KILL ALL THE PARASITES IN ANIMAL SKIN DO NOT TRY IT! you will end up 6 months or a year down the line regretting your choice and having to throw away many of your natural material because they are infested. To make skin for zonker strips you need to tan the skin. This is a fairly involved process involving breaking down the fibers of the skin and soft curing it with a tanning compound... there are many compounds available try 1 or 2 and see which you like.

 

There is also a really great book for fly fishers who wish to preserve their own skins. It is called "From Feild to Fly"

 

One last disclaimer: If you want to do this with roadkill make sure it is fresh and that you are complying with local, state, and federal laws. If you have a lisence and the animal is a game animal then usually it is okay but protected and out of season species are very often illegal to pick up.

[Wild_Willie 0]

Ok, I'm going rabbit hunting next week, and I was wondering how to go about cooking it, which way is best and what goes best with it, I usually only fish, so hunting is new to me