Apologies in advance for the essay, I know it wasn’t the initial focus of the post, but as the conversation had evolved I thought I’d add my own perspective on the merits of suspended gralloch vs gralloch on the ground. (For what it’s worth!)
When I very first started stalking I was taught by an experienced chap of the ‘old school’ variety. His gralloching kit comprised of a folding knife and nothing else. Granted he could gralloch a deer very quickly, always on the ground, sans gloves, and he was of the attitude that ‘it’s so rare to find anything abnormal in a deer that gloves are redundant, this is how it’s been done forever and it ought to stay that way’. Fair enough, I thought, and who am I to question someone who’s been doing it forever?
After I’d reached a point where I was left on my own on these stalking outings, I ended up shooting and gralloching a buck which had TB. By this point I’d already started to question whether I could be doing things in a way that was more hygienic all round, even something as simple as wearing gloves, but this moment was the catalyst for me really deciding that there must be a more hygienic way of doing things from both a carcass handling & food hygiene point of view.
Fast forward to now, and I’m a firm believer that suspended gralloching is preferable from a hygiene perspective, and not *too* much slower than doing a full gralloch on the ground - depending on your individual circumstances, technique and kit. With that said, I tend to prefer having the luxury of time when doing a suspended gralloch, and I do tend to limit it to carcasses that are on the more manageable side, such as Roe, Muntjac and smaller Fallow. I use heavy duty wide S hooks, occasionally with the aid of a ‘Tree Hugger’ but much more often I will be able to find a sturdy enough branch to hang them on, which has the benefit of being able to walk fully around the carcass.
Obviously it comes at the cost of carrying extra kit, but I manage to condense everything I use into a 5l Swedteam backpack. This encompasses various tools that are all rolled up into a knife roll, a head torch, disposable gloves, food safe disinfectant wipes and a large freezer bag which I put dirty gloves/wipes in. It also includes a decathlon game bag which works well as a roe sack, and the weight - for me at least, is a long way from being over-encumbering.
If I have the kit with me, and the circumstances are right to do a suspended gralloch, then I will. However, if it’s at last knockings, or I’ve shot multiple animals, or have been culling beasts of the larger species, I will more likely do a green gralloch in the field and complete the rest back at the larder. I shoot between 60-80 deer a year, (a lot by some standards, and hardly anything by others), and this approach allows me the best of both worlds depending on what I’m doing. If I were only culling reds on the hill, then I’d likely have a different approach - maybe stick with taking a few pairs of gloves and a couple of knives, but my own circumstances vary enough that I like to have all options available.
OP - Your gralloch looks tidy enough from what I can see in the pictures, and you’re clearly approaching things from the right way by seeking out advice and suggestions. This will add a lot of strings to your bow as you become more experienced.
In general, if I could offer one piece of advice to a more inexperienced stalker, it would be to not get into a mindset that there is only one way to do things. When I started I thought there must be that ‘ultimate/perfect’ way of doing things every time, which I’d surely stumble across as I got more experienced, but the reality is that, over time, I’ve taken many different things from the different people I’ve stalked with, and now have a much more flexible and balanced approach that works for me. Never think you know it all, as this closes your mind to things you could learn and benefit from. Yes, there might be methods that are preferable from certain perspectives, but it isn’t always realistic to use the ‘ideal’ method.
Do what works for you, be open to advice, be selective in the bits you choose to implement into your own technique, and you’ll end up having an approach that works for you for every eventually.
5pointer.
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