Hunting is one of the few primitive activities still enjoyed by many modern humans and it is different for everyone. Some hunters head out into the woods and blast a trophy bull elk at 300 yards, remove the head for a mount and go home satisfied. Others have a heavy emotional experience of killing a beautiful animal so that they may live in a healthy, environmentally sustainable way. Who can say which practice is better? I say the latter. Here are some ideas for using more of your animal if you, like me, want to honor the beast by getting as much as you can from its death.
A beautiful 2 year old cow elk. In this animal lies hundreds of pounds of the healthiest meat you can’t buy at a store, nutritious fat for cooking, bone broth to boost the immune system, a hide for tanning, sinew for crafts and glue, and many other possibilities that are only limited by time and desires.
Cuts of meat. I skinned and de-boned this elk in the field. It saved a lot of time on the butchering and a lot of weight hauling out. Those long strips of meat in the bottom of the picture are the tenderloins covered in sinew. All muscle groups contain sinew but these strips are the longest and easiest to process.
A freezer full of meat is a great feeling. The meat can be ground up into burgers and breakfast sausage, cut for stews and steaks, or marinated and dried into jerky.
Here is what the sinew looks like after being dried and pulled apart. This is the strongest natural fiber in the world and was used by primitive people for sewing, bow strings, floss, gluing to the backs of bows to make them shoot faster, and probably many uses I’ve never heard of. I’ll use this sinew to back my bighorn horn bow. I saved the short scrappy pieces and put them in that jar to make the highest quality natural glue – also for the horn bow.
Just believe me when I tell you that bone broth is worth your time. If you aren’t including it as part of your diet then take a few minutes to research the benefits to the immune system, joints and ligaments, tooth enamel etc. There are a few things that every person on earth consumed for thousands of years, for good reason, that has since been forgotten. Bone broth is one of them. Also organ meats and animal fat. I like to roast the bones for half an hour to improve flavor then add veggies.
Add onions, celery, parsley and whatever else strikes your fancy then let simmer for 48 hours.
Strain, jar and freeze. Use glass jars – not plastic like me. Use the broth for stews or drink it straight when you are feeling sick.
You can cut any and all fatty bits off of your animal and render it to make high quality lard. Just put the chunks in a pot on top of a cast iron pan (this helps avoid burning) and simmer for several hours. You can speed up the process by cutting the fat into smaller pieces.
Straining out the dried up meat bits.
You’ll know when you’ve gotten out all the fat. The pieces will turn into dried up little cracklin’s.
That’s all for now. Stay tuned for hide tanning, other primitive crafts and winter tracking in beautiful Wyoming.
Natural Skills 
How did you harvest your elk? Was it with a bow, and if so, would you take a pic of it and your arrows?
Took the bow out early but switched to rifle later on. Hopefully next year I’ll have better success with the bow.
Hey Connor! I’m going deer hunting for my first time probably in early November. I would like to use as much of the animal as possible, because I do take taking a life very seriously, and I would like to do it only with the utmost appreciation. Do you have any tips for using more than just the meat and what you listed here? Any good books or web links?
Also, again, since this is my first time hunting, what do you think about taking it to a deer processing place? I would obviously field dress it myself, but I don’t know where to cut the meat to make steaks, jerky, and what not. Would you recommend I take it to a processory and learn from the folks there where to cut everything, or do you think learning how to do it myself is a better idea? Also, just any other good hunting tips, hunting practices, or any other helpful information is very appreciated! I’ll be hunting with a gun, just FYI.
All good medicine 🙂
Evan
Hey Evan good luck on your hunt. The main thing is just putting in lots of time. Get out there and start sneaking around before the sun comes up and put in lots of days… you’ll learn a ton just by trial and error from being out there. Wind direction is huge.
Matt Richards’ Deerskins to Buckskins is a great book and dvd. His website is braintan.com – also full of good info for tanning. I’d recommend butchering yourself. The only tricky part is not puncturing the bladder when your skinning… you can find youtube videos to help with that. Watch for a fresh roadkill rabbit or squirrel and practice skinning and butchering if you can before you get a deer. You really can just go for it and figure it out as you go. A processing place will waste a lot more meat than you will. It’ll take you several hours of work the first time so plan for that. Maybe even 6 hours or so. Just take the skin off being really careful not to score the hide with your knife and then cut the meat off the bones. Cut the meat into good sizes and wash it, wrap it in freezer paper and throw it in the freezer. Go get ’em dude!
Hey thanks man! Really helpful! I actually have that book, lol. I’ve been scouting around and have a few ideas where I wanna stake out, but I need to come to a final decision. Thanks dude, VERY helpful!