Now for skinning. I used a standard carpenters razor knife with the blade only extended about 1/4 inch. This way you can apply ample pressure with out ruining the meat. A long boning kife also helps out in some cases (dont' always bother with this) Be sure to cut the skin from the inside. This way your are less likely to cut up the fur and make a mess.
I skin the ham area to the knee. the top of the back, and the shoulder/neck area. I'll remove the skin from one of the hams, one side of the back, one side of the shoulder. I'll then cut the legg off the deer, then cut throught the knee(sometimes I'll just use a hack saw.. that knee can be a pain in @ss!). I'll then cut the bone out of the ham and throw it in the cooler.
Next you take the front leg right off the animal. You NEED to take off the front leg to get to the whole backstrap anyhow, so people who don't do this...are actually wasting good tenderlion. Once I take the leg off, I get all the meat I can off of it, and the little block of meat on the side side of the neck. I dont' fight with all of the neck meat, too many veins, tendions etc... I will try to get out some.
All the shoulder neck meat is used for grinding, or possibly jerky (sliced thin) Then the backstraps.. Run the knife down the backbone. Instead of taking one long piece, cut the tenderlioin in half and take from the middle toward the tail, then from the middle to the front of the deer. I cut steaks out of it, so I don't need a whole long backstrap. If you start in the middle, its easier to cut the meat away from the ribs/backbone.
Once this is done, I'll flip the whole deer over and then skin out the hams/backstrap area, shoulder/neck area. and repeat the process.
ok, no now you have a head, neck, no legs deer carcus. You've never opened up the gut area. At this point its easy to cut open at the bellie, slide your hand up there, and pinch the sweet meat away from the inside backbone and pull it out IF YOU"VE BUTCHERED BEFORE AND KNOW WHERE IT IS, you must actually of seen where and how they are attached. They are located along the backbone at the rear leg side to about halfway up the stomache.
Keep in mind, this is all done on the bed of my pickup truck (that has a spray in bed liner) The animal is waste high so there is no bending over, no putting it up on a lift, no hanging, no trying to pull the skin off while its hanging. The only tools I uses are a standard carpenters razer knife, somtimes a boning knife (to slide up under the skin and cut outward) and while cutting the meat away I'll use the carpenters knife, or just hold a razerblade in my hand from a carpenters knife. To cut the ham knee, I usually just use the razor, but it does save time to just hack the bone off with a saw. When I'm done, I throw the razors away and use a new one next time.
Thats pretty much it. Takes me about 30 min from start to finish. I have a bucket of water near by for cleaning my hands while I work if needed. A cooler with water in it for the meat. I'll throw ice in there after I've washed any hair out of there by dumping the water a few times. Let it soak like that for 3 days or so.. changing water every day and adding ice as needed. You end up with 4 backstrap pieces which I'll cut in to one inch steaks, Two hams, which I'll debone, and seperate the 3 muscles, clean them up and use as roasts bunch of neckmeat and shoulder meat which I'll grind, you could cube some of it and stew it and finally the sweet meat tenders which i'll probley have marinated with italian dressing and hot wing sauce and have on the grill before I'm done cleaning up my tools that stuff never makes it in to the fridge Theres petes guide in a nutshell. If it's a LARGE Deer 160 + I may cut off the ribs at the backbone if there is actually any meat on them... most of the does I shoot go 120-140, so not much there, but the rest is yummy