Field Dressing Game: Pheasant Breast Only

Description

Dressing a Pheasant in the field for the breast only.

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Video Transcription

[Applause]

hi there guys I thought I'd do a video today field dressing at phezzan although I've covered the subject before in a previous video that video really explored dressing the whole bird I did ask a number of questions on how to deep brush the bird in easy way in there's a lot of easy ways of deep resting birds but today we're gonna explore one of those methods I've got a lovely male pheasant here and this isn't one I shot because they're out of season there's actually one I hid in Jeep coming back from work and I wasn't gonna leave it there for the next guy as the rule of thumb goes because you're honest with you no one really picks them up anymore well very few people do anyway and I thought I'd take it home and have it for dinner on the walk up here I've strapped a few plants to the side of my pack I've got some apple mint which is great for sensing the hands after you prep game I'm also some hedge windwalk which is in the same family the mint family that it's actually a very powerful antiseptic and anti-inflammatory so it's very good for the cleaning the hands alongside some water

I also do have some burdock leaf as well which is great for keeping things off the ground once you've got the meat off the bird you don't want to just put it on dirt for example first of all I like to inspect the quality of the game this one's been hanging for about a day and I generally don't hang birds after I've shot them I dress them straight away in the field and let mother nature take care of the remains because obviously they don't go to waste but if we look at this one here rigor mortis has worn off now and it's loosened right up you can see the wings are intact they're not broken they're absolutely fine we inspect the chest plate their brass plate you can see it's completely intact with no damage obviously this was roadkill that I hit so I kind of got to see the impacts but if he didn't sometimes is worth inspecting them because they can be completely mashed inside and that is something you need to bear in mind before you dress them we just look at the legs there you can see some skins been torn off the leg where it's obviously hit the floor after the point of impact but overall it looks like it's in good condition I've got my large burdock leaves on standby here simply because it's very hot at this time of year the Flies are everywhere around here as soon as I've got the meat I want off the bird I'm gonna wrap them up for safekeeping to make sure the Flies don't get to them you can always use the guts to strike them but also lay some bark down just to keep things a bit sturdy on foot you can see if we lay the pheasant out here you can see the damage to that leg there it does feel a tiny bit broken got some concerns about that using this method but we'll see how we go you basically go on a stand on the wing and tuck your feet right up just like that so if you can see there I'm just keeping my back nice and straight just pulling up with my legs like this you know not not like that you know just using the power of your lower back really just to pull just start to pull so don't pull like this lean the legs forward a little bit sort of start pulling vertically it should all come out just like that and we'll put that to one side gives it heart and liver off and get left behind we just need to grab those there and there are parts of those we can eat as we explored in the other video and we got all the neck there you can just pull the head and it should all just come out just like that so you got the head just there and the neck again you can eat the neck as well as we explored in the other video so we can just pull the skin off and you'll see the crop just there all the seed in and you just want to take the crop and free it up and obviously throw that too on the side now we're sort of left with a heart shape you've got the brass there and it's completely hollow with no guts and you've got the wings just there as well so obviously we want to remove the wings the flies are moving in pretty fast so you generally have to work quite quickly on these hot humid days in the summer and your dressing game it can be a bit annoying unless you burn a bracket funghi and have a smoky fire gang to fend them off but you can spend some time jointing the wings off I gently just take my knife and a baton just take straight through the wing like that I'll do the other one as well you can just stretch them out and tuck in again there is a bit of meat on the wing as we explored in the other video you can use that if you wish and you've got some feathers there as well to cover things up with if you need to so we should just be left with the brass now it'll be a few feathers on there and a little bit of skin and a bit of fat as well you can keep and you can just literally tidy this up don't worry too much about all the feathers this can be cleaned up in a river very quickly although it is good to keep pheasant dry once you've taken the skin off so yeah this can be wrapped up now and popped away now the Flies can't get to it I've covered the remainder with the feathers from the wing just because the flies have a bit of a hard time getting through it but there's plenty of other things we could have used off that pheasant as we explored in the other video here we've got the back end with the two big back legs on and sometimes the back end is described as not being worth it and not having enough meat on well it is true that there are some very thick tendons in the legs and pheasants can run very fast and they're very strong but it is worth it and there is plenty of meat on there worth taking you can see their repeal all this skin back and try and ignore the deer in the background calling out there's a huge amount of meat just the really nice bit of me it's often just thrown aside and wasted and it's a perfect bit of meat I'm going to take that home as well so strip the birds down and take them what I can but obviously my hands are a bit dirty and I want to do a bit of cleaning now so I'm gonna take me out of also that I picked earlier which is a bit of Apple mint and some hedge wings wart and we can talk about these herbs and in later videos I'm just going to separate them out because this is the hedge we want the one that looks a little bit like a stinging nettle just like this and the Apple mint is mainly just make them smell good afterwards you want to take the leaves off and this is the one that's an antiseptic anti-inflammatory

and they've got the leaves just here you can crush those leaves up it really has a strong smell take a bit of water put it in the hand there we've got the bottle up

just keep adding little bits of water like that they should just start to quite abrasive but very good for cleaning hands you just want to make sure you bruise those leaves up a bit first an even more efficient way of doing it it's faster than water you can make a very good solution like that and even simmer them slightly on fire and really get a good solution together and you can use that as a mouthwash as well but your hands will not smell a pheasant or game after you do this trust me I'll smell horrible and that should be them nice and clean mildly disinfected and take the mint don't worry about taking the leaves off if you need the stems on same deal just clean yourself up and obviously like you know good to move your fingers while you do open up those cracks and crevices and any cuts you might have well that's unfortunate how many cuts

it's my lovely smile just like mint now they're nice and clean you can continue working and you know your hands will just dry it quite naturally so I hope that video helped out when it comes to the brass thing as I say there's a great method if you want a deep breath spasm and various of the wildfowl though some of the smaller birds turn to rupture a little if you try that but you know if you are going to use the whole bird i'd probably advise checking out the other video which is a lot simpler if you're out in the field you want to keep the internals you want in the bird and stick roast it and just keep things a little bit neater but thanks again for watching guys and I hope you enjoyed the vid and I'll hopefully see you in the next one