less than perfect shot

[GlisGlis]

I've no hunting experience so excuse me if my answer is noobish.
I've seen various videos on game dressing and meat preservation but they're allways on game hit in the lungs/heart area.
I'm sure that there are many cases in witch the lower organs are pierced.
is the meat still usable in those cases? how do you proceed with dressing?
Any link on that topic will be wellcome. I've searched but I could have missed the right words.
thankyou in advance

[Pappy]

Sure it is,just field dress as normal [little messier/stinker ] then rinse the body cavity out  really good and move on just like any other. 
   Pappy

[lostarrow]

Just like Pappy said. Likely have to cut out  the tainted stuff around the wound that you won't be able to get cleaned out.

[GlisGlis]

thankyou both for the quick reply.

[PEARL DRUMS]

One more tip, hang them head up so they drain at will, unless its being processed right away. Hanging them back legs up can store all kinds of nasty in the chest cavity and neck area and create oppressive stink.

[lostarrow]

Do you split the chest and wedge it open, Pearly?

[Prarie Bowyer]

Do you split the chest and wedge it open, Pearly?

I do but we eat everything but organs.  I do eat the heart (which is awesome), but not the liver.  I eat the tongue also which is again awesome.  I used to have a butcher give me a bag of tongues..  getting hungry.

I run my belly cut all the way up so I can do a Colombian neck tie kind of thing and take it out.  Then you get the the wind pipe to the anus out in one piece.  Dump the pooled blood, paper towel clean the cavity and put the heart in a plastic baggie and off you go.  I leave the gut pile for critters.

[JW_Halverson]

There is no way conceivable possibility where I would leave the heart behind.  As far as I am concerned, this is the very best cut of all.

I would recommend that you carry as much water with you as you can stand.  Even a couple 20 oz bottles will make a difference if you have to wash out a body cavity.  By getting the body on a steep slope or even hung up allows it to drain better.  Use handfuls of dry grass to mop up and wipe out.  Open your water bottle and put your thumb over the neck of the bottle and you can squirt the water in a controlled stream and in small bursts.  Dump out the small amounts of water that gather in the cavity often.  Ration the water and splash it where it will do the most good.  The sooner you get to where a hose can finish the job, the better.

Sometimes I keep a 5 gallon bucket of water in the Jeep on hunting trips.  The lid has a small hole with a 1/4 inch brass hosebarb and 6' of cheap tubing.  A second hole has a 1/4 inch machine thread bolt you can remove it to avoid vapor lock.   I can set the bucket on it's side on top of the Jeep and get pretty good pressure for washing up.  I used to have the hose barb screwed into the side of the bucket down low, but I kept knocking them off and getting water everywhere!

[lostarrow]

Do you split the chest and wedge it open, Pearly?

I do but we eat everything but organs.  I do eat the heart (which is awesome), but not the liver.  I eat the tongue also which is again awesome.  I used to have a butcher give me a bag of tongues..  getting hungry.

I run my belly cut all the way up so I can do a Colombian neck tie kind of thing and take it out.  Then you get the the wind pipe to the anus out in one piece.  Dump the pooled blood, paper towel clean the cavity and put the heart in a plastic baggie and off you go.  I leave the gut pile for critters.

I eat the tongue as well. I meant while it hangs, to wedge open the chest. We would always let it hang for a few days before butchering. We would hang it by the hind legs but the chest was always split and wedged open (usually with a block of firewood, as the big oak tree was near the wood shed) to let everything cool . This would be a regional variation of course ,as it was always cold weather in moose and deer season.