Pheasdress

Best Dressed Pheasant
by A. Duhl Blade

In response to several readers questions generated last month on a couple of the email lists regarding field dressing a pheasant (or other game bird) once you get it to hand, I put this article together, along with the help of a couple of assistants who were kind enough to pose for the pictures.

Please note that for the purposes of this article, we used a large roasting chicken from the grocery store for the demonstration. The Game and Parks folks get a bit testy if you go out and shoot a pheasant in August around here, whether it’s for educational purposes or not. In actual application this method, as taught to me by guys that kill hundreds of birds in South Dakota every year, works great from start to finsish on an unplucked, ungutted pheasant, complete with head and feet. I like this method because you start with a whole bird and end up with just the edible parts in one pile and the unedible parts in another and your hands and knife never need to touch the guts of the bird. Some of you may want to perform this task outdoors out of concern for the potential mess it may make. This method is a clean way to dress your bird and can easily be done indoors but if you must do it outside make sure you are using a clean dry spot, under an umbrella if raining. If you do not have any shade you may want to work underneath the shade of an outdoor umbrella as well. Once you have your spot you will be ready to start the process. The pheasant must be dead to start with, however, and that is the toughest part of this whole deal. Believe me, the rest is easy no matter how you choose to skin this cat.

So, assuming we have actually hit a bird and the dog found it and actually left it where we could find it this time, let’s begin;