WING"TIPS"#7 Presoaking birds

Hello, I had a little time to put up a couple more small tips so here is the first one. I like to presoak my entire bird before skinning, I find that it has many benefits, It removes the blood clots so there is no ''feather pull'' when inverting parts, it makes skinning /center line finding easier, It lets you really inspect the quality of the bird as all the bad spots ie, pinfeathers etc become more apparent, also when the skin/feathers are wet wheeling the skin is easier and the fat/scum doesn't stick to the feathers as bad. I have been pre- soaking birds for many years with no ill-effects BUT did not like the water everywhere so I rigged up a simple hook in the ceiling with a chain and some small gauge wire which I run through the birds nostril after pulling it from the soak, It takes about 15 minutes for the water to completely drip dry and then skinning proceeds, I usually soak and hang them first thing when I get in the studio and by the time it;s dripped dry I have taken care of early morning ''stuff'' and am ready to skin,. One thing to know is I use all cast heads on my waterfowl and real skulls/beaks on my upland etc, So when I do pheasants and grouse I hang them by their feet,hanging waterfowl in this method should be done with care if using the real skulls as tearout can happen if there is any shot damage, I hang all sized birds from teal to Trumpeters with basically no tearout it's amazing to take a wet goose or whatever ,run a wire through the nostril and hang it without it tearing out. Just an idea which works well for me, Good Luck! One other thing i do with this set-up is to hang birds overnight by the wire to allow for better air circulation to thaw.

 

wigeon whacker.by hanging this way the neck can't stretch beyond the limits of the vertebrae, If you make the neck the same length as the original the neck can't really be overstretched for length anyway all you need to do is to stretch it back for added circumference.