Mathewsboy

When you shoot a deer and you say its 225lbs.. Is that field dressed or is that live weight?

Up here in michigan when I say I shot a 195 lb deer that is field dressed and several hours old already... so you could add 40 lbs or so on to that for the live weight..

I met someone the other day from Arkansas and we were talking deer hunting and he was giving me weights and I ask him, is that field dressed or live.. He said LIVE..

I was amused. He said everyone down south way measures weights of deer in LIVE weight.. He thot it was funny we did it field dressed..

So , which way do you do it?

mammasboy

I don't know of anyone around here that doesn't weigh them after they are dressed. No way I'm dragging any more than I have to.

Mathewsboy

Well, I'm assuming they estimate live weight.. and they say the live weight to make the deer sound bigger or something..

Geez if we did that, we'd be saying 230 240 250 260

He was saying 170 180

farm hunter

Dressed Weight in NY -

No-one ever even talks about live weight.

Pro-Line

Dressed.

I'll tell you one thing...When you ACTUALLY weigh deer on a good scale, it is a humbling event. Where I work (a vocational school) we have a meat processing lab. They cut up deer for Hunters for the Hungry. They do over 100/year. There are some big deer brought in. I have yet to see somebody UNDER-guess the weight of a deer. They had a BIG 11 point in last year. Everybody was saying 225-250. It weighed 170. Big deer, but it takes a freakin hog to go 200 dressed.

When we bought a new scale at our camp, everybody was really excited. Now, nobody wants to weigh their deer anymore. LOL

jerseyhunter

If they're talking live weight, How did they get the deer to stand on the scale?

Dressed here, usually casual but formal is ok.

DaveH

Dressed--but not with clothes!

I've never been able to say 225lbs--there's only been one taken around here in the last 10 years or so that weighed that . . . dressed of course.

extreme1

Dressed here also.
I shot my 13 pointer last year and he officially dressed out at 198 lbs on one scale and 199 on another.
The biggest dressed buck i have personally seen was 268lbs,and that was on certified scales.The biggest on record in my area is 305 lbs.But then of course the average mature buck will go 180 plus around here

thundermug

On public land in Florida it is a requirement to have the biologist weigh the deer and remove the jawbone(for an age and health analisys). They want the live weight and not dressed. But, then again we are sorta lucky...130 pounds live weight is a big deer on public land.

And yes, y'all are right people do overestimate. I've seen people crowded around the scale for an 8 point and people were saying 130-140, but it was only 116. If you are curious...no I got pretty close I said 115. after the scale stopped moving the biologist pointed at me and grinned, and asked me why my guess was different from the other guys and I told him I used to hunt in Georgia, years ago and I've seen deer on the scale that were 140.

davidmil

BEing from NY I also consider it a field dressed weight. There are those that do it live weight. I've gotten pretty good a figuring dressed weight. Usually within 5 pounds plus or minus. When they start to get bigger is where I get off. I got in a big peeing contested with a fellow on another site one time. He said the deer in the picture was X... and I said, NO WAY. Absolutely no way did it weight that much. Then it happened again. Finally found out this guy from Indiana was doing live weight.