The MeatEater

October is here, and so is another episode of Rut Fresh Radio! This week, Flint Koch (Kansas), Clay Mervar (North Carolina), Josh Teulker (Indiana), and Connor Lokar (New Hampshire) join the show to break down what deer activity looks like across their regions. From early October movement to changing conditions, you’ll hear fresh reports straight from hunters on the ground. Plus, we’ve got two big buck stories you won’t want to miss.

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On this episode of the Bear Grease Render, host Clay Newcomb goes live from the 2025 World Champion Squirrel Cook-Off. He’s joined by event organizer Joe Wilson, “The World’s Greatest Small Game Hunter” Kevin Murphy, social media cooking sensation Audrey Dresselle (@cooking_with_cajun), Brent Reaves, and Josh “Landbridge” Spielmaker. Together, they dive into the festivities of the Cook-Off, swap small game hunting stories, and share their favorite squirrel dishes from the competition.

If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [email protected]

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Processing your own meat is one of the most rewarding parts of hunting. Sure, it saves you money, but more than that, it gives you peace of mind knowing you're getting your own deer back and that only your hands have touched the meat. I also like having control over how everything’s portioned and packaged, so when it’s time to cook, I’ve got options. One area that’s really worth learning is the hindquarter. It contains the bulk of the meat on an animal and offers a variety of versatile cuts. Here’s a detailed guide to the subprimal muscles, and the best ways to cook each one.

Before we look at each muscle, let’s take care of the outer surface. After field dressing, it might be dry from hanging, which leaves a bit of a dry rind. It might also have a little hair or debris. Instead of washing it, I find it easiest (and frankly more sanitary) to wipe it down with a paper towel and then trim a thin outer layer that may have dried tissue, waxy fat, dirty silverskin, or the rind using a sharp boning knife. Cleaning up the outside will also make it much easier to see the natural seams between muscle groups during the next step.

Once the hindquarter is cleaned, begin separating the major muscle groups shown in the image below by following the natural seams. These seams are made up of connective tissue and act like roadmaps. You can use your hands to naturally pull most of it apart to preserve the quality and structure of each cut without hacking through the meat. At this point, you just want to separate the muscles so you know what you’re working with.

After the muscles are separated, you’ll be able to identify seven main cuts: top sirloin, tri-tip, sirloin tip, bottom round, top round, eye of round, and shank. Each cut has different characteristics and cooking applications. Let’s go through each.

This is the muscle at the top of the hindquarter that connects to the hips. When quartering, it can be easy to accidentally leave a chunk of it on the carcass if you’re not careful, especially if you disconnect the femur from the inside of the leg instead of following it up and over to the hip.

This flat, square-ish-shaped muscle isn’t quite as tender as other cuts, and it does have a lot of connective tissue woven through it. I’ve had this prepared as a steak after being aged for several weeks, and it was delicious, but most of the time I use it for stew meat or grind it into burger or sausage.

If you’re not familiar with the tri-tip, then you may have heard of the Santa Maria roast – a popular style of grilling. It’s the little triangular piece of meat that sits on top of the sirloin tip. It has a thin (but very strong) layer of silverskin that wraps around the outside. On larger-bodied animals, you can trim this off, marinate, and grill it for a phenomenal steak. You can do the same on smaller animals, like antelope or does, but you won’t be left with much meat after. In these cases, you can save yourself the extra effort and add this to the grind pile or make stew.

The sirloin tip is the big football muscle located in what would be considered the quadriceps of the leg. It’s technically comprised of three different muscles joined into one, and it wraps around the femur. After removing this muscle from the bone, I trim the silverskin only on the outside top surface and leave the silverskin running through the center.

I like to cut the sirloin tip into thick steaks. It’s also an amazing roast to slow-cook in the oven at a low temperature for a rosy red, prime rib-like dish with au jus.

This hidden gem is a cylindrical muscle tucked towards the bottom of the hindquarter. Although it looks like a tenderloin, it’s not quite as tender, but with the right preparation, it can be excellent. An older deer or a buck might yield a tougher piece of meat and is better suited to making stew or grinding. A younger deer or a doe is great pan-roasted or reverse-seared. Because this muscle is free from any connective tissue running through the center, it’s a great candidate for jerky.

This is the largest muscle on the hindquarter and the least tender aside from the shank. There is a thick band of silverskin that runs along one side that needs to be trimmed, as well as the thin layer that encases the whole muscle. Once removed, you’re left with the “flat” (the long rectangular piece) and a small triangular piece on the side.

If you have the knife skills (and time) you can cut the flat against the grain (crosswise) at a 45-degree angle into thin strips. These can then be pounded out into thin cutlets for chicken-fried steak or stir-fry.

Alternatively, you can also reverse this muscle for stew meat, sausage, or plain ground meat with 20% fat added. If you’re unsure of what you want to do with it at the time of processing, you can always leave it whole and decide later.

The top round is a rectangular-shaped muscle found on the inside of the hindquarter. This is easily my favorite cut of meat on a big game animal. It is a thick, tender muscle with a long grain line. You can cut it into steaks or cook it whole as a roast. If you decide on the latter, don’t treat it like a pot roast! Use low heat on the oven or smoker and pull it at 130°F for medium-rare.

While the top round is the main subprimal, it’s worth noting two other pieces of meat: the cap and pectineus. When trimming the outer rind or silverskin, you may have come across a thin flap of muscle and fat on the inside of the leg covering the top round.

This is called the gracilis cap. A beef gracilis cap could be up to 4 pounds and is best cooked similarly to a skirt steak. If you have an elk or moose, this is worth saving, but there’s not much to work with on smaller hooved species like a whitetail doe or pronghorn.

Attached to the side of the main subprimal round muscle is the pectineus, the small, cone-shaped muscle. I like to separate it because its odd shape makes for uneven cooking. This muscle is very tender, and you can cut it up into rounds for small steaks, cube it for kebabs, or save for tartare.

Last but certainly not least, we have the shank. This is the calf of the animal, and because this muscle works extensively, it is very tough! However, all that silverskin is made up of collagen which turns to gelatin when slowly cooked, adding succulence to any dish. The shank is best prepared by cutting it crosswise into 1-2” pieces for osso buco, or keeping them whole and slowly braising in the oven until the meat falls apart.

You might have heard there’s a hidden gland inside the hindquarter that, if punctured, will ruin and taint your meat! This is actually a lymph node, and unlike the gallbladder of a bird, puncturing it will not squirt disgusting fluid all over your meat.

This lymph node is found inside a pocket of fat, sandwiched between the top round and the bottom round. Lymph nodes do filter toxins and waste from the body, so I don’t advise eating it. If you do accidentally cut through it, you can just wipe your blade clean and carry on with your processing.

Lymph nodes are also used for chronic wasting disease (CWD) sampling because the prions tend to concentrate there as well as in the brainstem. So, if you take the time to safely remove it, and live in an area where CWD is prevalent, check in with your state game agency to see how you can submit the node for testing.

When it comes to freezing and storing your cuts, vacuum sealing is the best way to prevent freezer burn and preserve flavor. Be sure to label every package with the cut and date, and consider portioning the meat based on how you typically cook. For example, if you usually prepare one-pound meals, avoid freezing a whole four-pound roast. If you're slicing steaks, it’s helpful to freeze them individually or in small stacks with parchment paper between each piece.

Learning to break down a venison hindquarter at home is a skill that pays off season after season. Not only does it give you high-quality cuts tailored to your cooking needs, but it also deepens your connection to the animal and the process. With a little practice and the right technique, you’ll be turning whole hindquarters into beautifully packaged, meal-ready cuts with confidence.

I have never had more trail cameras out in any given season than I do this year. It’s weird. While they are all out on private land, my season is split up pretty evenly between hunting those parcels and setting out on public where I have zero digital intel going.

The difference between planning a private land rut hunt where I’ve had nine cell cameras going since July, and walking into some tract of public land in Wisconsin or North Dakota totally blind, is stark. It’s also a good reminder of how much of an asset cameras can be, but also how we can use them wrong. This was no more evident to me than during the first couple days of the season in my home state of Minnesota.

I have permission to hunt a 25-acre piece of dirt in the suburbs where I live. On it, the landowner runs a handful of cell cameras. One of them overlooks a lone apple tree at the far corner of the property. It’s an early-season deer magnet, and that means a couple of things.

The first is that it’ll show a lot of bachelor group activity in the days leading up to the mid-September opener. The second is that it’ll talk to the landowner into sitting that tree, regardless of conditions.

That happened this year, and on his first sit, a young buck came in and the shot did not work out well. The deer didn’t care, and they kept showing up on camera, so he texted me that he was going to hunt again. I checked the wind, and realized that it would be blowing right from the blind, to the tree, to beyond the tree into the woodlot where most of the bucks approach the tree from.

I mentioned that, and he said he’d consider it. I had my suspicions that the siren song would be too strong, and I was right. He sat there anyway, and the results were predictable. When you have an active camera, it’s a lot of fun. It’s also dangerous, because all of those pictures show up when you’re not there. When you are there, everything changes. Don’t let a trail camera talk you into sitting during the wrong conditions, because you could erase the value of all that intel in one ill-fated morning or evening.

This mistake can break the other way, as well.

A far more common mistake hunters make is deciding that their trail cameras haven’t shown them enough deer activity to prove that not hunting is the best move. This drives me absolutely nuts, even though it’s extremely common.

Now, if you have 10 acres to hunt and your go-to strategy is to sit over a feeder, then by all means, trust your camera. In about every other situation, be careful. A dead camera might mean a lot of nocturnal movement and not much to work with during shooting hours, or it just might mean things have changed slightly.

If you’ve ever seen a really hot oak tree, or maybe a persimmon tree, you know what I mean. One ridge, or a single tree could come on, and soak up the activity on a camera for a week or two. Sometimes more.

Don’t look for an excuse not to hunt. Trail cameras can absolutely be that excuse, and they only become more persuasive if we pair slow activity with some kind of weather condition we feel will put the deer down. Instead of calling it on a hunt because you’re not getting the pics you want, ask yourself where they might be moving instead.

Consider it a challenge to overcome, and not a problem that can be solved by staying home to rake the yard and watch a football game.

We all know how exciting it is to get a daytime picture of a stud buck. But a one-off event isn’t much more than an intriguing, yet small, piece of the puzzle. Two images in a week might be enough to get you to set an early alarm, or you might think it’s just not quite enough to warrant a sit.

The truth is, we often look for perfect when good enough should do it. Most bucks aren’t going to walk the same trail every day, in daylight, any more than they’ll hit the same field corner over and over for days at a time. Deer are patternable, they just often aren’t that patternable. This only gets more true as October winds down and November comes rolling in.

If a buck shows up in daylight, that might be good enough to start putting some effort into him. Don’t think about it solely as him walking in front of one of your cameras at whatever time of day it is, think about why he’s there. How he got there, and where he might have been going. This way, you won’t view that intel solely through the lens of the spot where your camera is at, which might not be ideal to hunt for whatever reason.

Maybe he showed up on your camera in one spot, because he likely walked through past one of your stands where you don’t have a camera. What can you surmise from a single image that might mean you don’t need to wait for another to convince yourself to go after him? Or, maybe it’s nothing more than a reason to sneak in and scout a little for fresh sign somewhere near the camera’s location.

Whatever it is, consider a daylight picture of a good one a gift. Then figure out how to use it to the best of your abilities, before it becomes old news.

Whitetail hunters love to argue about which state holds the biggest and baddest bucks. But which one is really the best?

Well, a lot of what makes hunting ground “the best” depends on your personal preferences. Do you like big bucks, and you cannot lie? Maybe you just like to hunt around fewer people. Or maybe you like to feel like a kid in a candy shop, surrounded by opportunities for deer of all ages. Do you prefer to travel or are you more of a homebody? Maybe you like to manage a food plot and be able to set up trail cams.

There is no real definitive answer for the best whitetail state, so we asked the crew what their favorites are. And ultimately, we want you to determine which state will be crowned the Best Whitetail State by voting below. Did your favorite whitetail state not get included? Sound off in the comments!

We’re on the second round! Jake’s pick of Iowa beat out Spencer’s pick of Kentucky with a close 57%. Janis’ choice, Wisconsin, smoked Steve’s choice, Alaska, with a whopping 97% of the votes (to the great surprise of all the dedicated whitetailers of Alaska). Who will come out on top in this round? That’s up to you to decide.

“My favorite whitetail state is Wisconsin. It's got the hardcore deer culture of Michigan AND big bucks. It's also where I own deer hunting land, which I love to manage the habitat on. My connection to that 40 acres is stronger than ever. I can smell it just thinking about it. And although I grew up hunting Michigan and Wisconsin, Wisconsin is where we had our real deer camp. A deer camp is a special thing; I wouldn't be who I am today without that camp.” - Janis Putelis

Deer Population Estimate: 1.6 Million

“This list wouldn’t be complete without Iowa. There’s a long line to draw an archery tag (anywhere from 3-6 years, depending on the zone), and for good reason. Strict regulations protect the resource, and the line just keeps getting longer. If you love bowhunting whitetails and having an opportunity of a mature whitetail—Iowa is the top of the list for me.” - Jake Hofer

Deer Population Estimate: 445,000

(Harvest data via the National Deer Association’s 2024 Deer Report.)

Note: Votes will not be counted from the comment section, so please use the voting box below to select your favorite state and ensure it advances to the next bracket!

On this week’s episode, Mark Kenyon and Jake Hofer break down why stand access can make or break your hunt. You can have the perfect setup and the right wind, but if your entry or exit is wrong, the hunt is over before it even starts. Presented by RAM and Can-Am.

This week, Tony talks about some overlooked ways to develop confidence in ourselves as deer hunters, and how that can be the key to killing more big bucks.

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This week Reid and Dan host award winning artist and songwriter, HARDY, back for round two on GCP. The episode covers everything from arrowhead hunting to how his life has changed since becoming a dad to the poignant message his album COUNTRY! COUNTRY! is giving fans. Hardy covers how the song "Buck on the Wall" came to fruition and how it took on a whole new meaning last year when his grandfather passed away and he killed his first Mississippi whitetail after his passing. HARDY gives an acoustic performance of "Bottomland" for the first time ever and his gravorite is also a first time song on God's Country.

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Steven Rinella talks with Cornell University student Aaron Chin. 

Topics discussed: Skinning and butchering a black bear in the communal kitchen of your college residential hall; putting in the work to scout smart; when your first big game animal is a black bear on public land in New York State; lots of consideration and a careful clean up job; getting support from the Cornell University community; good 'ole American elbow grease; and more. 

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We were belly-crawling down a dirt road when Newt paused, raised his binos, and whispered, “I think they’re whitetails.” I couldn’t see anything, and my hands were too cold to break out the binos. It was a sharp November morning during the beginning of Nebraska’s week-long rifle season. A mountain boy from Colorado, I was entirely out of my element in Western Nebraska, where I’d come to spot and stalk rutting whitetails—and hopefully kill my first buck. Pale morning light had just begun to wash the cut cornfield.

“Stay low. We’ve got to close the gap,” said Newt. “I think I see at least one buck.”

I still didn’t see anything, but I followed Newt’s lead, eating mouthfuls of dust and scraping my elbows in the process. What in the world am I doing? That thought recurred frequently as I learned to hunt as an adult. But there was no time to dwell on it. Newt led the way, and I struggled to keep up. The road had sparse cover, just small tufts of cheatgrass and several cedars spaced out sporadically. Belly-crawling felt painfully slow, but Newt stayed flat to the dirt, and so did I. Then, I paused when I saw a glimmer of movement. Deer. My heartbeat quickened.

I was nearly in range of my first buck.

I didn’t grow up in a hunting family. Neither of my parents hunt, and the same goes for most of my extended family. It’s not that they’re against it, but it’s just not something we ever did.

Most of my childhood was spent in a ski town in Colorado’s Western Slope. It was the kind of place where it wasn’t uncommon for a friend or neighbor to give you elk meat from a recent kill, but where hunting still wasn’t the most popular outdoor pursuit. So, I was vaguely familiar with hunting—and loved the delicious taste of big game meat. But learning how to hunt, myself, felt out of reach.

My dad taught me how to fish, catching trout with nightcrawlers and Powerbait at nearby lakes and reservoirs. On vacations to visit family out East, we used Texas rigs to catch largemouth bass. By the time I was in middle school, I became obsessed with it. I figured out all kinds of lure fishing before eventually picking up a fly rod.

Hunting seemed different, though. While I’d reeled my fair of trout, killing a big game animal was intimidating, in part because of the size of the animal, the difficulty of doing so—and then processing it—and simply because it wasn’t a part of my family’s culture. Still, I was intrigued by it.

I started hunting, eventually, because of work. I interned at Field & Stream and Outdoor Life before my senior year of college. After that, I freelanced for hook and bullet publications before landing full-time as Field & Stream’s news editor, where I covered everything from big bucks to record fish to pressing conservation issues.

And every day, I read articles and even occasionally wrote about hunting. I wanted to understand it to be able to write about it more proficiently. And also, I craved the interesting experiences at the heart of many of our hunting stories.

I needed to try it myself.

I started small—squirrel hunting with one of our senior editors. Then I progressed into bird hunting. I grew accustomed with using firearms and killing animals, which I hoped would prepare me for what I considered to be the most quintessential, Platonic ideal of the pursuit: deer hunting.

But I was still nervous. I fretted that killing a big game animal would exact an emotional toll I wasn’t prepared to face. Or worse: that I would wound and lose a deer. To ease my fears—and lacking a familial connection to hunting—I read stories from others about their first deer.

Many of the tales I encountered were profound in one way or another. Writers often recounted, with a heavy dose of nostalgia, the bonding moments they had with parents, siblings, or even friends. Other adult-onset hunters wrote about how it helped them work through personal grief. And others even talked about how hunting gave them deeper understandings of mortality and their relationship to nature. All of these seemed like worthy reasons to kill a deer, and I had high hopes for my own revelatory moment with my first buck.

But that wasn’t what happened.

I hunted my first deer at the invitation of Newt Borowski and Buck Martin, two media PR pros whose companies footed the bill for my trip. I was decked out in new camo, knew the bucks that were on the property with Moultrie Mobile trail cam shots, and had a beautiful Maven scope mounted to my brand-new 6.5 Creedmoor. Newt and Buck—whom I’d met for the first time in-person when I arrived in Nebraska—were my mentors. We were fast friends and enjoyed our time in the field, but did not form a deep bond. And while the hunt was memorable, it didn’t cause an especially strong emotional reaction.

We didn’t get the buck on that first stalk. But that afternoon, it came together rather smoothly. We hunted a crop corner a half mile from where we finished in the morning. A combine was harvesting the nearby field. The corner was surrounded by a row of planted cedars. We waded through standing corn to reach our spot, then set up next to one of the trees. In the CRP, a couple of young bucks were chasing a group of does. I was too slow on my first couple of opportunities. Then a three-by-three stopped broadside at 80 yards, and I pulled the trigger.

Minutes later, I reached the buck. It went down ten yards from where I hit it. I shook hands with Newt and Buck and admired the deer. I reached out and touched the antlers first, running my fingers from the sharp points down the cool vein-like ridges on the bone. The bottom portion of the antlers were dug into the dry Nebraska dirt. The full-bodied deer’s fur was ruffled from the shot, and I smoothed it with one hand while keeping my other on the antlers. I wasn’t sure how to react or what to say, so I didn’t say anything and just waited a moment. Then I stood and smiled. I felt warm despite a crisp November wind.

I soon found out that processing a deer was a lot of work, but we had fun with that, too, drinking Coors Heavy in one of Newt’s buddies’ garages. It wasn’t until later that I had time to reflect on the experiences, and truthfully, for a while, I still wasn’t sure what to think. My first deer hunt wasn’t particularly challenging or meaningful. While I felt a tinge of bittersweet emotions when I walked up to the buck, mostly I just felt a sense of accomplishment and excitement from the experience.

Looking back, it’s easy to see that some of the reading and thinking I’d done prior to the hunt had warped my expectations and led me to put too much pressure on the experience to have some kind of meaning or revelation that isn’t all that common. The reason, of course, that such moments are often retold in media, or even around a campfire, is clear: we like to read and write about the most impactful experiences because those are the interesting ones. But the reality is often far more mundane.

And that’s ok.

Sometimes hunting—even a first hunt—is just fun. Nothing more. Having had this realization allowed me to have other hunting experiences where I have had moments of profundity, though those have been few and far between. Most of the time, I’m out there in the mountain, woods, or swamp, wondering: what in the world am I doing here? Then I smile. And laugh.

I’m having fun.