Axis Venison: Tenderloins, Ribs, and Tomahawk Steaks

 

      Once we had cleared enough freezer room I took advantage of the opportunity to harvest one of the many axis deer on our property.  The recent winter 'storm of the century' left us with lots of ice damage, power outages, and many dead axis deer to our north.  However, here in our canyons with our thick cedars, oaks, and mesquite our deer seemed to do okay.  I got my license, but continued to keep an eye on our local herd and watch for the better buck.  This took awhile and the weather began to warm again.  The large herd of 40+ animals were gone, but about 13-15 does, fawns, ad few spikes and a decent 2 year old shooter buck remained.  Once again I used Barb's 7mm-08, a prefect caliber for this sized game.  I also have my 22-250 here, but it could be a bit light for a good sized Axis.  I loaded it with Federal Powr Lokt 150 grain soft point.    My 2nd morning out dawned 46 and breezy.  About 12 does and a yearling showed up early, but the middle sized buck showed about 90 minutes later.  A very nice 2 year old,  live weight 140 pounds.  He did manage to get out of the field and up in thick cedars about 50 yards taking a bit of dragging and huffing for Barb and I to get him out. I had already rigged up a hoist and tackle to support the deer in one of our live oak trees while we worked.  Once gutted, Barb did her usual surgical job skinning.  We planned on letting it hang 3 days, but the warming spring weather limited us to overnight before butchering.  

True to form this axis deer had minimal external fat

      This is not going to be a blog chapter on butchering, but rather a tutorial on removing and processing several of the finer parts of the venison, including the inner loins, tenderloins, and rib steaks.  I will remove the upper rib bones with the tenderloins complete to create a Tomahawk or Cowboy Steak.  

      First of all remove the front quarters of the deer and set aside. remove the inner loins (sometimes called the fish tenders) located inside the cavity above the ribs near the spine.  Set these aside.  Then cut and remove the rib flank steaks and set aside.  You can use these as flank steak or burger meat.  Now is where the deviation from normal venison butchering takes place.

Remove the front shoulders while hanging

Remove flank meat for steaks or burger trim

     If you like you can remove the deer from the gambrel hoist, remove the hind quarters, and perform the rest on a table if you like.   If so, separate the spine just aft of the ribs.  Remove the lower ribs about 10" from the backstrap and set aside.  You can make these ribs shorter or longer, depending on how long you want your 'tomahawk handles' to be.  This will take a saw.  You can use a hack saw, but I found a reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade works well.  You can use this rib meat for just that or trim for burger. 

Trim main ribs from tenderloins (your choice of rib bone length)

 

      If your deer is still hanging by the hind legs be careful not to overcut the spine.  Now take your saw and begin to cut the remaining ribs and backstraps (in one piece) away from and down the side of the spine.  Set aside.  At this point the meat is virtually a bone in prime rib and contains the backstrap as well.  The beauty of this is you can do one side of the deer and process the other side into normal ribs and backstrap if you wish.  Or you can process them both as such.  We made one side into prime rib roasts (2) and the other side all Tomahawk rib steaks.  

We finished one half into 2 Prime Rib Roasts and the other into Tomahawk Steaks

      When separated take time to clean up the rib bones of all meat and put into your scrap burger pile.  Then separate the ribs and backstraps into individual steaks or leave intact and cut to rib roast size.  You can trim the ribs so that your tomahawk handles will be the length of your liking.  There will also be 2 spare pieces of boneless backstrap as well.  We wrap 2 to a pack.   Notice throughout this procedure the incredible leanness of the axis deer meat, only about 1% fat.  There is still the rest of an entire deer to process......moving on. 

"My favorite animal is steak"

Fran Lebowitz

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