All the preparation and planning have paid off and a prime white-tailed deer lies on the leaves at your feet. With the field dressing done, your next task is the drag back to camp. After that, what's next?

For most hunters it's a stop at the processing shop, and there are many fine ones around the region. But more hunters are rediscovering the satisfaction of "do-it-yourself" deer butchering.

"I butcher my own deer now because I'm frugal and I didn't want to pay someone else to do something I could learn how to do," said Gregg Rinkus of Franklin. "But more importantly, I wanted to be more in tune with the total process, from killing the deer to butchering, cooking and eating the venison. Now I feel like I'm completing some natural chain of events, and I like it."

Butchering a deer is a simple matter of removing the major muscle groups from the skeleton, then boning the rest for burger or sausage. Home processors need a clean workspace, a means of hanging the deer by the back legs, a few tools and several hours to devote to the project. An unheated but lighted garage or outbuilding is ideal. Minimum tools are knife, sharpening stone and saw. The best knife is one with a flexible, 5-inch blade, curved slightly upward toward the point. Keep the stone handy; any time invested in sharpening will be repaid throughout the process. The saw is used only to remove the head and front legs below the knee joint.

Skinning comes first. There is no art to it, but there are a few tips. Some cuts before hanging the deer will help keep loose hair off the skinned carcass. With the deer on the floor or ground, slit through the white hair and hide on the inside of the hindquarter, from the field-dressing incision, down the leg to the first joint. Then make a circular cut, through the hair and hide, around the circumference of the back leg above the joint. Do not cut the heavy tendon at the back of the joint; it's needed to hang the deer from a gambrel. Brush away all loose hair before hanging. The cuts make it easy to grasp the hide and pull it downward off the hindquarters.

As you pull the hide toward the back and ribcage, you can decide whether to skin out the tail or cut it off at its base. Continue pulling the hide over the front shoulder and base of the neck, cutting the connective tissue as needed. A fresh, warm deer is much easier to skin than one shot days before.

If temperatures are right or if you have a walk-in cooler, you can elect to age the skinned deer. Some experts recommend aging for two to three days at 38-40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Deer can be home-butchered in a sequence of four simple steps. 1) removal of the loins or "backstraps," 2) removal of the top and bottom round steaks, 3) severing the front legs for boning, and 4) boning the hanging carcass. Experts favor this "bone-out" method because it protects the butcher from contact to areas prone to deer diseases, and produces no "bone dust," a by-product of sawing that develops a rancid taste after freezing.

For the record, there are no reported cases of Chronic Wasting Disease in Pennsylvania, and while epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD, isn't contagious to humans, it's wise to handle carcasses with rubber gloves.

Removing the backstraps is not difficult. These muscles form two parallel cylinders of choice, lean muscle lying tight against the backbone, from the hindquarters to the base of the neck. Insert the knife along the backbone where it enters the hindquarters. Progressing downward (toward the head), cut tight along the vertebrae, following the contour of the bone all the way to the base of the neck. Make a parallel cut across the ribcage about four inches from the first and as deep as the rib bones. The long strip of muscle between the cuts is the loin. Grasp the upper end (near the hindquarter) of the loin with one hand and core around it with the knife, separating it from the ribs and vertebrae as you pull downward. With practice the loins will come out neat and appetizing, ready for slicing as chops or small steaks.

Boning the rounds neatly from the hind leg takes more skill, but is preferable to sawing through the heavy femur to cut each individual steak. It helps to think of the rounds as hams, such as you might buy at the grocery. To remove each "ham," make two parallel cuts, one at the top and one at the bottom, about 6-8 inches apart, completely encircling the ham, and as deep as the femur bone. Next, make one long, deep cut tight against the femur between the two parallel cuts. At this point your cuts will have formed a rough "H" pattern on the ham. Simply progress around the femur, cutting the connecting muscle away from the bone and freeing the ham. Push each ham neatly into shape and place in a freezer to stiffen the meat, but not until it freezes. It is easy to cut the stiffened meat into neat round steaks for wrapping or immediate cooking.

There is no bone-to-bone connection between the front leg and the skeleton. Sever the front leg for boning by cutting behind the shoulder blade, parallel to the plane of the body, toward the base of the neck. The rest of the carcass can be boned out for burger as it hangs. Find most of the meat around the pelvis and hindquarters, between the ribs and along the neck.

Even hunters who decide to take their deer to a professional can still do a little butchering on their own. The choicest cuts of all -- the tenderloins -- can easily be removed in the field while field dressing, or in camp before the deer is transported. The two tenderloins lie inside the body cavity, parallel to and tight against the spine. With entrails removed, they become visible as two dark, smooth bars of muscle where the ribs meet the backbone. On an adult deer, each loin is about eight inches long by two inches wide. Make two parallel cuts along their outside margins, grasp and pull free, cutting as needed. These two prizes are too easy to access, and too good to eat to let out of your sight. Share them after the hunt with someone special.