Dave, good article on the crop damage shooting. We do a fair bit of that here too. I agree, it's much more akin to prairie dog shooting than normal deer hunting - with much bigger targets.
One trick we use when gutting is to employ short handled 'lopping shears' that folks use to chop off small limbs and rose canes. We do the skin split and gut membrane, then do a quick belly hide peel to keep hair from entering the chest cavity. Once the guts are exposed, we'll slice down the seam of the hams to the pelvis, then use the lopping shears to hook into the bone and chop through each side adjacent to the rectum. Two or three strokes each side will do. The pelvis will then pop wide open and the lower bowel can be flipped out with the rest of the gut pile without having to do the poop-shuck-and-tie-off method.
Typically, I won't split the sternum to access to esophagus, but it can be done with the shears rapidly if needed. Usually, we can reach up inside the ribs past the lungs, grab the esophagus, and use the rib cage to leverage forearms and pop-n-peel it right out. A small knife can be employed on the esophagus if desired. BTW, surgical gloves with long cuffs really help keep things tidy. Also, a buddy has a walk-in cooler 5 minutes from the primary areas we shoot over ... a BIG help in July. This year the state biologist approved April shoots. 18 of the first 20 had twin fetuses, the other two had triplets. Essentially, 62 deer taken out with 20 shots.
