Advice Needed, Numerous Tags in a Short Period

[barlowrs]

Hey Everyone, I am hoping for some advice. I have a week long hunt coming up, but during this week, my Bull Elk Tag, Antlerless Elk Tag and my Buck Deer tag all overlap. I HIGHLY doubt I will fill everything (be lucky to get anything), but I want to get thoughts on this JUST in case.

Let's say I get one of the three early in the week. I could pack it out and get it home but that will burn days of my hunt week (planning to camp all week up there). Plus to be honest I don't have a cooler/fridge big enough to just hang it, so I will have to fully butcher/process it and get it all vacuum sealed and put in freezers, which will take days away from the hunt. So, it would be better if I could quarter it and let it hang in game bags while I keep hunting, BUT the problem is, we are having unusually warm weather here in Utah, and it's supposed to be 70s-80s during the day and 50-60 at night the entire week!!!

There is a large body of water next to where I am hunting, so I even contemplated putting the game bags in plastic bags and submerging them, but from what I can tell even the water temp is still like 60 deg!

So, what are your thoughts, do I have any options to stay up all week hunting or are these temps going to just spoil anything and I need to just cut my losses and get whatever animal I get first off the mountain and in my freezer?

 

[Beendare]

Why not take it to a meat locker and keep hunting?

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

We used to submerge in alpine streams and hunt on. If the water temps are truly 60 degrees that would be too warm.

Why not just have large coolers with one gallon jugs filled with water and frozen for the ice? Deboning and then packing animals back to a vehicle takes one full day at most. I’ve kept deboned meat in large coolers for over 10 days many times.

 

[180ls1]

Take off the mountain then return to kill/pack as time allows.

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

Pelican Elite 250 holds a deboned elk and deboned deer plus enough ice blocks to keep it cold for over a week.

 

[180ls1]

Pelican Elite 250 holds a deboned elk and deboned deer plus enough ice blocks to keep it cold for over a week.

This.

Or buy/borrow a cheap chest freezer + generator to haul up there and keep it frozen.

 

[Wrench]

Dry ice is amazing. Bone it, freeze it and rock on.

 

[5MilesBack]

I would pick up a couple cheap Coleman Xtreme 120qt coolers and fill with frozen milk jugs or go to town and fill with ice once you have the meat in them.

 

[CMF]

enough cooler space and block ice at the truck....
no reason it has to be frozen to store for a week

 

[fmyth]

If you can swing it buy 7cf chest from from Walmart for $197 and a Harbor Freight Predator Generator 1400 for $449 and never worry about it again. First kill gets deboned and goes in the freezer. When we make the second kill it gets deboned and replaces first kill in the freezer. First kill now frozen solid goes into a 165cf Igloo cooler (Costco $149). Off we go to second hunt location. I'm heading out for 4 elk hunts in 3 states and don't have to return home or pay a processing shop for butchering freezing or storing. We've been doing it this way for 9 years. Never worry about meat spoiling and it's nice to have a chest freezer in the garage and a generator for camping and emergency use.

 

[Read1t48]

If you can swing it buy 7cf chest from from Walmart for $197 and a Harbor Freight Predator Generator 1400 for $449 and never worry about it again. First kill gets deboned and goes in the freezer. When we make the second kill it gets deboned and replaces first kill in the freezer. First kill now frozen solid goes into a 165cf Igloo cooler (Costco $149). Off we go to second hunt location. I'm heading out for 4 elk hunts in 3 states and don't have to return home or pay a processing shop for butchering freezing or storing. We've been doing it this way for 9 years. Never worry about meat spoiling and it's nice to have a chest freezer in the garage and a generator for camping and emergency use.

I’ve often wondered why more guys don’t do this. I am assuming there is no downside to freezing the meat, especially once rigor has set, and having it thaw back out again when you get home and then perhaps refreezing it again when you butcher it or maybe doing this several times before it gets into completed hamburger? For example, I hang my meat for approximately seven days and then cut everything up. What goes into burger gets frozen in large chunks until I’m ready to process it. I then partially thaw that meat back out, process hamburger and refreeze.

Also… Is it that energy inefficient to leave a chest freezer cracked open to keep it below 40° but keep the meat from freezing and using it as a cold locker of sorts?
Seems like an inexpensive solution 1 week or 2 out of the year.

 

[fmyth]

I’ve often wondered why more guys don’t do this. I am assuming there is no downside to freezing the meat, especially once rigor has set, and having it thaw back out again when you get home and then perhaps refreezing it again when you butcher it or maybe doing this several times before it gets into completed hamburger? For example, I hang my meat for approximately seven days and then cut everything up. What goes into burger gets frozen in large chunks until I’m ready to process it. I then partially thaw that meat back out, process hamburger and refreeze.

Also… Is it that energy inefficient to leave a chest freezer cracked open to keep it below 40° but keep the meat from freezing and using it as a cold locker of sorts?
Seems like an inexpensive solution 1 week or 2 out of the year.

We quarter and pack out. Hang overnight and then debone and freeze the next day. We have tried hanging for multiple days but we feel there is no difference in the meat quality or flavor and we get more waste the longer we hang it. When I get home it all goes into freezers. I will thaw a cooler full and butcher and package as I have the time. I only grind the scraps into burger, and cut/package the backstraps into large 8-10" pieces. Everything else is cut into roasts and small pieces are cut into stew meat. If I run out of burger later I'll grind roasts or stew meat as needed. If you don't want to freeze it right away you can buy a freezer controller and set the temp to whatever you desire. This will require you to run the generator non stop. We only need to run it 8 hours to freeze it solid and then an hour or two each night. I am using a 15 year old Honda EU 2000 and I get 8 hours to a gal of gas. We can also charge our phones, gps etc while running the gen each night.