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.

 

[barlowrs]

Thanks for all the advice, I got lucky and was able to fill all three tags and didn't spoil any meat. It was a crazy week, but shot my bull at about 0900 on opening day. That was a hard one, took 5 trips packing out (including my camping gear) to my truck over 3 days at 6 hours each trip. He it was a good 6 miles back up some nasty terrain. I got him quartered and deboned as quickly as possible, then hiked him over to a north facing slope to hang him up. I actually built a lean too next to the meat and covered it with a space blanket leaving room for airflow, but to block any sunlight and it seemed to work, No loss in meat over the three days. Luckily my in reach allowed me to ping my gf to bring extra ice chests and she met me at my truck after trip 2 with fresh coolers and ice. After 3rd day I had the bull off the mountain and drove him home, spent a day processing his meat, then headed out for my buck tag early Wednesday. I got lucky here and dropped my buck only a mile from the truck on some pretty easy terrain. it was an easy two trips to get him out and back to coolers. Then back home to process him real quick, then back up Thursday evening for my cow tag. Was able to drop her Friday morning, and 4 trips later at only about 2 hours per pack out (she was close), my week season with three tags was concluded and all filled!

Thanks again, the coolers definitely were the key. And for anyone that is curious, if you do not have horses and hunt way out like I do (hiking 5-10 miles off trail), I do NOT recommend trying to fill 3 tags in a week, its brutal, my feet are TORE up, and I wan to sleep for a week now. But on the plus side, I lost about 10 lbs! hahha.

 

[Dakota Dude]

Congratulations. That's impressive. I would have to buy even more freezers for all the meat!

 

[bz_711]

Congrats on filling tags!

As mentioned by others, frozen milk jugs have always worked for me...up to 4-5 days if necessary.
Put game bags inside contractor bags, place in cooler, then cut open milk jugs dumping any melted water into the cooler to better surround the meat...place ice chunks on top. Can top off rest of cooler with water if needed to fully surround the meat bags with ice cold water. I never leave home without it...and once I discovered this I even use the same method for warm weather whitetail back home.

 

[TA2510]

Heck of a week, 3 tags filled. Congrats!

 

[cjdewese]

I lost about 10 lbs! hahha.

Sounds liked you gained a few hundred pounds actually. Nicely done!