I just got back from a mulie hunt. I had a 70 qt Coleman Extreme. The 3x3 I shot would have just barely fit bone-in if the hind quarters had been 2" shorter. The bones were simply too long to even put one in alone. The whole animal would have just barely fit in there with little to no room for ice (I had nightly lows in the high teens to mid-twenties) if those rear leg bones were a bit shorter. Bone-out, I'm sure I could have fit the whole thing with plenty of ice to get by with some babysitting and replenishing the ice. I had planned on emptying my drinks/hot dogs/etc out of my "human food cooler" (a $15 48 qt. walmart special) for any overflow in a pinch, but I luckily shot my animal before my friend/helper went home and he took my whole animal in the 100+qt cooler he brought as an extra and hung my animal in his garage while I helped friends fill their tags for the next week.
I'll probably pick up the next size bigger Coleman Extreme if I catch one on sale, simply because I'd like the option of always leaving the rears bone-in, but the 48qt+70qt setup is the perfect size for me+someone else while not taking up a ton of room in my shortbed. The other benefit is that the small freezer I have at home will hold just enough bottles of water to fill that 70 quart to the brim with ice before I leave. A case of 16oz water bottles costs me $2.50 at Costco, and is pretty cheap and easy to freeze at home. By pre-chilling my cooler and packing it full of ice that doesn't leak, along with leaving it in my truck wrapped in spare blankets, I still had lots of ice 14 days later when I returned to Reno, even after using it to cool down my deer and sending my friend home with half of the ice from my cooler.
