First time backpack hunt meat care

[J.flanagan]

I'm from Florida and have only done tree stand white tail hunts. I'm slowly planning a Colorado/Montana elk hunt. I'm pretty comfortable with the hunting and backpacking side of things bit it's post kill that I have some question about. When you pack it out, what do you do with it. Just take it back to the truck and put it in a cooler? What if it's a 2 day packout? Still just an icy cooler? Do I need a topper for my truck so I can lock my coolers up? If I have a 2 person 6 day hunt and one person tags out first day, can we leave that meat in the coolers for the rest of the hunt while we work on the other person's tag? Or do we need to get it frozen asap?

 

[gentleman4561]

You can leave it in the cooler, main thing is avoid the meat sitting in water.

Depending on temps though, you can just hang the meat in bags. If daytime temps are below 60* and night time gets below 40* I just quarter and hang.

 

[Bear Wrestler]

If nighttime temps are in the 30s or below, the meat will be more than fine for several days hanging in a shaded spot in some game bags. If you put it in a cooler, you'll need a fairly large cooler to fit an entire elk.

 

[Jfjfrye]

Freeze a bunch of milk jugs and load a couple coolers up with them. Then when you get to your truck you can load the already cool ice chests with meat and cool everything down. The meat will be fine hanging in meat bags as long as the temps are cool and keep in in the shade and make sure the bags are 100% closed
To keep the flys off. Once it’s quartered and in game bags you can hang it for several days.

 

[Wilderlife]

Leaving it outside for ages is fine as long as it's cool and dry. Insulate it during the day with your sleeping bag when you get up of a morning if you're worried about it heating up. Use game bags that breathe a little so the juices run out.

You can leave it in a cooler as long as it doesn't sit in the water once ice melts. If the cooler is already very cold and the meat is cold when it goes in it should last a really long time provided the cooler is of decent quality.

Any conversations about coming out early or similar with your partner will come down to a number of factors. Will your partner be fine hunting by themselves when you are carting meat back? Could you both do the meat in one trip and only lose half a day of hunting? All these things may come into play.

 

[Jfjfrye]

Leaving it outside for ages is fine as long as it's cool and dry. Insulate it during the day with your sleeping bag when you get up of a morning if you're worried about it heating up. Use game bags that breathe a little so the juices run out.

You can leave it in a cooler as long as it doesn't sit in the water once ice melts. If the cooler is already very cold and the meat is cold when it goes in it should last a really long time provided the cooler is of decent quality.

Any conversations about coming out early or similar with your partner will come down to a number of factors. Will your partner be fine hunting by themselves when you are carting meat back? Could you both do the meat in one trip and only lose half a day of hunting? All these things may come into play.

What will the water do to the meat if it sits in an ice bath of water and ice in the cooler? I’ve always heard NEVER get the meat wet. But have never heard specifically what it does to the meat… any ideas?

 

[Mykolaivka887]

If it's going to take 2 or 3 days to haul it (meat, cape, antlers) your best bet is to get it within 800 yds of the truck and hang it, till you get all of it packed in.

Then move it that last little bit to the truck, in a few hours. Then take it to town and hang it in a walk-in meat cooler.

Then you can go back to hunting, if you have another tag and sufficient time to do so.

That's how I always do it when backpacking really, really remote. Never yet lost any meat or capes when doing it that way. It's bombproof.

 

[Maverick1]

I'm from Florida and have only done tree stand white tail hunts. I'm slowly planning a Colorado/Montana elk hunt. I'm pretty comfortable with the hunting and backpacking side of things bit it's post kill that I have some question about. When you pack it out, what do you do with it. Just take it back to the truck and put it in a cooler? What if it's a 2 day packout? Still just an icy cooler? Do I need a topper for my truck so I can lock my coolers up? If I have a 2 person 6 day hunt and one person tags out first day, can we leave that meat in the coolers for the rest of the hunt while we work on the other person's tag? Or do we need to get it frozen asap?

Welcome! Regarding what to do post-kill, below is some information that might be helpful as things really start to get interesting once an animal hits the ground.

The kill kit:
It is a good idea to have a dedicated “kill kit’ with you while hunting. This kill kit should include a couple of items – license, tag/permit, archery stamp, proof of hunter education certification, knife, knife sharpener, game bags, latex gloves, plastic bags, method to hang meat (paracord, cam-jam, etc.). Some may add a fly or insect deterrent to their kill kit, such as citrus granules in a spray bottle or black pepper.

Breaking down the animal:
After you’ve notched your tag and taken pictures, the animal needs to be broken down. This is a very large animal, with 150-250 pounds of meat to take care of, so the gutless method is the best approach. My best advice would be to watch some time-lapse videos of the gutless method on youtube. It is important to get the meat off the carcass as soon as possible to accelerate cooling, and then hang the meat in a cool, dry location. (I’ve also kept the meat inside of several clear plastic bags in a cool mountain running stream on a few occasions, definitely not anyone’s preferred approach, but can be used if temperatures are soaring, the animal goes down in an area with limited tree cover, etc.) Game bags are important to keep insects off the meat.

Backpacking the meat out:
The logistics of this are important, so think ahead. A couple of questions to think through: are you going to use your hunting backpack for hauling out the meat, or use a dedicated hauler frame? Are you at a location on the mountain, or far enough from your vehicle, that it is going to take a long time to pack the meat out, and are you going to spend a lot of time hiking to and from the animal? If so, are you going to leave your camp up on the mountain, or pack it up and haul it back to the vehicle with you?

My general plan to getting an animal off the mountain goes something like this:

• Shoot elk
• Quarter and hang meat
• Put both backstraps, both inner tenderloins, all trimmings, and one deboned front shoulder inside of my hunting backpack. (This can be about 50 pounds of meat, plus my entire camp.)
• Hike back to the vehicle, using hunting backpack
• Drive into town for ice (or have coolers already filled with ice)
• Switch backpacks from my hunting backpack to my dedicated meat hauling frame backpack
• Hike back to elk
• Debone one hindquarter and other front shoulder
• Hike meat back to vehicle
• Hike back to elk
• Hike second hindquarter back to vehicle

Meat Storage:
If the overnight temperatures are in the 30/40’s, you have the meat in a cool place, and the daytime temperatures are in the 60/70’s, the meat will be fine hanging for a few days.

After the meat is off the mountain and in the vehicle, what happens next? It kind of depends.

• If I have a long time before driving home – such as having another tag to try and fill, or having a hunting partner with a tag to fill, I will take all of the deboned meat from the first animal to a local butcher shop. There the choices are to have them freeze it (typically $20 for the first day, and then $10/day for every subsequent day) – OR – to have them cut and wrap it for you (typically anywhere from $300-$400 for cutting into steaks, roasts, and grinding into burger). The butcher will typically want a few days to turn things around, depending on how busy they are. Keep hunting for a few days while they take care of the processing, and then return in a few days to pick up the frozen meat and head home. (With, or without, a second animal).
• If filling the tag constitutes the “end” of the hunt - that is relatively easy: put the meat inside the cooler, keep the meat above the waterline, and drive home! It will be fine until you get home.
• While I have never done this, I have seen situations where guys have chained a small chest freezer on a trailer or inside of the bed of their pickup truck, with a generator. Shoot something, start the generator, and take it from there.

As far as how long you can leave the elk meat on ice: how long would you leave a package of raw hamburger from the supermarket inside a cooler, on top of a bag of ice? Probably not more than a couple of days, but that would depend on the daytime temperatures, the size of the cooler, and amount of ice you have on hand. Probably not more than a couple of days!

I would hesitate to leave a cooler full of ice and elk meat in an open, unsecured location, both from humans and other mammals.

Meat Hauling Checklist:
Also, it helps me to have a checklist on hand of things to bring with when hauling meat. (After that first trip off the mountain, it’s easy to forget something at the vehicle. Tired, worn down, etc.) A checklist really helps. Here is mine:

• Frame backpack
• Regular backpack (for everything below)
• Ratchet straps
• 4 clear garbage bags (put the deboned quarters into these bags, to keep everything from getting bloody)
• Knife
• Knife sharpener
• Game bags
• Headlamps
• Spare batteries
• Water bladder
• Water filter
• Pistol and ammo
• GPS
• Trekking poles
• Sunglasses
• Baseball hat
• Fresh boots
• Fresh socks
• Latex gloves - 2 pair
• Emergency poncho: in case it rains
• SPOT device
• Food
• Gu Energy gels
• Energy bars
• Salt licks

“Typical” Meat Packing Days:
To give you an idea of what it “could” be like to haul an elk off the mountain, below are my notes from packing this year’s elk. (I am hunting solo, so things take longer than it would with two people.). I left my GPS on for the first several legs of the trip, so the distances are accurate. Every year is different, but below is pretty normal for where I hunt and how several of my meat packing experiences have played out. (I’ve had years where I’ve had ice in the cooler and not had to drive into town, and years where I’ve camped up on the mountain instead of packing meat out in the dark – it kind of all depends; they are all pretty similar, though.)

Thursday:

• Shot cow elk at 8:00 pm. 13 yards
• Found elk at 8:15 pm
• Setup place to hang meat, take pictures: 8:15-9:15 pm
• Quartered and hung up meat using gutless method: 9:15 pm – 12:15 am
• Hiked 1.5 miles back to camp, with meat inside of hunting backpack: 12:15 am – 2:15 am
• Went to bed: 2:30 am.

Friday:

• Woke up: 7:45 am. Just over 5 hours of sleep.
• Hiked 6.5 miles down the mountain to my vehicle: 8:30 am – 12:30 pm
• Drove into town for food and ice: 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
• Drove from town back to the mountain, prepared meat hauling setup: 3:00 pm -5:00 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles up the mountain: 5:15 pm – 9:15 pm
• Deboned elk: 9:30 pm – 10:30 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles back down the mountain, with hind quarter and front shoulder: 10:30 pm – 3:30 am
• Went to bed in the front seat of my vehicle: 3:45 am. (Too tired to pitch tarp!)
• Total miles hiked: 19.5

Saturday

• Woke up about 9:45 am. About 6 hours of sleep
• Hiked 6.5 miles up the mountain: 10:30 am – 4:30 pm
• Deboned other hindquarter and front shoulder: 4:30 pm – 5:15 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles back down the mountain, with the last load of meat: 5:15 pm – 9:45 pm
• Traveled to get ice for coolers: 9:45 pm – 11:00 pm.
• Filled second cooler with ice
• Total miles hike: 13

Sunday:

• Slept in a little bit
• Drove from state #1 to state #2, about a 6-8 hour drive
• Dropped meat off with butcher
• Hiked into new hunting area in state #2

Monday: Hunting in state #2

Butcher cut and wrapped first elk from state #1 while I spent the rest of the week hunting in state #2.

 

[Mykolaivka887]

Welcome! Regarding what to do post-kill, below is some information that might be helpful as things really start to get interesting once an animal hits the ground.

The kill kit:
It is a good idea to have a dedicated “kill kit’ with you while hunting. This kill kit should include a couple of items – license, tag/permit, archery stamp, proof of hunter education certification, knife, knife sharpener, game bags, latex gloves, plastic bags, method to hang meat (paracord, cam-jam, etc.). Some may add a fly or insect deterrent to their kill kit, such as citrus granules in a spray bottle or black pepper.

Breaking down the animal:
After you’ve notched your tag and taken pictures, the animal needs to be broken down. This is a very large animal, with 150-250 pounds of meat to take care of, so the gutless method is the best approach. My best advice would be to watch some time-lapse videos of the gutless method on youtube. It is important to get the meat off the carcass as soon as possible to accelerate cooling, and then hang the meat in a cool, dry location. (I’ve also kept the meat inside of several clear plastic bags in a cool mountain running stream on a few occasions, definitely not anyone’s preferred approach, but can be used if temperatures are soaring, the animal goes down in an area with limited tree cover, etc.) Game bags are important to keep insects off the meat.

Backpacking the meat out:
The logistics of this are important, so think ahead. A couple of questions to think through: are you going to use your hunting backpack for hauling out the meat, or use a dedicated hauler frame? Are you at a location on the mountain, or far enough from your vehicle, that it is going to take a long time to pack the meat out, and are you going to spend a lot of time hiking to and from the animal? If so, are you going to leave your camp up on the mountain, or pack it up and haul it back to the vehicle with you?

My general plan to getting an animal off the mountain goes something like this:

• Shoot elk
• Quarter and hang meat
• Put both backstraps, both inner tenderloins, all trimmings, and one deboned front shoulder inside of my hunting backpack. (This can be about 50 pounds of meat, plus my entire camp.)
• Hike back to the vehicle, using hunting backpack
• Drive into town for ice (or have coolers already filled with ice)
• Switch backpacks from my hunting backpack to my dedicated meat hauling frame backpack
• Hike back to elk
• Debone one hindquarter and other front shoulder
• Hike meat back to vehicle
• Hike back to elk
• Hike second hindquarter back to vehicle

Meat Storage:
If the overnight temperatures are in the 30/40’s, you have the meat in a cool place, and the daytime temperatures are in the 60/70’s, the meat will be fine hanging for a few days.

After the meat is off the mountain and in the vehicle, what happens next? It kind of depends.

• If I have a long time before driving home – such as having another tag to try and fill, or having a hunting partner with a tag to fill, I will take all of the deboned meat from the first animal to a local butcher shop. There the choices are to have them freeze it (typically $20 for the first day, and then $10/day for every subsequent day) – OR – to have them cut and wrap it for you (typically anywhere from $300-$400 for cutting into steaks, roasts, and grinding into burger). The butcher will typically want a few days to turn things around, depending on how busy they are. Keep hunting for a few days while they take care of the processing, and then return in a few days to pick up the frozen meat and head home. (With, or without, a second animal).
• If filling the tag constitutes the “end” of the hunt - that is relatively easy: put the meat inside the cooler, keep the meat above the waterline, and drive home! It will be fine until you get home.
• While I have never done this, I have seen situations where guys have chained a small chest freezer on a trailer or inside of the bed of their pickup truck, with a generator. Shoot something, start the generator, and take it from there.

As far as how long you can leave the elk meat on ice: how long would you leave a package of raw hamburger from the supermarket inside a cooler, on top of a bag of ice? Probably not more than a couple of days, but that would depend on the daytime temperatures, the size of the cooler, and amount of ice you have on hand. Probably not more than a couple of days!

I would hesitate to leave a cooler full of ice and elk meat in an open, unsecured location, both from humans and other mammals.

Meat Hauling Checklist:
Also, it helps me to have a checklist on hand of things to bring with when hauling meat. (After that first trip off the mountain, it’s easy to forget something at the vehicle. Tired, worn down, etc.) A checklist really helps. Here is mine:

• Frame backpack
• Regular backpack (for everything below)
• Ratchet straps
• 4 clear garbage bags (put the deboned quarters into these bags, to keep everything from getting bloody)
• Knife
• Knife sharpener
• Game bags
• Headlamps
• Spare batteries
• Water bladder
• Water filter
• Pistol and ammo
• GPS
• Trekking poles
• Sunglasses
• Baseball hat
• Fresh boots
• Fresh socks
• Latex gloves - 2 pair
• Emergency poncho: in case it rains
• SPOT device
• Food
• Gu Energy gels
• Energy bars
• Salt licks

“Typical” Meat Packing Days:
To give you an idea of what it “could” be like to haul an elk off the mountain, below are my notes from packing this year’s elk. (I am hunting solo, so things take longer than it would with two people.). I left my GPS on for the first several legs of the trip, so the distances are accurate. Every year is different, but below is pretty normal for where I hunt and how several of my meat packing experiences have played out. (I’ve had years where I’ve had ice in the cooler and not had to drive into town, and years where I’ve camped up on the mountain instead of packing meat out in the dark – it kind of all depends; they are all pretty similar, though.)

Thursday:

• Shot cow elk at 8:00 pm. 13 yards
• Found elk at 8:15 pm
• Setup place to hang meat, take pictures: 8:15-9:15 pm
• Quartered and hung up meat using gutless method: 9:15 pm – 12:15 am
• Hiked 1.5 miles back to camp, with meat inside of hunting backpack: 12:15 am – 2:15 am
• Went to bed: 2:30 am.

Friday:

• Woke up: 7:45 am. Just over 5 hours of sleep.
• Hiked 6.5 miles down the mountain to my vehicle: 8:30 am – 12:30 pm
• Drove into town for food and ice: 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
• Drove from town back to the mountain, prepared meat hauling setup: 3:00 pm -5:00 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles up the mountain: 5:15 pm – 9:15 pm
• Deboned elk: 9:30 pm – 10:30 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles back down the mountain, with hind quarter and front shoulder: 10:30 pm – 3:30 am
• Went to bed in the front seat of my vehicle: 3:45 am. (Too tired to pitch tarp!)
• Total miles hiked: 19.5

Saturday

• Woke up about 9:45 am. About 6 hours of sleep
• Hiked 6.5 miles up the mountain: 10:30 am – 4:30 pm
• Deboned other hindquarter and front shoulder: 4:30 pm – 5:15 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles back down the mountain, with the last load of meat: 5:15 pm – 9:45 pm
• Traveled to get ice for coolers: 9:45 pm – 11:00 pm.
• Filled second cooler with ice
• Total miles hike: 13

Sunday:

• Slept in a little bit
• Drove from state #1 to state #2, about a 6-8 hour drive
• Dropped meat off with butcher
• Hiked into new hunting area in state #2

Monday: Hunting in state #2

Butcher cut and wrapped first elk from state #1 while I spent the rest of the week hunting in state #2.

Too complicated .... But liked the part about "think it through in advance ".

 

[Maverick1]

Too complicated .... But liked the part about "think it through in advance ".

TLDNR? Yeah, I get that, and I agree. I wrote the post targeted towards a Rokslide "newbie", with only 7 posts to his name, who appears to have never been on an elk hunt before. I've gone on a "few" trips for elk!

 

[DawnPatrol]

When I’m hunting with a group of folks and there’s a chance someone will tag out earlier and others will want to keep hunting for 7-10 days after, I like to call around to a few butcher shops or meat cutters near where we’ll be hunting before hand and see if they’ll hang game meat in a walk-in. Some will and some won’t, and it’s good to nail this down before it’s 85 F and you have a truck full of elk meat and marginal cell service.

What will the water do to the meat if it sits in an ice bath of water and ice in the cooler? I’ve always heard NEVER get the meat wet. But have never heard specifically what it does to the meat… any ideas?

Water on meat provides a more favorable environment for bacterial growth, so from that angle getting the meat wet can accelerate spoilage. But just getting meat wet by itself doesn’t hurt the meat much if at all (might make the outside a little superficially gray), especially if it’s COLD and wet.

 

[Wilderlife]

Yeh, you see people really worry about water on the meat but I don't stress too much. sitting in bloody water for a week and having it get a little warm is a recipe for disaster but ice cold water for a day or two is no big deal.

That's not based on anything besides my experience.

I also find the meat ages and stiffens up a little better if it is kept dry. Trim off the dried off outside and enjoy the beautiful venison that's left. Meat in water for a while goes a little grey and you need to trim a bit more.

You'll feel your way through it. Just don't let it get warm, neglect it, let flies get all over it, etc.

 

[J.flanagan]

Welcome! Regarding what to do post-kill, below is some information that might be helpful as things really start to get interesting once an animal hits the ground.

The kill kit:
It is a good idea to have a dedicated “kill kit’ with you while hunting. This kill kit should include a couple of items – license, tag/permit, archery stamp, proof of hunter education certification, knife, knife sharpener, game bags, latex gloves, plastic bags, method to hang meat (paracord, cam-jam, etc.). Some may add a fly or insect deterrent to their kill kit, such as citrus granules in a spray bottle or black pepper.

Breaking down the animal:
After you’ve notched your tag and taken pictures, the animal needs to be broken down. This is a very large animal, with 150-250 pounds of meat to take care of, so the gutless method is the best approach. My best advice would be to watch some time-lapse videos of the gutless method on youtube. It is important to get the meat off the carcass as soon as possible to accelerate cooling, and then hang the meat in a cool, dry location. (I’ve also kept the meat inside of several clear plastic bags in a cool mountain running stream on a few occasions, definitely not anyone’s preferred approach, but can be used if temperatures are soaring, the animal goes down in an area with limited tree cover, etc.) Game bags are important to keep insects off the meat.

Backpacking the meat out:
The logistics of this are important, so think ahead. A couple of questions to think through: are you going to use your hunting backpack for hauling out the meat, or use a dedicated hauler frame? Are you at a location on the mountain, or far enough from your vehicle, that it is going to take a long time to pack the meat out, and are you going to spend a lot of time hiking to and from the animal? If so, are you going to leave your camp up on the mountain, or pack it up and haul it back to the vehicle with you?

My general plan to getting an animal off the mountain goes something like this:

• Shoot elk
• Quarter and hang meat
• Put both backstraps, both inner tenderloins, all trimmings, and one deboned front shoulder inside of my hunting backpack. (This can be about 50 pounds of meat, plus my entire camp.)
• Hike back to the vehicle, using hunting backpack
• Drive into town for ice (or have coolers already filled with ice)
• Switch backpacks from my hunting backpack to my dedicated meat hauling frame backpack
• Hike back to elk
• Debone one hindquarter and other front shoulder
• Hike meat back to vehicle
• Hike back to elk
• Hike second hindquarter back to vehicle

Meat Storage:
If the overnight temperatures are in the 30/40’s, you have the meat in a cool place, and the daytime temperatures are in the 60/70’s, the meat will be fine hanging for a few days.

After the meat is off the mountain and in the vehicle, what happens next? It kind of depends.

• If I have a long time before driving home – such as having another tag to try and fill, or having a hunting partner with a tag to fill, I will take all of the deboned meat from the first animal to a local butcher shop. There the choices are to have them freeze it (typically $20 for the first day, and then $10/day for every subsequent day) – OR – to have them cut and wrap it for you (typically anywhere from $300-$400 for cutting into steaks, roasts, and grinding into burger). The butcher will typically want a few days to turn things around, depending on how busy they are. Keep hunting for a few days while they take care of the processing, and then return in a few days to pick up the frozen meat and head home. (With, or without, a second animal).
• If filling the tag constitutes the “end” of the hunt - that is relatively easy: put the meat inside the cooler, keep the meat above the waterline, and drive home! It will be fine until you get home.
• While I have never done this, I have seen situations where guys have chained a small chest freezer on a trailer or inside of the bed of their pickup truck, with a generator. Shoot something, start the generator, and take it from there.

As far as how long you can leave the elk meat on ice: how long would you leave a package of raw hamburger from the supermarket inside a cooler, on top of a bag of ice? Probably not more than a couple of days, but that would depend on the daytime temperatures, the size of the cooler, and amount of ice you have on hand. Probably not more than a couple of days!

I would hesitate to leave a cooler full of ice and elk meat in an open, unsecured location, both from humans and other mammals.

Meat Hauling Checklist:
Also, it helps me to have a checklist on hand of things to bring with when hauling meat. (After that first trip off the mountain, it’s easy to forget something at the vehicle. Tired, worn down, etc.) A checklist really helps. Here is mine:

• Frame backpack
• Regular backpack (for everything below)
• Ratchet straps
• 4 clear garbage bags (put the deboned quarters into these bags, to keep everything from getting bloody)
• Knife
• Knife sharpener
• Game bags
• Headlamps
• Spare batteries
• Water bladder
• Water filter
• Pistol and ammo
• GPS
• Trekking poles
• Sunglasses
• Baseball hat
• Fresh boots
• Fresh socks
• Latex gloves - 2 pair
• Emergency poncho: in case it rains
• SPOT device
• Food
• Gu Energy gels
• Energy bars
• Salt licks

“Typical” Meat Packing Days:
To give you an idea of what it “could” be like to haul an elk off the mountain, below are my notes from packing this year’s elk. (I am hunting solo, so things take longer than it would with two people.). I left my GPS on for the first several legs of the trip, so the distances are accurate. Every year is different, but below is pretty normal for where I hunt and how several of my meat packing experiences have played out. (I’ve had years where I’ve had ice in the cooler and not had to drive into town, and years where I’ve camped up on the mountain instead of packing meat out in the dark – it kind of all depends; they are all pretty similar, though.)

Thursday:

• Shot cow elk at 8:00 pm. 13 yards
• Found elk at 8:15 pm
• Setup place to hang meat, take pictures: 8:15-9:15 pm
• Quartered and hung up meat using gutless method: 9:15 pm – 12:15 am
• Hiked 1.5 miles back to camp, with meat inside of hunting backpack: 12:15 am – 2:15 am
• Went to bed: 2:30 am.

Friday:

• Woke up: 7:45 am. Just over 5 hours of sleep.
• Hiked 6.5 miles down the mountain to my vehicle: 8:30 am – 12:30 pm
• Drove into town for food and ice: 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
• Drove from town back to the mountain, prepared meat hauling setup: 3:00 pm -5:00 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles up the mountain: 5:15 pm – 9:15 pm
• Deboned elk: 9:30 pm – 10:30 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles back down the mountain, with hind quarter and front shoulder: 10:30 pm – 3:30 am
• Went to bed in the front seat of my vehicle: 3:45 am. (Too tired to pitch tarp!)
• Total miles hiked: 19.5

Saturday

• Woke up about 9:45 am. About 6 hours of sleep
• Hiked 6.5 miles up the mountain: 10:30 am – 4:30 pm
• Deboned other hindquarter and front shoulder: 4:30 pm – 5:15 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles back down the mountain, with the last load of meat: 5:15 pm – 9:45 pm
• Traveled to get ice for coolers: 9:45 pm – 11:00 pm.
• Filled second cooler with ice
• Total miles hike: 13

Sunday:

• Slept in a little bit
• Drove from state #1 to state #2, about a 6-8 hour drive
• Dropped meat off with butcher
• Hiked into new hunting area in state #2

Monday: Hunting in state #2

Butcher cut and wrapped first elk from state #1 while I spent the rest of the week hunting in state #2.

Thanks for the detail. I'm reading and absorbing everything I can. I know I'll have to work some stuff out when finally get out there, but for now, reading and asking questions is as good as it gets.

Thanks

 

[BBob]

What will the water do to the meat if it sits in an ice bath of water and ice in the cooler? I’ve always heard NEVER get the meat wet. But have never heard specifically what it does to the meat… any ideas?

We have routinely dumped meat in game bags into a cold creek to cool and an attempt to hide it from the bears and nothing bad has come of it as far as we can tell. There's been many a discussion over this through the years.

Oh, the pesky bears still root it out now and then but it seems less often when it's in a creek and covered in rocks.

 

[DJ11]

Welcome! Regarding what to do post-kill, below is some information that might be helpful as things really start to get interesting once an animal hits the ground.

The kill kit:
It is a good idea to have a dedicated “kill kit’ with you while hunting. This kill kit should include a couple of items – license, tag/permit, archery stamp, proof of hunter education certification, knife, knife sharpener, game bags, latex gloves, plastic bags, method to hang meat (paracord, cam-jam, etc.). Some may add a fly or insect deterrent to their kill kit, such as citrus granules in a spray bottle or black pepper.

Breaking down the animal:
After you’ve notched your tag and taken pictures, the animal needs to be broken down. This is a very large animal, with 150-250 pounds of meat to take care of, so the gutless method is the best approach. My best advice would be to watch some time-lapse videos of the gutless method on youtube. It is important to get the meat off the carcass as soon as possible to accelerate cooling, and then hang the meat in a cool, dry location. (I’ve also kept the meat inside of several clear plastic bags in a cool mountain running stream on a few occasions, definitely not anyone’s preferred approach, but can be used if temperatures are soaring, the animal goes down in an area with limited tree cover, etc.) Game bags are important to keep insects off the meat.

Backpacking the meat out:
The logistics of this are important, so think ahead. A couple of questions to think through: are you going to use your hunting backpack for hauling out the meat, or use a dedicated hauler frame? Are you at a location on the mountain, or far enough from your vehicle, that it is going to take a long time to pack the meat out, and are you going to spend a lot of time hiking to and from the animal? If so, are you going to leave your camp up on the mountain, or pack it up and haul it back to the vehicle with you?

My general plan to getting an animal off the mountain goes something like this:

• Shoot elk
• Quarter and hang meat
• Put both backstraps, both inner tenderloins, all trimmings, and one deboned front shoulder inside of my hunting backpack. (This can be about 50 pounds of meat, plus my entire camp.)
• Hike back to the vehicle, using hunting backpack
• Drive into town for ice (or have coolers already filled with ice)
• Switch backpacks from my hunting backpack to my dedicated meat hauling frame backpack
• Hike back to elk
• Debone one hindquarter and other front shoulder
• Hike meat back to vehicle
• Hike back to elk
• Hike second hindquarter back to vehicle

Meat Storage:
If the overnight temperatures are in the 30/40’s, you have the meat in a cool place, and the daytime temperatures are in the 60/70’s, the meat will be fine hanging for a few days.

After the meat is off the mountain and in the vehicle, what happens next? It kind of depends.

• If I have a long time before driving home – such as having another tag to try and fill, or having a hunting partner with a tag to fill, I will take all of the deboned meat from the first animal to a local butcher shop. There the choices are to have them freeze it (typically $20 for the first day, and then $10/day for every subsequent day) – OR – to have them cut and wrap it for you (typically anywhere from $300-$400 for cutting into steaks, roasts, and grinding into burger). The butcher will typically want a few days to turn things around, depending on how busy they are. Keep hunting for a few days while they take care of the processing, and then return in a few days to pick up the frozen meat and head home. (With, or without, a second animal).
• If filling the tag constitutes the “end” of the hunt - that is relatively easy: put the meat inside the cooler, keep the meat above the waterline, and drive home! It will be fine until you get home.
• While I have never done this, I have seen situations where guys have chained a small chest freezer on a trailer or inside of the bed of their pickup truck, with a generator. Shoot something, start the generator, and take it from there.

As far as how long you can leave the elk meat on ice: how long would you leave a package of raw hamburger from the supermarket inside a cooler, on top of a bag of ice? Probably not more than a couple of days, but that would depend on the daytime temperatures, the size of the cooler, and amount of ice you have on hand. Probably not more than a couple of days!

I would hesitate to leave a cooler full of ice and elk meat in an open, unsecured location, both from humans and other mammals.

Meat Hauling Checklist:
Also, it helps me to have a checklist on hand of things to bring with when hauling meat. (After that first trip off the mountain, it’s easy to forget something at the vehicle. Tired, worn down, etc.) A checklist really helps. Here is mine:

• Frame backpack
• Regular backpack (for everything below)
• Ratchet straps
• 4 clear garbage bags (put the deboned quarters into these bags, to keep everything from getting bloody)
• Knife
• Knife sharpener
• Game bags
• Headlamps
• Spare batteries
• Water bladder
• Water filter
• Pistol and ammo
• GPS
• Trekking poles
• Sunglasses
• Baseball hat
• Fresh boots
• Fresh socks
• Latex gloves - 2 pair
• Emergency poncho: in case it rains
• SPOT device
• Food
• Gu Energy gels
• Energy bars
• Salt licks

“Typical” Meat Packing Days:
To give you an idea of what it “could” be like to haul an elk off the mountain, below are my notes from packing this year’s elk. (I am hunting solo, so things take longer than it would with two people.). I left my GPS on for the first several legs of the trip, so the distances are accurate. Every year is different, but below is pretty normal for where I hunt and how several of my meat packing experiences have played out. (I’ve had years where I’ve had ice in the cooler and not had to drive into town, and years where I’ve camped up on the mountain instead of packing meat out in the dark – it kind of all depends; they are all pretty similar, though.)

Thursday:

• Shot cow elk at 8:00 pm. 13 yards
• Found elk at 8:15 pm
• Setup place to hang meat, take pictures: 8:15-9:15 pm
• Quartered and hung up meat using gutless method: 9:15 pm – 12:15 am
• Hiked 1.5 miles back to camp, with meat inside of hunting backpack: 12:15 am – 2:15 am
• Went to bed: 2:30 am.

Friday:

• Woke up: 7:45 am. Just over 5 hours of sleep.
• Hiked 6.5 miles down the mountain to my vehicle: 8:30 am – 12:30 pm
• Drove into town for food and ice: 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
• Drove from town back to the mountain, prepared meat hauling setup: 3:00 pm -5:00 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles up the mountain: 5:15 pm – 9:15 pm
• Deboned elk: 9:30 pm – 10:30 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles back down the mountain, with hind quarter and front shoulder: 10:30 pm – 3:30 am
• Went to bed in the front seat of my vehicle: 3:45 am. (Too tired to pitch tarp!)
• Total miles hiked: 19.5

Saturday

• Woke up about 9:45 am. About 6 hours of sleep
• Hiked 6.5 miles up the mountain: 10:30 am – 4:30 pm
• Deboned other hindquarter and front shoulder: 4:30 pm – 5:15 pm
• Hiked 6.5 miles back down the mountain, with the last load of meat: 5:15 pm – 9:45 pm
• Traveled to get ice for coolers: 9:45 pm – 11:00 pm.
• Filled second cooler with ice
• Total miles hike: 13

Sunday:

• Slept in a little bit
• Drove from state #1 to state #2, about a 6-8 hour drive
• Dropped meat off with butcher
• Hiked into new hunting area in state #2

Monday: Hunting in state #2

Butcher cut and wrapped first elk from state #1 while I spent the rest of the week hunting in state #2.

Thanks @Maverick1 for taking the time to share this much detail. I’m a newbie planning my first trip and this detail helps put planning into perspective. I’m sure I’ll make mistakes but I don’t want my first mistake to be ignoring experience. Thanks again.

 

[Jethro]

Do I need a topper for my truck so I can lock my coolers up?

Would be best to at least have a tonneau cover so the coolers are hidden from sight.

Icy, cold water will discolor the meat but not negatively effect quality for the time frame you are looking at. Best is the frozen bottles. Keeps it cold and dry.

We kept quarters cold with ice for 6 days. Draining and replenishing ice often the first 2 days because meat was not cold going into coolers. Then switched to dry ice for the long ride home. Meat was perfect.