Flying with meat questions…

[Ltsheets]

So I’m flying to hunt for the first time this Sep for a mule deer hunt in WY. I’ll be flying in and out of Jackson Hole. I’m thinking of buying a waterproof duffle, deboning the meat, putting it into gal bags in the duffle and hoping to find somewhere I can cool or freeze it overnight before flying home. Anyone had any experience with this? What size duffle would be needed for a boned out mule deer buck? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[go_deep]

If your planning on staying in a hotel the night before you fly out, call them now and ask if you can put the gallon bags in their freezer. If not we paid $5 a day one time at a meat locker just to freeze the meat, be worth calling the local meat lockers and ask if they'd do something like that.

 

[Banded_spooney]

I deboned a buck one time and froze it all in gallon zip locks. Took my clothes out of my carry on and put them in my bow case. I went to Walmart and bought a big soft sided cooler, took the plastic liner out and then lined the inside of my carry on with that lightly insulated cooler.

Fit an entire medium sized whitetail buck with room to spare. Stayed frozen from Pittsburgh to Sacramento even with a layover/6 hour delay in Phoenix. A guy on that same flight I talked to randomly had a deboned doe frozen in a garbage bag in his back pack (personal item) lol.

I think your on the right track. I’ve also bought an ice chest in Alaska and used it as my check bag but that limits you a bit weight wise after counting the ice chest.

 

[Turkeygetpwnd38]

Look for extended stay hotels, they usually have a full size freezer. I’ll do that or book an Airbnb after confirming they have a freezer in order to freeze the meat. Worst case, get some dry ice on top of the meat for 24hrs before, it’ll freeze. Flown a lot of meat in duffles, you shouldn’t have any issue.

 

[Ltsheets]

Look for extended stay hotels, they usually have a full size freezer. I’ll do that or book an Airbnb after confirming they have a freezer in order to freeze the meat. Worst case, get some dry ice on top of the meat for 24hrs before, it’ll freeze. Flown a lot of meat in duffles, you shouldn’t have any issue.

Great advice! Which duffels have you used with airlines? What sizes?

 

[Turkeygetpwnd38]

Great advice! Which duffels have you used with airlines? What sizes?

Have the smallest and largest yeti duffels. The smallest (50L) will fit a deboned antelope/whitetail or small mule deer. The yeti duffels aren’t a must and I wouldn’t even say they have to be water proof, just sturdy enough to not fall apart. You’ll have to do the math whether it’s cheaper to do one overweight bag or separate meat into different duffels, depends on airlines and number or bags. I’d say a large buck would fit into two 50L or one 100L easily. You could also pack meat into other check bags and as someone mentioned, your carry on. Just make sure you have a solid freeze on it and double bag.

 

[Mykolaivka887]

I've never personally used a duffel bag to fly meat on commercial airlines. For the most part, I've used a cardboard box lined with my dirty hunting clothes [as an insulator]. Never had an issue with any of the airline carriers when transporting frozen game meat that way as checked baggage. You can pretty much fit an entire boned mule deer buck in an apple box.

 

[7Bartman]

I bring a soft-sided cooler (see polar bear coolers) as my carry-on. This will hold full size elk loins and t.loins. I buy a couple of cheap coolers from Wal-Mart, but plastic totes will work fine or cardboard boxes as suggested above. The KEY aspect is finding a place that can flash freeze your meat. This typically will take at minimum a chest freezer, but a butchershop will be much better. I've done it 4 times, but I've been nervous everytime. The only time I ran into trouble is when the meat had slightly thawed and there was a little bit of blood in the bottom of the cooler.

 

[2muchhp]

I bougnt a cheap cooler at Walmart etc and a strap for the lid and ship as check bag.
Froze it first in the cooler with dry ice.

 

[Nick Muche]

Cheap Cooler, freeze the meat, package in cooler, add clothes if needed to make sure it's nice and snug, tape the cooler up and check it as a bag on your flight.

 

[Ondavirg]

They sell styrofoam boxes sized to fit the standard checked bag allowed by the airlines. Used these several times flying frozen fish home from Alaska. They are cheap and won’t cost you extra for oversized bag fees. This should work much better than a noninsulated bag imo. Find some dry ice or somewhere to freeze it before flying. Watch restrictions on how much dry ice you can pack.

 

[Ltsheets]

They sell styrofoam boxes sized to fit the standard checked bag allowed by the airlines. Used these several times flying frozen fish home from Alaska. They are cheap and won’t cost you extra for oversized bag fees. This should work much better than a noninsulated bag imo. Find some dry ice or somewhere to freeze it before flying. Watch restrictions on how much dry ice you can pack.

Where have you found these types of styrofoam boxes before?

 

[eaglemountainman]

Work out getting your boned out meat frozen, whether at a processor, motel freezer or using dry ice. Lots of stores out that way sell it during season.

For the flight home what I do is, I line my backpack (Sawtooth45) with one of those silver freezer bags from the grocery store frozen section. Then fill it with the frozen meat, NO ice or dry ice. It's against flight regs. It then rides home in the over head bin as my carry on. Any meat that doesn't fit in the pack (only one exceptionally large muley) goes in a smaller carry on that fits under the seat. I purposely leave my checked bag a few pounds light in case I have to empty the contents of the small bag into it.

I normally drive 2 hrs from Wyoming, to fly out of Rapid City, SD to Tampa, then a 2 hr drive to my house. My meat is always still frozen solid when I arrive home.
Hopefully, I'll be doing the same this year, but with an Oregon Blacktail instead.

 

[woods89]

I flew home with an elk last fall.

My hunt was mid November in northern CO. I killed my bull early in the hunt and was able to hang quarters in an insulated mini barn my hunting partner has on his place. The day before I flew back the meat was mid 30s in the middle of the quarters, and I boned it all out, purchased 2 Coleman 70 qt coolers, lined them with plastic, and filled them to 95lbs total per cooler. I did have a couple pieces of meat in a soft sided cooler in my checked duffel as well. I paid oversize and overweight fees on them and checked them along with my duffel and rifle case. Everything was fine when I got home.

A few points to consider....

- I think I could have gotten 95 lbs in a 55 qt cooler instead of a 70 qt, and I believe it would have saved my oversize fees.

- September might have made chilling a bit more challenging.

- I flew non-stop DEN-STL. A longer set of flights might have changed things, but honestly a chunk of meat that size chilled all the way through to the mid 30s will be fine for quite some time.

-duct tape is cheap, and I taped the living daylights out of those coolers to keep everything closed up tight. I write my name and phone number on the side as well.

-I left the antlers with my hunting partner, as cwd regs wouldn't let me bring a skull home that wasn't clean. I had a euro done out there, and at some point I'll figure out a way to get it here. Antlers are probably the biggest issue with flying.

-Don't buy fancy roto molded coolers for this. The walls are too thick and you'll wind up way oversize to get the volume you need. If you can get the cooler full and keep the lid tight a standard cooler will do fine, unless your itinerary is way longer than normal.

 

[Djacker]

Freeze it in gallon bags and put in your luggage. My grandpa did it for years flying from MN to TX. I've ised the cheap Styrofoam cooler from Walmart too a couple times, from Puerto Vallarta to MN.

 

[austinrdavis7]

So I’m flying to hunt for the first time this Sep for a mule deer hunt in WY. I’ll be flying in and out of Jackson Hole. I’m thinking of buying a waterproof duffle, deboning the meat, putting it into gal bags in the duffle and hoping to find somewhere I can cool or freeze it overnight before flying home. Anyone had any experience with this? What size duffle would be needed for a boned out mule deer buck? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I have flown deer from Hawaii to Florida with the deer meat in vacuum seals bags

So I’m flying to hunt for the first time this Sep for a mule deer hunt in WY. I’ll be flying in and out of Jackson Hole. I’m thinking of buying a waterproof duffle, deboning the meat, putting it into gal bags in the duffle and hoping to find somewhere I can cool or freeze it overnight before flying home. Anyone had any experience with this? What size duffle would be needed for a boned out mule deer buck? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

one trick to get around the wait is to put the meat in a carry on if it’s completely frozen. They don’t check weight for the carry on but you really have to make sure the meat is frozen. The size of the duffel usually isn’t the limiting factor. The issue is typically weight of the luggage.

 

[RAPTOR]

I flew home with an elk last fall.

My hunt was mid November in northern CO. I killed my bull early in the hunt and was able to hang quarters in an insulated mini barn my hunting partner has on his place. The day before I flew back the meat was mid 30s in the middle of the quarters, and I boned it all out, purchased 2 Coleman 70 qt coolers, lined them with plastic, and filled them to 95lbs total per cooler. I did have a couple pieces of meat in a soft sided cooler in my checked duffel as well. I paid oversize and overweight fees on them and checked them along with my duffel and rifle case. Everything was fine when I got home.

A few points to consider....

- I think I could have gotten 95 lbs in a 55 qt cooler instead of a 70 qt, and I believe it would have saved my oversize fees.

- September might have made chilling a bit more challenging.

- I flew non-stop DEN-STL. A longer set of flights might have changed things, but honestly a chunk of meat that size chilled all the way through to the mid 30s will be fine for quite some time.

-duct tape is cheap, and I taped the living daylights out of those coolers to keep everything closed up tight. I write my name and phone number on the side as well.

-I left the antlers with my hunting partner, as cwd regs wouldn't let me bring a skull home that wasn't clean. I had a euro done out there, and at some point I'll figure out a way to get it here. Antlers are probably the biggest issue with flying.

-Don't buy fancy roto molded coolers for this. The walls are too thick and you'll wind up way oversize to get the volume you need. If you can get the cooler full and keep the lid tight a standard cooler will do fine, unless your itinerary is way longer than normal.

I'll add, a Yeti M30 soft cooler is excellent as a carry on and can hold quite a bit. I'll second the cheap cooler for checked baggage mentioned here. Fly anywhere from Alaska, and you'll see plastic totes and cheap igloo coolers all duct taped full of frozen fish. Rotomolded coolers aren't your friend here since they're so heavy to start with. Getting the meat frozen before the trip home should be priority #1.