Meat care question

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

What do you guys do with your meat if you are hunting with a party and you take an elk early? I ask because living in Missouri, it's not as if I could just run it home a couple hours away and then join back up with the group. We are planning on backpack hunting 5+/- miles in for 7 days so making trips out to ice the cooler is going to be inconvenient at best. Also do you leave the meat in the meat baggy while in the cooler or just in the game bag or no bags? Clearly taking it to a processor would be the easiest solution, but the only meat I have ever had processed is hogs and that was mostly for the smoking. How much does an average elk cost to process? How convenient are processors located? Would prefer not to have it processed but will if necessary. Anything else I am not considering?

Edit: I'll be hunting in Colorado archery September 7-14.

 

[littlebuf]

where your hunting (generally of course, state,high/low ext.) and what season will help in getting some good advice

 

[amp713]

We usually cut up our own deer, and I archery elk hunt solo so that depends on the time i have and the temps (Utah is generally an august bull so its hot) but when we cow hunt we go in groups. Unless everyone tags out really early and the temps are decent there just isnt enough time to completely process a couple big cows. We try to hang them for a day or two then run them down to the processor. Its about a 30 minute drive to the one we prefer. As for price i cant really remember we ran my dads bull and cow, my cow, and my uncles cow all down as we got them. Pricing also depends on what you have done... I had a summer sausage done which cost extra but next time im doing even more they were great!!!

 

[tttoadman]

In the hot weather bow hunting, we could have elk hang for up to a week or more. We would hang the meat up at night. When we got up early, we would take it all down and wrap the meat up in a pile under a couple heavy sleeping bags. Hang it back up at night, and do it again the next day. As long as the night temps get nice and cold, this seemed to work just fine.

 

[jmez]

Take several coolers and put block ice in them and leave in the shade at your vehicle. If it is warming up during the day you have to pack it out to the coolers. No other choice convenient or not. The only other choice is to put it in plastic bags and sink it in a cold stream if one is available. Plastic doesn't allow the meat to breathe so this is a temporary solution.

You really have no choice other than to carry it back to the truck. Once it is all there you can leave it if you have sufficient ice. If not call local meat processors in the area and pretty much all of them will allow you to bring in meat and they will throw it in their cooler and store for you until ready to leave. Could also try to find a packer that you can contact to come get meat with stock. These are very hard to find.

You just plan on losing an entire day to taking care of meat if someone shoots one.

 

[Vance in AK]

You might check out the "project Bloodtrail" dvd from Larry at Pristine Ventures

http://www.pristineventures.com/products/dvd-library.html

it's geared to float hunting but the principles apply.

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

I should've been a little clearer. I don't mind packing it to the truck, my question is am I going to have to come back out to the truck every other day to re-ice the meat? I realize that some will be determined by the weather at that time and obviously if there is a freak cold front that lasts all week there is nothing to worry about. So we'll say worst case scenario, one of us downs an animal on the first day and temps are in the 80s all week, how often would you say it would need iced? If the meat needs air dried is sitting on ice for that long bad for it?

My experience is with whitetail only so it is processed the next day. This type of meat care where it is a little while before the freezer is a bit foreign.

 

[JP100]

If the temps arnt too high you can just hang the whole deer in a fly proof mesh/net bag. will last for a week easy as long as the flies dont get it.
Im sure you could buy a fly proof bag or just make one(curtain mesh works well) and they dont weigh anything. Meat that is hung for a week+ is the best to eat aswell.

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

If the temps arnt too high you can just hang the whole deer in a fly proof mesh/net bag. will last for a week easy as long as the flies dont get it.
Im sure you could buy a fly proof bag or just make one(curtain mesh works well) and they dont weigh anything. Meat that is hung for a week+ is the best to eat aswell.

What's to high of a temp? I agree meat that hangs for a bit tastes better, however my wife is incredibly finicky when it comes to meat spoiling. She has never had any type of food poisoning but as picky as she is about things you'd think it almost killed her a dozen times. She will not be with me though so what happens in the woods stays in the woods

 

[JP100]

What's to high of a temp? I agree meat that hangs for a bit tastes better, however my wife is incredibly finicky when it comes to meat spoiling. She has never had any type of food poisoning but as picky as she is about things you'd think it almost killed her a dozen times. She will not be with me though so what happens in the woods stays in the woods

Depends on who you talk to but I would not want the day time temp to be above 15C or 59F for america haha. you can leave the skin off or on. I find gutting them asap remove windpipe ect aswell and try and split the chest cavity(may need a saw), you can also open up the hip joint to get the back quarters to cool faster(or you could just quarter the animal then hang) and find an area in the shade with good air flow. like a over grown stream bed. This is how we do things with Red deer,never had any problems. haha yea she doesn't need to know

 

[bz_711]

I just got my first elk this past fall so only have one experience to relate to, but it was too warm to hang meat. I shot my bull at 6:00pm, 4 of us had the whole thing deboned and back to camp at 10:30pm. I placed the game bags into 6 contractor grade trash bags and submerged in ice b/t a 150qt and 70qt cooler. I left the meat in there for 3.5 days and re-iced daily, although probably only needed new ice once. Even the morning after when I checked the meat the centers were ice cold.
I do agree that meat should be kept dry and I should have actually pulled it out each night to hang but it was also raining each night so decided not to.
I would not have been comfortable pushing this any more days...but my meat smelled and looked great and I've got nothing but compliments when grilling it for others that typically would not eat wild game.

If I was in your situation - I would find a place to run the meat to store in cooler until you head home, so you can get back to hunting/helping others and not worry about meat. High temps could mean re-icing is needed daily which doesn't work for you. I have no experience with Dry Ice but wonder if enough of that could almost freeze your meat in coolers until you are ready.

Lets hope you have the headaches of too much meat to worry about - I like those problems! Good Luck!

 

[brunse]

I spend all year waiting for the mountains. I get plenty of practice butchering deer at home. So I take them to the processor and head back out to call or pack for someone else. It is not worth the hassle for $2-250 bucks. If you are not leaving for a few days, most processors will hang it a few days then cut it up and freeze it for you. If they haven't the time or initiative to hang it a few days, then when you want to cook it just take it from your freezer and allow it to sit in your fridge a few days before you cook it. Works for me.

 

[jmez]

If you use block ice and keep coolers in shade you should be able to leave meat for at least 5 days without re icing.

Another consideration with leaving it at the truck is bears. Would need yeti type coolers or lock it in a trailer. If grizzly country then you'll be making an insurance claim on a trailer if the bear wants it.

Best option is usually to run it to a local locker. Once its back to the truck should only cost a couple hours at the most.

 

[Colo4x4XJ]

Where in Colorado will you be hunting? There are a lot of places that have cold storage that you can hang your carcass in until you are ready to leave.

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

Not 100% but looking at unit 47

 

[jmez]

Where you going in? North end of the Unit Eagle/Gypsum may be the closest.

 

[JamesR]

I would say jmez has it right, I have done elk 5 days in a cooler multiple times with no problems. It helps to have: quality cooler, block ice, blankets or sleeping bags to wrap the coolers, and shade. I also dont like the meat setting in the water on the bottom of the cooler so I leave the drain open (a small piece of screen can be used to keep yellow jackets out).I have often thought about a rack setup for the bottom of the cooler to suspend your meat but you would loose capacity. Good luck.

 

[CentennialELK]

Late August to mid to late September can be pretty warm in the rockies, hot actually. That early in the year my meat goes to the processor as soon as I can get it there. I have kept meat with me for short periods, like three days. Worried about the meat the whole time... It is a great piece of mind to have it hanging in a locker. My late rifle hunts I have had elk hang in camp for 7 days or so, but it is usually colder than the locker would be. The meat needs to breathe as others have said and being submerged in water isn't good. We had 5 elk processed this fall and it was just under $300 per person. Each year my elk averages around $275 ea. That is for bone in meat, I have no idea about the price for deboned. There is lots of good info here in this post for you to think over, good luck with your hunt this fall!

 

[5MilesBack]

Just freeze up a bunch of milk jugs filled with water and leave them in the cooler at the truck. They'll last at least a week, this is what I use. Then you don't have to worry about ice melting and draining it, etc. I even leave it in there for a few days after I get home and get to the processing as I can, a bag at a time.

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

I'll be going in on 82 if there is a turn off spot (I can't tell for sure from Google earth), looks like about 20 minutes from aspen. Anyone no if there are good places to pull off and park the truck there.