Meat care

[HunterEldridge]

when hunting in the back country and the temps rise how do you keep your meat from spoiling if your hunting with a group and you have a few days before you get back to civilization?

 

[Mighty Mouse]

There's no definitive answer to this, but below are some steps to reduce the risk of spoilage:

• Prioritize preserving the meat. In my hunting group, it's understood that when there's an animal down, everyone takes a pause from hunting and pitches in until the meat is safe. The definition of "safe" varies with conditions and your risk tolerance.
• Get the meat off the animal ASAP. Be prepared to quarter an animal in the dark if necessary.
• Hang the meat in the shade inside breathable game bags.
• It's debatable whether bone-in or bone-out is the better strategy, but if you do take the meat off the bone, don't let the deboned meat sit in a big ball at the bottom of a bag. Use longer, narrower bags to keep the meat in a more cylindrical shape with more surface area to promote cooling. Depending on how long it will be hanging, you may want to rearrange the deboned meat inside the bag at intervals to get more even cooling.
• Citric acid spray. I personally haven't tried it, but some folks swear by it.
• Put the meat in a watertight dry bag and submerge it in a creek or lake. This is a hassle and creates the risk of water-logging the meat if the dry bag leaks, but it might be necessary in some situations.
• Depending on the distance from the truck to the nearest town, leaving coolers pre-filled with ice in the truck might be advisable. A chest freezer and small portable generator is also an option.

 

[JeffP_Or]

MM has listed good strategies. A couple that I have heard repeated:

• Similar to the "submerge in creek" method, if a small creek or backbend, you can build a supporting platform with limbs just above the water surface; throw the bagged meat on the platform(s); cover with tarp or tree boughs [if available] to protect from bugs/birds but still let air circulate. Creeks/creek bottoms are almost always cooler.
• Dedicate a meat only pack out; drive to town; put in storage/meat locker. Most of Oregon's areas are not too far from a town with a meat locker; this also allows you to resupply or pack back in relatively empty with some rewards in hand for the rest of the crew till in the country.