What would you do!!

[JPD350]

You are solo and shoot him at 7 PM but you could not find a blood trail before it got dark, by the time you find him 12 hours have passed, upon finding him you come to conclusion that your shot was good and he died within an hour after the shot so he basically has been upside down in hole for 11 or 12 hours. He actually only went 3 or 4 hundred yds before expiring, there just wasn't much blood
What do you do?
How do you do it?
There are no close up hill trees or any trees that could do anything for you, I had a 3 pulley system but could find no way to use it. I also had the thought that the meat may already be green and I knew that time was a looming enemy.
I'll chime in later on what and how I did it later.

 

[FURMAN]

Start cutting.


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[mtnrunner260]

Take quarters on log side then flip over to do straps etc.
Sure it's still heavy but I've done similar.

 

[Trial153]

Start buy getting those quarters off and into the air ...then after a good bit of airing out I would make the call as if it was good or not.

 

[5MilesBack]

First off, during archery season.....I will NEVER leave a bull overnight. There is no way that meat survives those body temps overnight.

Secondly, all you can do solo is start cutting on him and taking as much off as you can until you can move him.......unless there's a way to get that tree out of the way. If it had been my bull, he would have found a way to wedge half his body under the tree as well.......on a 60 degree slope with 10 times as many blowdowns. Although......the last two have found pretty flat ground, thankfully.

Ya, it's a daunting task sometimes........but you just do what you gotta do to get it done.

 

[WV Mountaineer]

Started cutting until I could get it out. Piece by piece if necessary. IF there was room to get the guts out of him and still work on him, I'd done that first. Much easier to move around without guts. Never faced that so, I'm just telling you what I would have come up with. Looking forward to seeing how you handled it. God Bless

 

[quackaddict]

I think I would have tried to get the guts out first. He seems to be in a good position for that (I gutted whitetails back east in troughs built to hold them in that same position). Then I'd have gotten the tenderloins and tried to get the hindquarters and moved forward from there.

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[Journeyman]

First thing I'd do is cut straight around the joint of the skull and spinal chord, with as twisted up as his neck was it'd come off easily and with the rack out of the way it make the rest easier. No interest in trying to save the cape for a mount, this is a meat salvaging mission!

Next would be the front quarters, looks like they were exposed enough to get them off pretty quick. I wouldn't bother getting the skin off till they were off the elk but as soon as they were I'd get the skin off. Probably wouldn't gut it, just start cutting on the rears in the same way as the fronts and skin them once they were off of the elk. By that point it'd probably be light enough to get it rolled over and get at the back straps and reach in and grab the tenderloins from there.

By the way, no judgement here, hunting isn't a video game and it doesn't always go perfect. Sounds like you busted your ass to try and save the meat. Just another lesson to file into the memory bank for all of us.

 

[xziang]

Not much elk experience but like some people above said looks like he is in a perfect position to field dress him and that would be tempting for me. Then start getting legs off and maybe even head and pull the corpse downhill to reveal access to backstraps.

 

[mtmuley]

Get him apart FAST. Then hung if you have to or into any cold water that is close. Ice or the processor as quickly as you can after that. mtmuley

 

[muddydogs]

Guess I don't see a problem with how the bull is lying as I prefer to quarter them on there back so I would just start cutting. Heck that logs looks like it could be used as a seat to do some cutting off of and save the back a little. Won't know the status of the meat until the knife work starts so I would wing it once I started cutting.

 

[MtnMuley]

Get the hide and quarters off ASAP. I wouldn't worry about any rigging or anything ideal, but would be more concerned about cooling that meat down as fast as possible to prevent bone sour or spoilage and that can only be done by getting that hide off. The last thing I'd do is focus on anything from the shoulders forward.

 

[DocV]

Let me start off with this: the way you did it was the way that worked for you. The rest of this is just development!

Rear quarters, separate the head, see if you can get the front shoulders uphill (preferably over that lip) and then see what the chest is looking like. The lung blood can tell you a lot about how much spoilage your dealing with. If you can gut him and save the straps then you have gravity working with you, if you can't then take the front quarters.
Great work and I look forward to leaning from you.


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[JPD350]

I only posted this because I thought it was classic example of a jacked up situation and a good thing to talk about. Even though I have broke down quite a few elk I still made some poor decisions and I cant change that, after 35 years I have never had such an issue.

I agree with 5milesback on never leaving him when it is warm and for the most part I never want to leave one no matter what but I could not find a blood trail and there were elk tracks everywhere. I was fairly sure I made a good shot but couldn't find the arrow to help determine if I should expand the search. I also don't want to bump a wounded animal, the night before was cold enough for frost so I made the decision to sneak out of there till morning.
The next morning I was there before light looking for a trail, the temps were not like the night before they were the warmest of the hunt. It took me 2.5 hours to track him down which brought me to 8:35 AM, my excitement for finding him was quickly wiped out by an extreme low on what I saw. I was already thinking I may loose some meat to sour before I found him but I was pretty sure I would find him early and break him down quickly but what I was looking at was a very high possibility of spoiled meat as it was at the time I found him just because of the way he was.

I tried a few times to pull on him just to see how he moved but he was very stiff and really sucked into that hole, he was tighter then it must look in the picture because the hind quarters were buried and tight on both sides, to cut them off in that location didn't seem viable with not being able to pull them away from the body so the thought I had was to make more room and that I need to get my long rope, pulleys and shovel so I ran back to the truck (1/2 mile) My downfall is that when I go in a direction I really go, so another half hour passed. I removed the log that was embedded in the dirt which helped a little but then I thought what the hell just dig out the side of the hill so I can just roll him over, my next thoughts were that I needed leverage and since there were no trees I put a log over him like a ridge now the sun was coming up over the hill so I broke out the tarp to block the sun. I got one side done and then the task of flipping him over in that location was tougher then I thought it would be, I got it done and removed the rest of the meat, it was now 2 pm. I just thought that things would go much faster then they did and I knew I had spent too much time to get it done but I did what I thought I had to do.

 

[JPD350]

I do agree that gutting him would have helped a bunch to get the hind quarters off and the front right quarter could have came off right away, for some reason I just didn't think to gut him.
They way he was had a lot of his blood in the layer around the skin and muscles and he had a lot of heat retention, when taking off the first front quarter some blood got released and it was still fairly hot, I really don't think I had a chance to get un soured meat no matter how I did it but the object is to get it off fast and I did not.

 

[realunlucky]

That sucks sure wasn't from lack of effort. That's some work rigging all that stuff up

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[5MilesBack]

It's hard to prepare for every situation we find them in. Seems that every year is a new learning experience with something. My daughter's bull was laying pretty well for us, but his hide was the thickest I'd ever encountered. From the shoulders forward on his neck I thought I was cutting through giraffe hide. I wish I had taken pics of that, it was almost an inch thick and I broke four Havalon blades just on that neck hide. Even with my 4" fixed blade it was a tiny cut at a time with each full force slice.

With no or very little blood on the ground it's tough. It doesn't sound like you would have fared any better even if he'd been laying perfectly.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

So how did the meat all turn out for you in the end? That definitely didn't look fun (photos didn't look that tight but you clarified it was and that makes it a PITA). If it wasn't tight I would have said take off the 4 quarters hide on fast, then get what clean meat off you could (since things would likely get a little dirty in that spot taking off the quarters. Then skin out the quarters.

I thought I was cutting through giraffe hide.

Tangent: Do giraffe have especially thick hide? Can't say I have ever heard that tidbit or expression (if it is one) and you perked my curiosity if you happen to know.

 

[5MilesBack]

Tangent: Do giraffe have especially thick hide? Can't say I have ever heard that tidbit or expression (if it is one) and you perked my curiosity if you happen to know.

I saw someone post on AT a few years ago after shooting a giraffe and they had pics of the hide. It was about an inch thick.

 

[JPD350]

It's hard to prepare for every situation we find them in. Seems that every year is a new learning experience with something. My daughter's bull was laying pretty well for us, but his hide was the thickest I'd ever encountered. From the shoulders forward on his neck I thought I was cutting through giraffe hide. I wish I had taken pics of that, it was almost an inch thick and I broke four Havalon blades just on that neck hide. Even with my 4" fixed blade it was a tiny cut at a time with each full force slice.

With no or very little blood on the ground it's tough. It doesn't sound like you would have fared any better even if he'd been laying perfectly.

You are 100% correct that it is hard to prepare for the unknown but I feel it is my responsibility to try which is why I carry a pack full of crap everywhere I go and I try to think about every scenario, it pains me to think that I didn't do the right thing even if the meat was already going sour.


I think if he was laying perfectly or any other position I would have had an issue with the down side meat just because we are talking 12 hours being dead and un favorable temps, I am 100% sure that if he was in another position I would have walk up to him and had the top quarters off in a very short order and would have had them boned out shortly after that, I am also very positive that I could have moved him around in any other position/location, one of my strong points is manipulating heavy items, it's also a detriment because thats what I thought to do first with this guy.


I think the bottom line was that I should have immediately hacked the hell out of this animal as he lay instead of trying to move him into a position so that I could take the meat off clean and to the bone and without gutting him, because of how he was I am sure it would have been a mess but that was what was needed to try and salvage some of the meat even if it was just a little bit.