Meat cooling for early season day trips?

[ajr5406]

Suppose you shoot a deer in Sept or early Oct during a day trip 3 hours from the LML. If the weather is warm, is there any issues with packing the quarters etc into game bags and straight into the truck to head home, and butcher/freeze the meat that night?

Or would it be best to spend a few hours in the field getting the meat cool first? Does it make much difference?

Hopefully I'll be faced with this problem soon

[moosinaround]

Cool asap, de bone if you can, set out to air cool as you de bone. Have white marine cooler with ice at truck, put in de boned meat, and stroke'er for a cooler. Biggest thing is to get meat away from the bone, and cool as quickly as possible. Always buck the hide off, and make the thick parts of the animal thinner, cools quicker. Game bags a very good idea, lots of flys and wasps looking for yer meat too! Good hunting to you! Moosin

[tinhorse]

If you get the animal opened and skinned asap then packed out you'll be fine. I have shot several early deer and August moose. Some moose I've butchered the same evening others because of time restraints I've quartered and put into the freezer. Taken the frozen quarters out in mid oct when temps. Were better and hung for a week before butchering. Every which way I've gone they have all been tasty early season game. Just get the skin off quick and let air pass over the meat.

[Sharpish]

People get way to bent out of shape. I've shot moose on day 5 of a 10 day fly in and had it hanging in the shade the rest of the time. Any deer we shoot get gutted immediately and skinned hours and hours later. They hang for a week in 10-15 degree temp in a shed and then butchered. It won't rot in two hours.

The steak you get from the supermarket probably comes from a steer that died a month ago.

[Brambo]

Try to cool it down asap if your not deboning it cut some slits down to the bone on the think parts of meat. Keep it out of the sun and let it breath. If you can put it in a cooler with ice.

[ajr5406]

Good tips, much appreciated.

[Norwestalta]

Put bags of ice in the chest cavity and split the pelvis to open it up as much as possible.

[MichelD]

I've never had to worry much about deer. (no wait, there was last Sept. 10 but that's another story.)

What I've done with spring bear is bring a cooler full of frozen two-litre water bottles and once the animal is gutted, skinned, cut into portion and put in clean cloth bags I lay them on a tarp in the pickup bed and position the ice bottles between them.

About last year, my partner and i got a buck each within an hour of each other opening morning and as soon as we got the deer back to camp and skinned it got summer-hot so we bagged the deer in the cotton bags mentioned above, tied them shut and scooted home. I think he took ihs to a butcher but at home my wife and I figured out with a timer device how to get our spare freezer to cycle on for 10 minutes every hour or two and we were able to keep the deer chunks chilled for three days before butchering.

With the size of animal I usually get, bear or deer, they part out to
1. The front legs and shoulders,

2. The neck and chest back to the end of the ribs

3. The back and hindquarters.

Bigger animals may have the neck on its own and the hinds separated.

[caddisguy]

Toss it in the back of the truck (or get it in the car and roll the windows down) and hit the gas :D

[Ferenc]

I always on elk remove the shoulder ( banjo ) on each front quarter once skinned out.. The more you can break it down the better. : )

[bacon_overlord]

Get it to the truck, crank the A/C and strap into the passenger seat. Cools it down, and lets you use HOV lanes to get home faster.

Seriously though, hide off ASAP, and more cooling will never hurt, but not enough could decrease meat quality

[Singleshotneeded]

Suppose you shoot a deer in Sept or early Oct during a day trip 3 hours from the LML. If the weather is warm, is there any issues with packing the quarters etc into game bags and straight into the truck to head home, and butcher/freeze the meat that night?

Or would it be best to spend a few hours in the field getting the meat cool first? Does it make much difference?

Hopefully I'll be faced with this problem soon

If it's in the teens or warmer down in the valleys, and you have a decent cold creek or river nearby, just gut the deer and put it in the water for 30-40 minutes, which will get the deer semi-frozen and eliminate the chance of it getting bone sour. I had that happen once...not happening again. Find a mountain stream with decent flow near your hunting area.

[krazy]

If just a deer as you mention in your post then moosinaround is right on the money with the salmon cooler suggestion. Why take the slightest chance when this is so easy. Seven 2 liter plastic water bottles (frozen) fit perfect along the bottom of my salmon cooler. The frozen water bottles are better than ice because you won't have the game sitting in water as the ice melts. Use the gutless method and all 4 skinned quarters, back straps, neck meat and trim (ribs) will fit in no problem. Use an old pillow case for each quarter and another for the boned out meat and it keeps things clean and organized. Puts a cool on very quickly and also keeps things clean.