meat care soap box

[madmoose]

it seems like i see it more and more every year. hunters driving around with there animals barely gutted(just to the brisket) and like that for more than 24 hours in mild october weather, and they will leave it like that on the drive home and im sure to parade it around to who ever they know, then when they get home its late, and they,ll get to it tomorrow then it might go to the processor a little later, and at what point did it go bad?
folks bound and determined to get a elk out whole,, really why? do you eat it that way? eat the bones? hide on? ground dirt into the meat from dragging it down a skid road or up a mt. side? yummy!
i recommend de-boning if you dont do it already...think about it..
im no butcher, but i can cut meat off of bone, and i can do it in big enough pieces to let the butcher cut it up the way it needs to be.
i dont eat the hide and i dont eat the bones, so why pack them and bust your but to get them out of the woods?
in about 25 min. im done with a deer and away i go, just did a small bull moose last week in an hour and a half.
didnt have to worry about getting the whole animal out of the woods
didnt have to worry about meat not cooling the fastest way possible..ice can be waiting for you back at the truck in a cooler. toss it in
didnt have to discard the waste of the animal
didnt kill a ton of time doing all the above steps.
theres no easier time to get the meat and hide off the animal then right after its down.
granted i retrieved my whole animals in the past. but for the last many years ive deboned everything, even when its laying right next to the truck, like a pronghorn or anything else...i ask you why not?
theres videos and tutorials out there to get ya thru, and once ya do a few it just goes faster and faster..im sure theres actually butchers out there that hunt and say that im slow..but its ok, because slow or fast your out of the woods the easiest.
have you past on animals because of where they were at? what if you were only packing the meat and horns out? BIG difference.
when you hunt with your buddys, get them to de-bone or try and do it for them, you both learn or you yourself are getting more and more hands on..
just voicing my experiences and giving anyone out there a nudge if there thinking it would be something they would like to end up doing.
sorry for the long read.. kinda venting too
know a few guys in the butcher biz and they say a majority of whats brought in from hunters cannot be salvaged just do to neglect.

 

[bucklover]

LAST EDITED ON Nov-07-10 AT 08:59PM (MST)[p]I've heard and read about it, so this year we went prepared, just in case, to do it. We took about 10 meat sacks, (pillow cases etc.) As it turns out, my buddy and I both shot small bulls in rather steep country. The first one we got above on a two track road, on our 4 wheelers. Hiked down to him, boned him out with a cut along the spine. Didn't have to gut him. Just pealed the hide from the spine down to the leg. Removed the meat from the quarters, the backstraps and carefully was even able to go in from just under the spine and remove the tenderloin. We were able to get to the meat on the neck also. We were in an either sex area so didn't have to worry about leaving sign of sex. We packed his out in one load. The next morning I shot one and and we repeated the process. This time we packed the meat down to where we had rolled my deer cart to. Loaded the packs on the deer cart and walked the two miles out to the road without stopping.

My only question is: when you must leave sign of sex,what is the easiest way to leave it attached to an edible portion of meat?

 

[alpinebowman]

If its not a big animal or I have plenty of help I just quarter it to keep the meat cleaner. quarters still fit nicely in a cooler.but I agree get the animal broken down and on ice asap. Just drag the head around if you want to show it off because nobody cares about the body size of an animal anymore.

alpinebowman

>>>---shots that are true pass right through--->

 

[mevertsen]

for evidence of sex - if it has to remain attached to a portion of the meat - just make sure when you skin the animal, leave a portion of skin attached to the hind quarter that has the whole vulva opening, or the penis sheath. I have read most of the western states regulations, and that is enough as far as I know.

In NV, the evidence of sex is the head, as we have antlerless, antlered hunts and not cow/bull hunts. All we have to keep is the scalp from the muzzle up, including the ears, and the antlers.

Later,

Marcial

 

[bucklover]

That's the way I would have thought. I just hate to throw that in the meat bag with clean, boned meat. Maybe, carry a baggie along to slide over the nasty parts??

 

[Flint]

I am also appalled at how some people treat game they intend to eat. I an convinced that one reason many people don't like antelope is that they kill them in warm weather and don't take care of them properly.

Depending on the circumstances, I will quarter an animal and leave the hide on while packing because it helps keep the meat clean.

I am finicky about keeping any meat cool and clean and I like to get it taken acre of quickly. Unlike many hunters I try very hard not to have to leave an animal overnight even in cool weather because I think it can taint the meat.

If I am on a meat hunt I won't take a shot late in the day if there is a chance recovery will have to wait until morning.

I can't believe the number of times hunting programs show an animal being left overnight. Then they are taking pictures of an non-gutted animal the next day in shirtsleeves with the sun high in the sky. I'm glad I don't have to eat them.

On the other hand, during the Voyage of Discovery Lewis and Clark wrote about how their group and some Indians recovered winter-killed animals that washed into a river after an early spring thaw and ate them eagerly.

 

[Phantom Hunter]

Just one more voice supporting the get the hide off and the meat cooled down quick position. We usually quarter our elk and pack out on horses. We leave the spine, rib bones, lower legs and pelvis in the woods along with the hide unless someone wants one to tan. If I have to pack it out on my back it's gonna be boned out completely. Always have some provision to cool the meat down if you don't it will spoil. A buddy left a bull elk carcass overnight one year, he had gutted it completly and split the neck to remove the windpipe. He forgot to lay the hindquarters out flat. Even though it was in the upper 20's that night some of his hindquarter meat spoiled where the two hindquarters were touching and couln't cool down. Last time we will let that happen.

 

[cjg_beef]

I prefer to quarter the animal out keeping the hide on until we get back to camp just to help keep the meat clean. We use a deer cart for elk and deer and it's been a huge help in keeping the meat clean. The only thing I don't like about deboning an animal is you have a big bag of wet meat hanging and if not cooled properly it can spoil.

Workman Predator Calls Field Staff
http://www.workmanpredatorcalls.com

 

[BLooDTRaCKeR]

This is the first year I have done the gutless method and I won't do it any other way from here on out! I was by myself when I shot my 5 point bull this year and The flys hit the elk as soon as it hit the ground. I carry 3 deer bags with me when I'm hunting elk. I shot the elk at 7:45 am, skinned and quartered him out, pulled the straps off and all other usable meat. I took the meat 50 yards away from the kill sight, Cooled it all on a boulder, stuffed all the meat into the deer bags, put it all under a pine tree, covered it all with pine branches and headed out to get my deer cart and frame pack to do the rest of the job. When I returned a few hours later, the meat was cooled, and no flys. The rest of the carcass at the kill sight was covered in flys and even a bunch of ravens had already found it and were working it over. I agree, take care of the meat as quickly as possible.

 

[mmwb]

"On the other hand, during the Voyage of Discovery Lewis and Clark wrote about how their group and some Indians recovered winter-killed animals that washed into a river after an early spring thaw and ate them eagerly."

Most of us have never been as hungry as many of past generations.


Unless it is very close to a road, I bone out all of my deer and elk. I carry a couple of king sized pillow cases when deer hunting, three of them when elk hunting. I usually have five or six garbage bags in the bottom of my pack. As stated above laying the meat across rocks to cool as you bone out the carcass works well. If there are no rocks available, spread out a couple of the garbage bags to lay the meat on. Most of it is fairly cool when you are done. The load going in the pack is dropped into a garbage bag in the pack to keep from getting blood on everything. Remaining loads are left so as to allow air circulation. As soon as I get the meat home, the meat is in coolers on racks (so the meat doesn't sit in water from the melting ice) and covered with ice. I've never had bad meat doing this.

Antelope we field dress and take to camp. It is boned there and put on ice.

 

[brymoore]

I do the gutless method. I've deboned meat in the past and have decided it's not worth the extra work in the field. It doesn't reduce the amount of pack trips for me and I'd rather age my meat on the bone. If the weather was cool enough, I'd also consider leaving the skin on to reduce meat waste during butchering.

 

[mntman]

Actually when you debone the hindquarter there is a piece of thin meat that the sex organs are attached to. When deboning if you leave it to that piece which is about 2lbs. on a elk I put it all in its own seperate plastic bag and just throw it away when I get home. Due to all the hair and wonderful fluids that get on the meat.


Mntman

"Hunting is where you prove yourself"

 

[npaden]

>As soon as I get the meat
>home, the meat is in
>coolers on racks (so the
>meat doesn't sit in water
>from the melting ice) and
>covered with ice.

I think it is an old wives tale to not get the meat wet.

I intentionally add water to my cooler if the ice is not melting fast enough so that the meat is completely submerged in ice water. I also add some rock salt to the ice to melt some of it and the resulting briney solution will stay at a slightly lower temperature.

I keep my meat in this condition for 4 or 5 days and will drain the water out and add more water and ice a couple times in the process until the end result is clear water, not red koolaid looking water.

This ages the meat and results in it being more tender as well as resulting in nice clean meat when it comes time to butcher it.

I've done this with close to two dozen animals over the last few years and it was worked very well, even on pigs shot in August in near 100 degree temperatures.

I also can't imagine going back to gutting an animal after using the gutless method. On headshot pigs I will even take the ribs off in the same manner but leave the guts alone.

Here's a picture of a pig that I did this on. People who say you waste meat using this method have never tried it. I completely do one side then flip them over and repeat.

I even do them this way when I can drive right up to them. I need to build a nice table to put them on though so I'm not bending over all the time.

Lot's of different ways to skin a cat (or a deer, elk or pig), but I 100% agree that proper care given the meat immediately after the animal is killed is critical to having quality meat on your table.

 

[kilowatt]

madmoose check your INBOX (PM) you have mail.

Brian
http://i25.tinypic.com/fxbjgy.jpg[/IMG]