Shipping Meat from a Hunt

[Outdoorsman51]

For anyone that has hunted out of state, and taken a plane to get to your hunt, what has been the best way to ship the meat that you have found? I plan to pack two bags and check them in on the return flight, but there will still be hundreds of pounds left. Yes, I will be giving quite a bit away, but I would sure hope to have a little more for myself as this will be the only hunt I will be doing this year. Do you need to overnight it, or is it better to do 2 day and throw some dry ice in with it (I imagine it begins to become a balancing act between weight and ice at that point?). I was looking at FedEx, and did their calculator tool, and it came out to almost $400 for the two day and $770 for overnight for 100 lbs!!! At that cost, I am better off flying back every other week to visit and take it back on the plane. Is there a better way to do this that I am not thinking of? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dack77]

Try looking into a shipping company that can use Delta or another airline to ship on. You will need to drop the items off to the shipper and then they will get it on the plane for you but then you can pick it up from your home airport. This will probably be the best bang for your buck in this situation. If you live close enough to the airport and it's not a hassle to pick it up then you don't have to pay delivery drivers, etc. Check out the website link below for rates on Delta, but just know this is what Delta will charge the shipping company and then you will need to pay the shipper their administration fees on top of that.

http://www.delta.com/business_programs_services/delta_cargo/products_rates_shipping/rates/index.jsp

 

[DoeNob]

If its a really big animal (moose) I have heard of people skipping their return leg, renting a uhaul and driving all the meat and gear back and coming out ahead of shipping costs.

 

[ELKLOVER]

My buddy just went through this with his bull last week. After many phone calls and checking around it was going to cost about $1000 to get the rack and meat home. I then called United to get rules on shipping meat. We cut and wrapped and froze the elk on our own. It was about 100 pounds. We could get it in two pretty good sized coolers. The airline said he could mail his luggage home through like UPS, which was a little over $100. Then check the two coolers as his checked bags. The rules said the coolers had to have holes for ventilation and there could only be 3 1/2 pounds of dry ice in there. Each cooler would have been a little under $50. So to get the luggage home and meat would be under $300. Now......the rack on the other hand there was no way around that cost.

Anyways, he didn't end up doing any of that. My brother is just going to deliver it all to him in December when he drives out to my friend. That's besides the point though. Hope this helps.

 

[Z]

Heres what I did for my oryx from Texas to Nevada back in February.

I brought back my meat frozen in a large cooler as checked baggage,no ice. I also included my main bag and muzzleloader case, attached to my main bag.


So there was my two checked bags...which were free due to my being military. They wanted to charge me $100 for my horns and skull cap due to their size(exceeded their limitations or it would have been free also) I recommended you check about this.


The meat arrived frozen(remember at altitude, your cooler will remain cold because of the cold air). I mean rock hard frozen.


No worries, no fuss.

 

[BrowningRage]

I think you've had some great responses here. I have to go with renting the Uhaul. The drive may be long, but it will keep your shipping costs down if you have more than a hundred pounds of meat and it sounds like you are going to have a lot of meat.

We are headed to a double buffalo/deer hunt in South Dakota in 2 weeks and we chose to drive an Expedition and a Truck in order to have the capacity to bring home all the meat and gear as cheaply as possible...

"Therefore, wo be unto him that is at ease in Zion!" 2 Ne. 28: 24

 

[Outdoorsman51]

Thank you, all. This is great information. I was planning to bring 100 pounds back with me as my checked in baggage (I get one bag free also for being silver), so that will only be $25. This will be a bison. So, after the 100 pounds checked in I will still have 300-400 pounds, even after giving another 100 pounds away! That Delta business shipping information was very helpful, and I think I'll look into that a little more. If anyone has any other helpful thoughts, then please share as I cannot imagine I am the only one that has encountered this issue.