Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Coolers for Elk Camp

Most times elk camp is wall tents ie base camp. I need new coolers. 150 qt. or so to hold boned out elk. Smaller ones for food. Mine are worn out. What are you using?

Igloo's, and I shoot anyone that uses them for a seat. Bending or springing the lids encourages air leakage and greatly reduces their efficacy. Coleman's are OK, but their design will allow rain to flow down the edges of the lids and into the box. The Igloo's have recessed lids that keeps water flowing down the outside of the cooler. That is important to us because we often us them to store bread and dry goods that we don't want getting wet. I have the same issue with lunch boxes that we often load into the back of ones pickup. They should not allow water entry.

Before using any cooler in environments that might go subzero, go to a hardware store and buy a metal piano type hinge that spans the full width of the cooler. Throw those plastic hinges away. I also unscrew and detach the drain cap, throw it away, and insert rubber stoppers on the inside of the drain holes. Those will never break or leak, and water pressure alone will typically keep them in place.

I'd like to try the Yeti's, as they are well engineered, stout, and heavy. I can purchase 10 large Igloo's at discount stores for the price of a just one Yeti, so with compound interest, I'm likely money ahead to stick with Igloo.

Edited: With a dedicated Igloo "ice cooler" we've had about 20% of our ice remaining at the end of 12 day float trips in 70 to 90 degree weather. That is a unit soley loaded with ice. A 1/2 ice and 1/2 food unit can run us for about 8 to 9 days. The real killer on sustaining ice is kids that are in and out of the unit with thorough research conducted with each half hour entry. We also purchase our ice well in advance and take the frozen foods and ice down to about -35 in our chest freezer before loading. The ice units in most stores are considerably warmer.

I have a Yeti cooler, although its the smaller version. A lot of the off-shore fishing guys are using Yeti's to keep fish on multi-day trips. That speaks volumes. Yeti coolers work great, solid construction, hinges, rubber straps etc. They will keep ice for days on end. They're a little heavier than say an Igloo or Coleman, cost more no doubt, but... maybe the best cooler out there on the market. For what you pay for one, i would expect them to be superior to anything else.

HuntKY: Any chance you have a discount source for Yeti? They are appealing, but I can't bring myself to fork out 6 to $800 retail for a cooler. 1Minute

They are great coolers but I am with 1minute the price is just to much for me to justify. especially when the coolers I have work just fine. Now if I could find a good deal on one then hell yeah I would take it.

you can bolt on the spring type closing latches to each side, and then put a thin layer of weather strip on the lid side and a regular one will seal up better and hold ice better. I'd be more willing to buy 3-4 of the top line igloo 70 qut ones than a yeti.

And I read reports from fisherman that yeti ain't worth a flip in the heat. No better than XYZ more or less from what I read from some offshore fisherman.

All that being said, one could probably build one as well built OR possibly, depending on your uses, a small generator is under 300 to 400 bucks, and a small freezer isn't much bigger than a big cooler... an hour here and there.... and you get a generator for other uses and a small freezer for the house too....

also appears to be on ebay/google sources 125ish yetis for 400 or so....

Got the Coleman and Rubbermaid in the large 150 qt versions.
The Coleman can be partitioned, and has a double (split) lid arrangement, but the handles on either end aren't designed very well.
The Rubbermaid has great handles. It makes it much easier to lift when loaded with elk. It also has a better drain.
Both have kept the contents cold.

1minute - pm coming

For a vehicle camp, a small chest freezer works best. Bags of ice or a generator. Both together work great, a couple hours of generator a day keeps the ice frozen and that keeps your food cold and your game meat good even a couple weeks worth.

Kent

get on your search engine and look up Iowa Rotocast Plastics. I have the 200 quart Marine cooler and the 190 quart Wolverine cooler. They are built like a tank, but are alot of money. Just FYI.

What I like about Late Season Elk hunting up near Burns/Hines Oregon (Hello 1Minute) is that I use ice chests to keep things from freezing. We get months from a block of Ice when we are up the 41 road.

I would use marine epoxy, plywood, fiberglass tape and a combo of blue foam insulating panels and expanding foam to make a chest before I would even start to think about spending hundreds for an ice chest.

Hunting is the ultimate do it yourself sport if you want to really enjoy a camp. We used gold spray paint to modify a galvanized pipe someone left in the woods to add a stripper pole in camp this year. (None showed up though)

You can't go by what sport charter guys use cause that game is all flash. So, go with the things commercial fishermen use and then your on the right track. And, they use the materials I mentioned above.

Whizbangdaddy: I just returned from a 10 day trip into some of Montana's BEST Elk country!
Coolers were NOT needed - "warmers" were!
Our coolers were outside in temps as low as 14 degrees!
Ever try to pry a can of beer out of an ice flow ten inches deep?
I just counted the coolers in my garage - I have twelve in there right now and three on loan.
I buy them at garage and estate sales and pay only a pittance for them or they don't come home with me!
I have two LARGE coolers that would hold a boned out Elk with ease.
And we DO use them for seats and for setting our barbecues on and for keeping our backpacks off of the ground and etc while in Elk and Deer camps.
Coolers are sure handy and the newer "7 day ice keepers" seem to work rather well.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

We have excellent luck with a pair of 120-quart Igloos. One thing that I like is that even when stuffed with boned meat I can handle one of them, at least from the tailgate of the pickup to the ground. In typical rifle-season elk weather they will keep meat cool a long, long time.

One thing I haven't seen anybody mention is that coolers should be white. This keeps them a lot cooler! One of the dumbest things in recent years has been the introduction of camo coolers, since dark green builds up heat from sunlight as fast as anything, even black.

Good point John.

I had a green Coleman cooler some years ago that wouldn't keep ice much over a day.

Do not store coolers under the gooseneck trailer. They do not holdup well when you let the trailer down to hook up to the truck. The ice has a tendancy to crush along with the cooler

Also: Do not place coolers with 24 inches of ones woodstove or fire pit. The obvious happens.

I have one Yeti and it is the bomb. How did I live without it!!

A trick for hot weather is to go to Home Depot and get some of the silver reflective insulation sheets to put around the coolers when not in them. It will easily double your ice longevity!

I have a Icey Tek. I think they are called yeti ruffnecks now. Not as pretty as a yeti rotomold cooler but just as good. I think they are a little less than the rotomolds. Very good cooler. Will keep ice for 5 + days in 100 deg. Alabama heat. Should last a lifetime.

Have 2 Yeti coolers. Best made and well worth the extra cost. Out last the others 2 to 1.