Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Hot weather deer hunting

Our bow/crossbow season started 11 days ago, but today is predicted to be mid 80's and the last four days have been 90's! Highly unusual for this late into September and while I'm waiting for cooler temperatures, the thought occurs to me that lots of you southern states hunters need to deal with high hunting temperatures all the time. Don't you worry about meat spoilage and what do you do with your deer real soon after it is down? There is probably no such thing as a meat pole and sitting around camp with your buddies aging the venison. Do you cut them up right away, ice them, what?

Yep...they go from alive to on ice in under an hour.

We have a skinning shed on our hunting property. We go grab the deer ASAP and run it to the shed. Fill a big cooler half full with cold water, and start taking the deer apart, putting the skinned quarters in the cold water. When done, we drain the water off (the water is much warmer at this point, after soaking up the heat from the deer), and pack the meat in ice.

kill em, skinem, cutem, up pack in icy salt water brine overnight and in freezer by noon the next day!

Our bow season opened on 9/8/17. I generally don't hunt until the beginning of October when it cools off some. The only time I'll go out in early September is if I get a wild hair up my ass and want to try to kill a velvet buck. For me, it's got to be in the mid 70's or cooler. One problem when it's hot, is that you get eaten up by bugs and if you kill something, you have to strip it, quarter it, and get it in the refrigerator right away. While you're cutting it up, you have to contend with the black flies and yellow jackets.

This Saturday morning it's supposed to be in the 40's. I'll be out there.

Same as Jpro. We get them to the camp ASAP, skin, quarter, and soak in cool water for about 30min then drain and ice.

Go to your local Veterinary office and ask them to save you vaccine coolers and the blue ice packs that come in them. They are good sized coolers and you just layer meat and blue ice packs. I have killed deer at 90 degrees, had them skinned and broken down inside of two hours. I just transfer meat into a second cooler the next day with a second set of blue ice packs and rinse off the first set of blue ice packs and put them into the freezer. After you get the meat initially cooled, the blue ice packs will last about 24 hours instead of 12.

It's actually pretty simple it you set up to handle the situation ahead of time.

Get them in ice right quick.

I like them at 180° for an hour then 225 in foil for another 4 over pecan. Basted with apple/cherry juice mix.

I've hunted antelope in September when it was in the upper 70's. We knew where the big creeks were in those areas. After we got one, it was gutted, packed to the rig, driven to a creek, then placed into the creek for at least an hour. It worked out well, because the shooting usually happened around mid-morning, enough time to find them, make stalk, and put one down before it got really hot. Then we'd have lunch while the meat cooled, and relive the action. Then we'd drive it home, hang it, skin it, take the head, and either let it hang until butchering or take it to a meat packer.

I've always kind of wondered about the finer details of hot weather meat processing myself. The vets office idea sounds pretty good. As an aside, there were a pretty fair number of hunters out by the public hunting grounds west of town.

Do people put the quarters into those big contractor size plastic bags before they put the meat in the water, or do they just put the meat in the water without covering it? Sis sent me a clipping once suggesting that a guy could have an old refrigerator out in the garage or in camp for keeping the fresh meat cool and temperature controlled. In the packing house the beef always hangs in the cooler for about a week. I have been freezing water filled soda bottles to use in my coolers. Those little ones all around the cooler seem to cool as well or better than block ice and don't get everything wet as they thaw.

I use a combination of frozen gallon jugs and bagged ice on my deer in the cooler. Drain the water off once a day and butcher/process somewhere in the 4-6 day range. At any given time I keep about a dozen frozen jugs at the house and at the camp. We keep a small chest freezer near the skinning shed just for stocking with ice and jugs. Clean the coolers with bleach and a scrub brush between uses. Not uncommon for me to have 2-3 deer at a time in coolers in my garage during deer season. I drain them, slide them into the kitchen, set up a plastic folding table, turn on a movie, and start cutting. My family helps with the grinding and vacuum bagging. Down to only half a dozen packages of meat from last year's four deer, so good thing season is coming up. Actually eating the last backstrap for lunch today......

Around here is can be over 100 degrees in the daytime during deer season. With relatively low humidity it usually cools down to 60 or so over night. I skin them as soon as possible and split them. Put a deer bag on them to keep away the flies and let them hang over night. They go in to the processor the next morning. Never had a problem with spoilage.

I cannot see a way putting meat into a plastic bag is going to improve it until you vacuum pack them and put 'em in the freezer. The thought of putting meat into a cooler and then putting in ice even with the drain open gags me. A refrigerator in the garage to keep the met cool and dry is an excellent way to do it as long as you keep it clean. The only use I have ever had for the plastic bags is to put Bambi inside a body bag sized bag when it had to go for a ride in a trailer or in the uncovered box of a pickup, exhaust and road crap DOES NOT improve the meat even a little bit.

I have aged venison at controlled temps and I have butchered and vacuum packed into the freezer within a couple hours of Bambi walking around live and healthy. I'll take packed and frozen as fast as possible every time! However, I am careful about what I shoot because I only shoot for my table. From my years on the farm, we never aged beef and that included old milkers, and my experience is that it's not improved noticeably by aging. Beef is however very different than venison. Smoked beef or dried beef made into jerky can't begin to compare to dried or smoked venison, likely for the same reason that aging doesn't do much for venison.

Supposed to get down to 65 I best find my long johns

I do the same. However, I'm usually a good ways in on foot, so getting them in to cool down in under an hour never happens. I shove some ice in their empty gut cavity when I get them back to the truck until I can get them hung, skinned and quartered for the cooler. If temperatures drop low enough that night, I'll let them hang with the skin on. So far, so good. I wonder what kind of limit on time and temperature there is before getting the meat cooled is? Say X amount of hours at 80 deg ambient, or Y at 90 deg, etc. Fortunately, I've not found that limit through personal experience yet.



Do you know, offhand, what the maximum or typical number of hours you've had them at high temps before temps cooled?

Cut into quarters and place in a cooler full of ice. The ice chills the meat and allows the blood (gaminess) to exit and out the drain it goes. I've done it like this for 15 years. I use to hang them in a walk in cooler for 7-12 days. There is NO COMPARISON to the quality difference. The cooler/ice method produces a MUCH BETTER taste of meat that is not contaminated or bloody.

We have a long M G deer season so I DON'T hunt when temp is above 70*

My general process is field dress immediately. Let hang 4 days temp less than 50*
Then butcher and freeze.

If temp is above 50* it gets 'skunt', 1/4 ed, and kept on ice & water 4 days - drained & refilled each day.

When deer is killed and frozen immediately it is too GAMEY to my taste.

Jerry

You are exactly correct in saying that we can't let a deer hang for days with the hide on like hunters in cooler climates can unless we have access to a meat locker. However, spoilage has never been an issue, and I have on a few thankfully rare occasions shot at animal at daylight and not found it until lunch in temps you describe and the meat has been fine. Most of us hunt in the early morning or late afternoon so the heat of the day is avoided and the reason we might have trouble finding a deer in the first place is because it ran into really thick cover which means it is going to be in the shade which probably helps a tremendous amount. . As the others have said, yes, we have to gut, skin, and cut up an animal pretty quick and get it on ice or take it to a processor who will clean it and put it in a meat locker. But, you have a reasonably generous amount of time to find your animal and get it taken care of. Its not going to spoil in 2 or 3 hours, not even close. A typical clean kill and recovery is never a concern, no matter the temp.

My totally unscientific, wild assed guess, based on experience is that you have around 6 hours from the time of the animal's death to get the meat on ice even at 90 degree daytime highs. If you got into a situation where it took you that long to find an animal and get it out, it might be best to use the "gutless method" and not open the body cavity just to be on the safe side, certainly if you hit "too far back". Fresh red meat can take a lot of abuse before it goes bad, otherwise our ancestors would have never made it without refrigeration. But the reality is that every situation is different and you have to "follow your nose, it always knows" when deciding if something is bad or not.

That's T shirt weather

Originally Posted by Blacktailer
Around here is can be over 100 degrees in the daytime during deer season. With relatively low humidity it usually cools down to 60 or so over night. I skin them as soon as possible and split them. Put a deer bag on them to keep away the flies and let them hang over night. They go in to the processor the next morning. Never had a problem with spoilage.

Do you know, offhand, what the maximum or typical number of hours you've had them at high temps before temps cooled?

I've shot them at 6am and let them hang for the day once they are skinned and in a deer bag in my shop which has decent ventilation.

I started putting my deer quartered up in an Ice chest,. covering with ice and salting the ice several years ago. I wouldn't do it any other way now even if it was cold out. It doesn't taste gamey, It tastes good.

Even here if you bow hunt the meat needs to be on ice real quick or it will go bad.

My thought too. I do not know the typical live temp. of a deer but lets say it is close to a human. Except at extreme temps. it will start cooling some, as soon as it dies. My thoughts are that as long as it is loosing temperature, it will not spoil. I have fridge in my shop for those times that it can not hang over night. In fact, I leave a deer in there for several days even when it is cool, and cut it a little at a time, between hunts. I used to cut them up all the same day, but being retired and older, I like to take my time. I do think that leaving the meat on the bone for a while improves tenderness, as the meat sets up. Everyone that has ever had deer that I processed remarks as to how it is better than the custom butcher put up. I do not care for deer that is sawed on a band saw like beef. The bone marrow goes bad fast, and it goes with the grain of the meat in places and across in places. Mine is all boned out, with the silver skin removed, and vacuum packed in large pieces. Steaks come when ready to cook. You can also steak muscles that others put into roasts. I also put larger pieces of scrap into packages to make jerky, which is sliced not ground. I put up stew meat too and very few roasts. Not nearly as much burger as in the past but more stew meat. I do like deer burger better than beef for taco meat, chili, and spaghetti. I need to make sausage again, as I have not done that in a while. miles

walk in hanging coolers are your friend. We field dress them, throw them in there overnight and let them drain and then quarter them up the next day.