Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Mature Bull Elk = X # + X quart coolers

150 qt cooler will hold your boned out bull. I also bring a 105 Yeti to hold the frozen cape.

Those 2 coolers should easily hold a boned out bull elk. What time of year will you be hunting? If it’s cold enough you can leave the meat hanging in game bags and frozen overnight also which helps before the drive home.

We drive & have used 165 qt Igloos or similar for years. A large cow with lots of ice tends to just about fill it. Drain often & refill with ice - the wet aging has done well for us. A big bull will overfill the 165 if not boned out certainly but 1/2 a 165 works well - room for a decent sized buck in the other 1/2. The driving around & draining seems to do a good job of aging& cleaning the blood out of the meat. We almost always have to quarter & cut them up in the field & haul them 1-4 miles to the truck.

If you get one early & have it processed there slightly smaller volume & use 10lb dry ice to keep cold about 20 hours. Your cooler efficiency will play a role but even cheap coolers have worked & meat stayed frozen.

This has been so helpful. Thanks all!!

We were able to fit my bull this year, a young one, into two 100 qt coolers, bone in.

Unless you are way in the boonies bivy camping I like the big ass Coleman 150qt Arctic Coolers

Our method was to take a chest freezer, towed on a trailer(along with a quad and other gear) and a Honda generator. Run it long enough to cool the meat. Pretty simple, no screwing with ice.

Every year we go down to the Florida Keys for a 10-14 day fishing trip. We bring 150qt coolers and ice the catch. Its kind of a pain in the azz. Now we bring a chest freezer with a small honda portable generator. Its much easier. Don't have to mess with ice at all. It works great. I'm sure it would work with Elk/Deer meat.

I’ve had better luck with ice bags vs dry ice. I leave it in the bags instead of spreading it out over the meat because it will last longer as one big lump. If you do use ice, leave the drain plugs to the rear. Then if you need to drain some water you can slide the cooler aft a bit and drain it without having to unpack stuff to turn it around.

That’s worked well for me on a dozen trips traveling from western Colorado to Mississippi.

Check the game laws through all the states you will be traveling through. It is against the law in most states to import (drive through) with bone-in meat due to CWD.

I took a large bodied 7x6 bull in eastern Montana in 2020. I deboned the bull and used a 110qt and 65 qt RTIC for all the meat and a 65 YETI for the cape with plenty of room for frozen 1/2 gallon milk jugs in each cooler. Note, the 65 YETI does not have as much capacity as the 65qt RTIC. RTIC sizes are true quarts, YETI is not.

Dry ice is hit or miss where I have hunted in the past. I would not rely on it. I froze a bunch of 1/2 gallon jugs (approximately 30 or so) before I left NC and stored in the pre-chilled 110qt RTIC. The cooler was completely full of frozen jugs. I stuffed any void spaces with old towels where I could. I kept the cooler closed the entire trip and left it in the shade during the hunt. I only opened it when it was time to pack the meat and drive home.

The jugs were still partially frozen when I got home 12 days later. I did not use all of the jugs with the meat on the trip back to NC.

Good luck with your hunt. I hope your load is heavy on your return trip!

Great info. Thank you!!!

Depending on where you're hunting dry ice can be readily available. Freeze some ice jugs, milk jugs and then put some dry ice in the cooler with them to keep frozen until needed.
Just make sure that meat is cool when you put it in the coolers or it could spoil.

A very useful thread!

always plan an extra cooler just in case , otherwise your at the mercy of a small town store price.

Go with the biggest you can afford & fill any voids after adding ice with a tarp or something non absorbent. One 150qt will be fine if you’re loading packages of processed meat. If you are bringing back whole primal cuts then get a second 150qt.

Mathman great reminder to leave space for ice - I’m a 30% approx ice guy. Some use less but I put ice blocks in doubled trash sacks and end up using 4-5 of them. Drove all over the country with this system for various hunts for years. Sometimes I put 2-3 1x4 pine boards on the bottom of the cooler to help with circulation & minimize any water contact which is mostly internal condensation after I double bag the blocks.

Wasteful on plastic but it works

*If you’re really into saving ice - pack a blanket and put them over your cooler(s). Works same for a cooler as it does for your body.

Good luck - I’ve been following a few of your posts about the upcoming hunt. So pumped for you! Nothing like chasing bulls around the mountains. Nothing.