Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game packing an elk out

Hello, I am going to New Mexico in October for elk. I have never packed an elk out. When I get one, What kind of bags do I pack them out in. If the tempreture is hot, how do you cool off a big bag of meat?
Thank you
Rich

Speaking as a backpacking moose hunter, here goes.....Get heavy duty elk or moose bags- Forget the cheap cheesecloth or the thrifty bags. Ideally, you should have at least 7, 14 would be better (for moose), but they are spendy. The doubling up lets you strip the bloody bags off the next day, or when you get the meat out, and put clean ones on.



You need a bag for each leg, each side of ribs, and the boned out back and neck meat, and incidental loose hamburger scraps you might have. I try to leave the leg bones in until processing, but since I'm hunting a couple miles back in, I generally bone out the back, neck, and ribs, and process this as soon as I can while the legs hang another day or 3 at home.



If you are using horses, and can quarter the elk, then you only need 4 or 5 bags (one for the neck?).



I am leaving on a backpack caribou hunt in a few days, and lately the temps have been in the 70's, so I'm in the same fix, but with a smaller animal. To help keep spoilage down and flies off, I soaked my game bags in vinegar and redried them. I'm taking a half gallon of same and a spray bottle to treat the outside of the meat with after skinning and drawing. The acid supposedly retards bacterial growth and repels flies, and helps create a crust on the meat. Once the crust is on it, flies won't lay eggs on the crusted part, but they will certainly try to get into the wet crevices of cut ends, etc.. Don't know if the acid bath works, first time I've gone this route. Heard it does tho.



As for cooling, get the animal gutted and skinned and drawn into pieces ASAP. Bag the pieces immediately to keep dirt and flies off (don't worry about the heavy bags retaining the heat- they won't much, and it's better to keep the meat clean and fly-free, than compromise this in favor of marginally quicker cooling), and hang them in the heaviest, coolest shade you can find in the vicinity. If there is a breeze, so much the better. Hang them overnight, initially, to let them cool out thoroughly before loading them unto horses or your backpack, and commencing the long-distant packing. Protect from precipitation or dew, without letting plastic or tarp contact the meat, and allow for air circulation (sometimes I lay the meat out on racks, or deadfalls for cooling, instead of hanging it, putting branches over the meat, then covering with the tarp)



If there are bears in the area, get the meat moved a couple hundred yards away from the kill site before nightfall if you can. The bears generally target the kill site/gut pile first.



If the meat is wrapped in mannies or other thermal cover during the day, unpack them and hang them each night. Always hang/place the pieces so they are not touching each other anywhere. For the "loose pieces" bag(s), open them up after the flies quit for the night(if they do) and spread the pieces out to drain/and recool. If you have a way to insulate the cooled meat first thing in the morning against the day's heat, do that too, but unwrap and recool each night.



Even with temps in the 70s or 80s, that fresh, clean, blow-less meat is good for 3 or 4 days if kept dry, and cared for as above, until it absolutely must be put into temperature controlled conditions, and/or processed. If it is getting chancy when you get out, freeze it immediately, then thaw out the pieces as you can process them, assuming you are doing your own processing.



Hope this helps. Pepper is supposed to also help keep the flies off, and so will smoke.

las has given you some good info.

I agree 100% on those cheesecloth pieces of crap bags. I use WalMart laundary bags. They're $5 or $6 each and I use 4 on an elk. You can wash and reuse several times over.

If you bone your elk out, make sure you don't leave the meat in the bag in a big lump when you get back. Spread the meat out at night so it'll all cool. In a bag, it'll stay cool once it's cool, but until then, it keeps the heat in. Same goes for a cooler -- it really should be called an "insulator" because it'll keep the cool in AND it'll keep the hot in. Use lots of ice if it's warm, but be sure and keep the water drained off as you don't want your meat sitting in water, cool or not.

If the nights really cool down, you can lay the meat bags on the ground and cover them with a sleeping bag during the day. The bag will insulate the meat. This is of course if bears are not a worry. This method works great in the desert where there may be no trees/shade to hang meat in.

Best way to pack an elk out is by having lots of good friends, and cold beer waiting in the truck....

Seriously, don't even think of packing a full bull elk quarter out on your back. With a horse, fine, but certainly not off-trail. Cut it off the bone, at the kill site, and only bring out the meat, unless you are "this close" to the truck, or it's a small spike or cow.

Cutting off the bone also allows you to spread the meat out, getting the worst of the heat out immediately. Let it cool well at night, and prevent it from gaining heat during the day.

If you have a cool creek close, putting the meat in (food grade) plastic bags in the creek to keep it cool works, very well indeed. HTH, Dutch.

Depending on where you are, you may find a local with horses that you can hire to pack it out for you. I don't like horses a whole lot until I look across an elk carcass and see a string coming my way. They look mighty fine right about then. Check out the local stores and restaurants for posters that these guys put up. Local meat processors may also have notices or cards.

But if you have to pack one out, and I have done it a couple times from way back in, bone out every single piece. Put the meat in large plastic bags but only so long as you are carrying it out - which might be the day. Then put in the best meat bags you can find (Cabelas does have some good ones). With luck, you own a very good backpack. If you don't, I'd get the best you can buy. For me, a cow elk is at least two trips (~175# of boned meat in the one that I weighed).

Brent

Brent's example underscores the difference between an elk and an elk. The last bull I packed out was 267 lbs of meat, not counting the tenders or the liver. Those quarters would have gone well over 100 lbs each --- far too heavy even for 6'5" gorilla's like me to carry off trail. FWIW, Dutch.

Really good advice from experienced folks.





It is really important to skin them out quickly to allow the meat to cool. Remember, that hide and hair insulates these animals during some pretty cold weather.



Other than that, I'd suggest you make sure there is air circulation around the bags of meat. Meaning don't lay them flat on the ground, hang them from a tree or if no trees prop them up somehow off the ground on rocks or limbs.



Several of us took elk the same day a few years ago. It was getting into the upper 80s during the day. We hung the bags in the shade to keep them cool during the day. Packed the quarters out by horseback to the parked trucks. All elk came out the same day and headed home to the same city 5 hours away. My elk was great and I lost NO meat. All of the other guys lost meat!



The difference was I stopped in Jackson and picked up 2 pallets and put the bags of elk quarters on top of the pallets to allow air circulation while I was driving home. They left their elk quarters laying on the bed of the pickup.

By all means, get the hide off, the meat trimmed off the bones and get it cooling ASAP. I use cloth bags and carry food grade plastic bags as well (depending on terrain and time of year and location). If there is any cool water nearby, like a stream or lake, I bone the meat and toss it into the big plastic bags and submerge it in the cold water. Laying the meat in bags on river rocks also sucks the heat out of the meat as long as they are in the shade. If the nights are cool, I hang it in the trees in the shade. If the nights are hot, I load up a BIG ice chest and distribute the meat throughout the ice, keeping the water drained. On antelope hunts, I carry an ice chest full of ice and debone the goat right on the spot the put the meat on ice. Keep your hands and knives clean. Don't touch the hide, then the meat with the same hand....espcially during the rut. YOU will get some WILD tasting meat if you do. If someone is with me, I have them grab the skinned, boneless meat with their clean "meat" hands while I wrestle with the hide and bones. I don't want any dirt or musk from the hide on the meat. Take a couple of sharp knives, a small bone saw and a sharpener. In most cases, you don't even need to gut the animal when you bone it out. Don't forget to leave evidence of sex on the boned out meat. Flinch

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />Oke Flinch, I have read about skinning the animal and boning out the meat without field dressing.

Two questions: How do you "leave evidence of sex on the boned out meat"?

and two: the information I have seen on this procedure indicates that the backstrap is removed from inside the body cavity. Is that correct? If so, how is that done without field dressing?

Thanks for the help.

LOBO-- That would be the tenderloins from inside the body cavity, the backstrap is taken from the outside. Someone else will have to explain the proof of sex part, thankfully we are spared that silly ritualhere in Alabama. One would think the rack would be sufficient proof.--Bill

I haven't figured out how to do and get the tenderloins out. Someday, maybe.

As to the evidence of sex. I skin right between the testicles, one on each side, and skin them out carefully. This will leave one attached to the biggest chunk of meat on either side. They don't hang on by much, so be a bit careful with it.

I just saw the ribs off at the spine and sternum (after the backstraps are cut out), and it's easy to reach in and cut out the tenderloins...

dave

As to evidence of sex, I just leave the condom hanging out of it's a..

Oh, sorry, more than you wanted to know.



<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Jim -- Good one! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

When it comes to gutting or not, I guess I don't see the reason NOT to gut them. It takes a few minutes and as soon as the animal is gutted, it can be easily cut into two right at the top of the tenderloins. Half a gutted elk is sooooooooo much easier to handle than a whole one. Moreso, if you are by yourself.

I leave about a 4" piece of the pecker on the largest ham piece of meat. It is easy to do, since the pecker is held onto the inner thigh with a thick membrane. I have done this more times than I can count on moose, elk and especially deer.



Removing the hanging tendors from the inside top rear of the animal (in front of the rear legs hanging from the back bone on each side) is very easy when boning an aniamal without gutting it. When you skin up the flank, cut a slit in the membrane between the last rib and hind leg. Reach in and cut the tendors off. There isn't much too them, so I don't bother with them...usually. Once all the meat has been cut off one side, roll the animal over and do the same to the other side. The whole process starts by splitting the animals straight up the back from tail to the base of the skull. Pull the skin from the back down to the belly. Trim off all the meat on the legs, ribs and shoulders, then cut out the back straps. Roll the animal over onto the other side and repeat. It goes very quick with no mess or guts to slip around in. I have deboned several deer in less than half an hour start to finish. Elk take about an hour and a half, if someone is helping. Moose take about 2.5 hours to debone. I much prefer to haul out deboned meat on my back, rather than have the heavy bone, head and hide (it makes more trips too). One of these days I will get an animal I can drive a 4 wheeler too <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Flinch

The reason to leave the guts in is not to have to to a "holiday on ice" show on the side of a mountain. Turning a Bull elk around on a 30 degree slope is not a one man job, so if you pee in the nest, so to say, you have to live with it. Nothing frustrates me more than doing a Buster Keaton flop into a big pile of bloody lungs....

With bears around, keeping the odors down a bit is not such an awful idea, either. JMO, Dutch.

I think I get the idea about the butchering part and leaving evidence of sex.

I have always done the field dress route, remove from field (deer), checkin, hang, skin, butcher. Never have had to do the full job in the field as required for "big" game.

I am trying to remember from deer, the attachment of the penis and how to keep it attached to the deboned inner thigh. Is there a potential for meat contamination?

Thanks for the explanations.

Gene

Dang Flinch I want to go hunting with you. I'm not nearly as fast boning an animal. A deer takes me a full hour and an elk more than double that. Your description is pretty much what I do except I take out the back straps first, pull off the front shoulders and place them aside to be boned last. With the front shoulders off, back straps out, and the neck roast pulled I then go to the hind legs and leave the "pecker" attached as you described. The hide is left on the rear quarters to keep the meat clean since it is necessary to flop the animal over to do both front quarters. I skin and bone the rears one at a time. My last step is to remove the tenderloins, horns, and ivory. I found this technique works better to keep the rear quarters clean. Also, in Idaho, it is against the law to not remove take the briscut (refered to as "rib meat" in the regulations). I hang all the chunks of meat as I go and fill my pack last. The meat surface crusts over and holds up a lot better. I suspect it kills off the bacteria somehow. Rick

Another reason for gutting is you can't get all that rib meat out if you do the no-gut route. I LOVE elk burgers and that stuff grinds as well as the rest of it. For whatever reason, I just can't get over leaving all that meat for the coyotes. The "they got to eat too" excuse is crap.