Taking care of meat

[RJSbuckeye]

Hey ya'll, I am a fairly experienced hunter but am new to elk hunting and have been lurking on this forum for a while. I will be going hunting with my father and my friend. We are planning on a 7 day trip where we hike in 2 or 3 miles, set up base camp, and then go our separate ways to hunt and meet back up at camp for the nights. My question is, if one of us were lucky enough to kill an elk on the first day, what is the best way to take care of the meet for the final six days of the hunt? We are going for the second rifle season if that helps at all. Thank you!

[navet]

If this is Colorado 2nd rifle, then it was between 20-45 degrees daily. I would think you could hang it in the shade/breeze and be good. I had a cooler outside with 2 bags of ice in it for 7 days and had all the ice still left...it re-froze every night.

Howdy and Welcome to ELKNUT forums

[WapitiTalk1]

Welcome to "the" elk forum Ryan. Glad to have you around our camp fire. First things first, pull up a log, a beverage of choice and make yourself at home.

As Nathan said, if you're going that late in the year the temps in the Centennial State should be pretty decent for just hanging meat. This said, you never know what may happen with the temps. Since you're only a few miles from the trucks, it may be a good idea to keep a couple of "good" coolers loaded with solid block ice at the park site. If you guys knock one down, bone it out and get it to the truck for storage until you leave. An additional pert to this method is you're not worrying about bears, pine martens, aliens, bigfoot, etc. messing with your meat hanging around camp. Just a thought.

[slim9300]

Quality game bags that cannot be blown by flies. And Rory's comment about having a large (165 quart) cooler about 50% filled with ice at the truck is very accurate. Ice should last a good 7+ days very easily with average daytime temps in the 40s, and nights below freezing. Probably more like indefinitely. Try to keep the meat from getting wet in the cooler as the ice melts. I do that by isolating the ice with plastic bags and laying the meat in game bags on top. Make sure to leave a good chunk of backstrap for camp meat though! It's always nice to have real food while you are 'roughing it' in the backcountry.

[SGH31]

If you go the cooler route I would try to make sure it will be in the shade or cover it with blankets.

[slim9300]

If you go the cooler route I would try to make sure it will be in the shade or cover it with blankets.

I have a canopy and never really thought about that, but good suggestion.

[Steve G]

Hopefully this question isn't too far off the OP's question.

Do any of you harvest organ meats from your elk or deer like heart or liver, and if so, do they require any different care than the muscle meat?

[slim9300]

Hopefully this question isn't too far off the OP's question.

Do any of you harvest organ meats from your elk or deer like heart or liver, and if so, do they require any different care than the muscle meat?

I don't anymore, but have taken the heart in the past. Nope, I just throw it in the game bag with the other meat. If I was to take the liver (yuck!) I would probably bring a second bag just so it wouldn't touch my meat. But in all seriousness, I think you would be just fine throwing it in with the other meat since you are assuming it's edible.

[RJSbuckeye]

Thanks for the advice guys!