Cooler size - deer

[buckchaser]

Looking for clarification on what size of cooler is needed to store a deer. Here in Ontario, Canada typical dressed bucks go anywhere from 150 lb to 250 lb plus for a whopper. I'd like to a have a cooler capable of storing all the meat (field dressed using the gutless method) from a deer to aid transport in an SUV.

 

[Jordan Budd]

65 quart yeti fit a full deer bone-in. Enough room for like 2 bags of ice.


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[Trial153]

I bring my 105 when one deer is on the agenda, plenty of room for block ice on the bottom and I still have room for drinks and food along with a boned out deer.

 

[dotman]

48qt soft side fit a whole frozen mule deer buck, zero room for ice. A 65 would be perfect with ice.

 

[frankrb3]

I have the Yeti 65 but in hind sight should have gotten the 105. It's about the same width as the 65 but deeper, yet it would still fit under my tonneau topper on my F-250. In your case the depth shouldn't matter, so if your back is healthy I would get the 105 over the 65.

 

[paleraider]

I have a Brute 75 that I use for deer. I also have the 105 Yeti but it seems like overkill to me for deer.

Yet I am sure the cooler will get used for other things so then I would advocate getting the biggest one you can and that can easily be transported.

 

[Desk Jockey]

65 quart yeti fit a full deer bone-in. Enough room for like 2 bags of ice.


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I have done a hole bone in quartered deer - shoulders, hams, shanks, backstraps, ribs, neck, heart and liver - in a yeti 65 with room for ice. I would say don't expect to have a lot of spare room. You are also talking about 30lbs of cooler + ice + meat so things can get heavy fast.

 

[rbljack]

I bring my 105 when one deer is on the agenda, plenty of room for block ice on the bottom and I still have room for drinks and food along with a boned out deer.

I bought the 105 as well for the same reason. wanted to have enough room for a deer plus block ice. being taller I figured it would give me more room on top to add addition blocks and keep the meat nice and cooled. hope to get a mule deer in there this fall!!

 

[Zbot]

We fit an entire aoudad's meat and enough ice into my Cabela's Polar 60 cooler...so you should be good with around that size

If its below freezing or cold enough you don't need ice...you will for sure be good to go!

 

[Owenst7]

I just got back from a mulie hunt. I had a 70 qt Coleman Extreme. The 3x3 I shot would have just barely fit bone-in if the hind quarters had been 2" shorter. The bones were simply too long to even put one in alone. The whole animal would have just barely fit in there with little to no room for ice (I had nightly lows in the high teens to mid-twenties) if those rear leg bones were a bit shorter. Bone-out, I'm sure I could have fit the whole thing with plenty of ice to get by with some babysitting and replenishing the ice. I had planned on emptying my drinks/hot dogs/etc out of my "human food cooler" (a $15 48 qt. walmart special) for any overflow in a pinch, but I luckily shot my animal before my friend/helper went home and he took my whole animal in the 100+qt cooler he brought as an extra and hung my animal in his garage while I helped friends fill their tags for the next week.

I'll probably pick up the next size bigger Coleman Extreme if I catch one on sale, simply because I'd like the option of always leaving the rears bone-in, but the 48qt+70qt setup is the perfect size for me+someone else while not taking up a ton of room in my shortbed. The other benefit is that the small freezer I have at home will hold just enough bottles of water to fill that 70 quart to the brim with ice before I leave. A case of 16oz water bottles costs me $2.50 at Costco, and is pretty cheap and easy to freeze at home. By pre-chilling my cooler and packing it full of ice that doesn't leak, along with leaving it in my truck wrapped in spare blankets, I still had lots of ice 14 days later when I returned to Reno, even after using it to cool down my deer and sending my friend home with half of the ice from my cooler.

 

[mfllood3800]

My muley was 180 lbs and I could've deboned it and got the entire deer into a 100 easy and probably even a 75.
That is 4 qtrs., neck, back strap, and tenderloins

 

[sodaksooner]

easily fit a fully boned out whitetail in a 70 quart with room for ice.

 

[Dirty-D]

I got 3 quartered deer in my yeti 75 last year (couple of yeti ice packs and not much room for anyything else), I need to get a 105, smaller footprint but taller.

 

[ellsworb]

Partially boned ID mulies fit great in my Orion 55 with 2x 1gal frozen milk jugs. About 1/3-1/2 of a boned, mature bull elk. More ducks than I ever want to pluck.

Hopefully I'll tell you what a WA Whitetail looks like in it!

 

[Lawnboi]

After this week I'll throw in my 2 cents. I've been using a yeti 75 for deer, usually bone in. It will fit a whitetail or 2 fairly easily.

The mule deer i got in Montana wouldn't even fit bone in. Had to keep the backstraps in another cooler, and only room for a bag of ice. Luckily I brought another cooler. Boned out it fit no problem. No room for hide or ribs.

I'll be taking a 100+ quart from now on if mule deer are the target, or if I plan on filling multiple tags. I like to bone out deer at home, in a little cleaner and less rushed environment if I can.

 

[WolfpackNOgun]

What would y’all recommend to pack a partially boned out mule deer and partially boned out antelope? Will need enough room for ice to drive back east over two days from Wyoming.

 

[Back Country Hunter 2]

The past two seasons, on four occasions, I've been able to fit a bone in deer in two 50 quart coolers. It still has enough room for 2 one gallon frozen milk jugs to keep it cool.

 

[SWOHTR]

I was surprised at how much space my Yeti 125 had, after putting a bone-in whitetail in it.

Also: you can fit 75+% of a butchered WT in a Yeti Hopper 30. Good to know if you're flying somewhere. Put the meat in frozen and it'll hold until you get to your destination just fine. I shot a (small) WT in WI last season and flew back with it, I think I only left 9lbs of burger at my parent's place.

 

[252yft]

I use something other than a cooler and suggest more people consider it. I do a lot of off shore fishing on private boats. On the boats we use a Kill Bags. So after using that 40 pound yeti cooler, i decided on giving that kill bag a try. My concern was driving back to Los Angeles across the Mohave with 100 degree weather and leaving the bag exposed in the back of the truck. So my buddy and I agreed that we'd give it a try and have to keep adding ice along the way if needed. If the bags can keep our fish cold, why not an elk?

I use the Reliable Fishing Products Kill Bag. Quarter your elk, drop him in, cover with ice, zip it up and easy load in the truck. Last year we almost got 2 quarterd elks in the 72" bag but we used 2 bags due to weight. We've been using this method now for a few years. The nice thing about this method is that once you get home, clean the bag and roll it up and put away. Much easier and cheaper than that heavy lock box.

I know, very unconventional, but concider it. I've already converted a few others.

 

[Downeaster]

Gonna check it out. Thanks for the heads up