ftballman125
FNG
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2013
- Messages
- 97
This is a question that I haven't really been able to find a good answer to, if there is one. I hunt the desert where temps can be in the high 90s - low 100s easily. I backpack 2-3 miles in, which means about a 1.5-2 hour pack out if loaded with meat. Assuming I can debone my mule deer fully in two hours from getting it down, that means I'll be looking at around 4 hours, at best, until I can get the meat back to the rig.
The plan once the deer is down is:
1) to first gut the deer to get a lot of heat out quickly
2) then debone it, separating muscle groups out
3) spray the muscles with citric acid, and lay them out on a tarp to dry/air cool (from 100+ down to 90+... not much cooling there).
4) I'll rig up another tarp to create some shade for the meat (there's no real natural shade where I'm at).
5) Once I've gotten all the meat/skull cap off of the deer, I'll pack the meat up in a TAG BOMB bag, and sandwich it between my frame and my pack, hopefully allowing it to have maximum breathing while being carried.
6) Carry back to coolers in the rig.
So, that's the plan. But big unknown is still whether that will be good enough to prevent spoilage. I would really hate to lose any meat. I haven't gotten a deer in the desert before... and smaller game like jackrabbits are easy to process/dry quickly.
Does anyone have any tips/advice to improve on that plan? Any experience with archery backpack hunting for desert mule deer in near 100 temperatures?
I posed the above question in the Elk sub-forum under a different topic, but it is most appropriate here, I think. Any thoughts?