48 hour limit on breaking animal down and packing out...

[Panhandler80]

Read this on the sticky thread by Billy Molls, "If you’re not certain you and your party can extract a bull within 48 hours, you shouldn’t be shooting it. Your chance of bear problems, meat spoilage, cape spoilage, go up drastically if you can’t retrieve your animal in less than 48 hours. Be smart. You owe it to the animal, yourself, and your hunting partner(s)."

Once game bagged and if properly cared for, (hanging hopefully, kept dry, bagged, citric acid, rotated in cleaned bags, etc) then meat shot early in hunt is good for duration of 8-10 day hunt, right? Not like plane needs to come get meat in 48 hrs. He's just saying you need to have it well taken care of within that time frame, and hopefully much much sooner, correct?

 

[PMcGee]

We kept my buddies bull for 10/11 days without any meat spoiling. We let it air out over night and put it back in the bags during the day. Took a thermometer and checked the temperature a few times a day.


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[Panhandler80]

I highly recommend this DVD by Pristine Ventures to anyone who hunts Alaska, especially float hunting. Has a ton of good info on meat care.

Project Bloodtrail: Field Care of Alaska Big Game DVD

Project Bloodtrail is a comprehensive DVD detailing Wild Game Meat Care in remote Alaska.

pristineventures.com

In possession of DVD. Have not watched it start to finish yet.

Reason for initial post was simply that the article read as though 48 hrs was as long as meat should be in field... Which I know isn't the case. Just looking for confirmation on that.

 

[BeaverHunter]

In possession of DVD. Have not watched it start to finish yet.

Reason for initial post was simply that the article read as though 48 hrs was as long as meat should be in field... Which I know isn't the case. Just looking for confirmation on that.

Yes you are correct, meat doesn’t magically go bad after 48 hours.

 

[Kevin Dill]

The summary: You should most definitely be able to completely butcher a moose, bag the meat, and evacuate it plus the head or antlers in 48 hours or less.

The reality: Unless the weather is cold and the carcass chills rapidly, any meat remaining on the carcass should be considered suspect for human consumption after 24-30 hours. I've seen meat turn green in under 24 hours when it remained warm.

The plan: On a morning kill, work at butchering and packing the rest of the day until all meat is away from the carcass or at least suitably chilled. On an evening kill, skin and butcher half the animal. Remove the head but leave it at the kill. Flip the carcass and skin the opposite side. Remove the 2 quarters. At this point.... depending on what time of night it is and how exhausted you feel.... you can opt to keep boning and packing, or you can head for camp to sleep a few hours. Get up and back to work as early as possible.

 

[hodgeman]

A lot of folks underestimate how long it can take them to butcher a moose- especially one that dies in a terrible spot.

Once you skin and break down an animal, get it hung up and cooled- spoilage takes a lot longer. A moose shot in a swamp and left unskinned and un-gutted can go bad incredibly fast, as Kevin pointed out- as fast as under 24 hours in warm conditions. See: "bone sour".

 

[Yellowknife]

Once game bagged and if properly cared for, (hanging hopefully, kept dry, bagged, citric acid, rotated in cleaned bags, etc) then meat shot early in hunt is good for duration of 8-10 day hunt, right?

While you certainly don't need it out of camp in 48 hrs, remember that even after you break camp down you are likely still 3+ days from having that moose in a freezer. It's all temperature dependent, but we personally try not to keep a bull in camp more than about 3-4 days. If it's freezing hard at night, you can stretch that quite a bit.... but an early bull means leaving camp early every time for us. It's still a full day out to civilization and two days too butcher for us, so we are looking at that far end of the timespan. Bone-in quarters will hold better than the backstraps / neck / etc., so those smaller pieces are your limiting factors.

There was a good thread last year about a group that tried to do everything right re: meat care, but stretched the trip too long and got fined for wanton waste when some of it went bad.

Test

Papa Bear Float hunt 2018 This hunt started Dec 1st 2015 when officially booked. I'll say that without a doubt that this was the most epic and disheartening adventure I've ever been apart of. I've debated on writing up this story, but feel that it is worth sharing for others to learn valuable...

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[Panhandler80]

"if you can't extract a bull" was the line in his great article that had me scratching my head a little. To me, "extract", means meat and animal parts are under power and headed home .

Didn't THINK that's what he meant. Was just looking to confirm. I'm a bit of a literalist.