Meat handling on a fly in hunt

Bisley45

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Dec 17, 2018
Messages
132
Location
Little Rock, Ar
We are both new to western hunting and are planning on flying into the Idaho middle fork area for about 8 days of hunting.

Previously we were going to hike in about 14 miles from the truck, that would have coolers and ice. Now we're days and an airplane ride from coolers and ice.

So I am working on the hypotheticals here. One of us is lucky on the first couple days. We quarter it out, put in in our caribou bags and hang the quarters, cape, and skull/antlers in the shade a couple hundred yards from camp. A day or two before leaving we start packing the meat, hide, and antlers/skull towards the airstrip again hanging it nearby in the shade as to load it in the plane.


Early October in Idaho so I expect the temp in the day to be 65 or less and night temps to be cold to freezing.

What would y'all do?
 

Florida Bow Hunter

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
May 3, 2019
Messages
146
If your meat gets froze well enough @ night, you should be good all day provided you keep it out of sunlight.

You wanna get technical maybe survey some temps place to place and use the colder spots ?

Either way, being you’re hitting warm temps, you’re going to want to rotate that meat out of sunlight I’d think. You get an extra warmer sunny day and it can get dicey, say it hits 80 ? Shade is your friend.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

OXN939

WKR
Joined
Jun 28, 2018
Messages
1,790
Location
VA
Spray it with citric acid before bagging. Get a bottle of citric acid powder and a small spray bottle. Mix the powder with water. Spray a generously damp but not soaked coating onto all cuts before bagging. You should be fine with temps alone, but this improves meat quality hugely across the board. Good call on the Caribou bags, too.
 

Chugaglug

FNG
Joined
Jun 21, 2019
Messages
75
Location
Montana
I would be very surprised if you don’t have good meat weather that time of year. Like everybody has said, hang in the shadiest windiest coolest (think draw near creek) spot you can find. Make sure all the meat is getting air so turn it around periodically and make sure bags arent touching each other. At night we even like to remove game bags, this lets the meat get an even better crust and let’s the game bags get good and dried out. If you kill and it’s hot consider slicing down to the bone on the hind quarters just to let that heat out, the hind quarters are most susceptible to bone sour if you can’t get them cooled down. I also carry citric acid powder in a tiny spray bottle if I’m concerned about the temps, as suggested above.
 

Sconnie77

FNG
Joined
Sep 8, 2019
Messages
21
I've seen a number of articles discussing salting caribou capes in Alaska, would it be necessary to salt an elk cape if I was planning on getting a head mount?
 
Joined
Mar 21, 2012
Messages
3,996
Location
Alaska
I've seen a number of articles discussing salting caribou capes in Alaska, would it be necessary to salt an elk cape if I was planning on getting a head mount?

Only salt capes if you know how to properly flesh and turn the hide, otherwise you are making it much more difficult for the taxidermist. Could even ruin it. Treat it like meat, keep it dry, cool and out of the sun. Certainly get as much meat and fat off of it as you can as well.
 

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