Short Track Hunter

From experience, it cost $1000 to fly Elk meat from west to east. overnight UPS.

Alsatian

It depends on what animal you are hunting. I completely cut up and packaged two prong horn antelope in my hotel room in Gillette, Wyoming, in October 2004. Put a bunch of dry ice on it. Got home 4 days later, via SW Wyoming, Durango Colorado, and then home to near Dallas, Texas. The meat was frozen rock solid.

Put dry ice in bottom of ice chest, 1/4 inch of newspaper over the dry ice, your meat on top of the newspaper, another 1/4 inch of newspaper on top, more dry ice on top of that. It works great. No water from melting ice.

When I elk hunt I skin and quarter my elk at kill site. Back off the mountain, in town, I wash my elk off in the shower and put in game bags. I then put in a cooler with dry ice as described above BUT I limit how much dry ice I use so the elk meat doesn't freeze but stays cold. I then butcher and package the first day I am back home. I do all the processing myself.

I agree that part of the pleasure is the drive with your buddies. The journey is an adventure.

mthusker

I can not believe you ask someone to rinse your kill in a hotel shower......I am thinking maybe a car wash....or outside hose. Living in Montana I have heard some crazy things, but this is up there with the best of them.

Alsatian

I didn't ask anyone to rinse my kill in a hotel shower . . . I rinsed it in the shower of the hotel room I had rented. I agree it is not the best system. I would like to find some place where I can connect a short hose from a clothes washer that I can use to rinse the meat in something other than a hotel room shower. Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.

hunters_life

Have to admit, I know I haven't seen it all or done it all, but that is one I don't think I would have ever heard or seen. I can see it now, maid comes in the next day and spots blood you missed on cleanup, manager calls the police, you are tracked down and arrested for murder and disposal of a body or some other crazy thing. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to contain my innerds from laughing so hard if that happened to someone and I heard about it.
As to the post, I, like most on here seem to do also, drive 90% of the time to my hunts. Or at least to the state such as Alaska when I drive to the closest air field for my drop hunt. I always take a couple of gallons of vinegar/water solution to rinse off my skinned and deboned meat then pack it in the coolers with dry ice. one year, back in the mid 90's, dad and I didn't have a lot of time for driving to and from Colorado due to a serious jump in work so we only had a week to Elk hunt. We flew in. We both took nice sized bulls that year and had the meat shipped home. We compared the cost to check the meat in on a direct flight home with us and it would have cost almost $200 more than it did to overnight it home to mom. It got there 3 hours before us. I couldn't even fathom what it would cost now to check it in on a flight.

mthusker

Just because you "had rented" the room, you can not do whatever you choose...have a little decency man. I go through Gillett a few times a year, I know there are a few car washes, plus I know they would do a better job then a hotel shower. I was talking with a buddy here in Glasgow, he did beat your story though, back a few years, some idiots rented a motel room in town, they got their bucks, but the weather changes, bitter cold, they did not want the deer to freeze, so they brought them into the motel room and layed them on a tarp....some folks do not have a clue.

Oldtimr

No, a car wash would not do a better job than a shower!! Car washes recycle cycle their water and they do not sanitize it. Do you want to wash your venison off with water that has road salt and road crud in it? A bit of blood going down the drain is no worse that the crud and bacteria from your body going down the drain. Actually, unless the person who rented the motel or hotel room destroy or trash it there is no problem with washing game in the shower. Just in case you don't know, a bathtub is the favorite place for poachers to butcher their jack lighted deer! Lets not try to impose your sensitivities on others.

mthusker

Wrong. Maybe where you live, but not where I live. Waste travels into street sewers where I live, just turn the hose to rinse, let it spray out any soap or wax for a minute or so, then spray away. I would bet most car washes in Montana and Wyoming, are like that, maybe Denver or somewhere else in Colorado, but most small town car washes are like the one I described.

Oldtimr

I doubt it! Many car washes recycle water because of the expense of paying for water. Regardless, there is not a thing wrong with washing meat in the shower of a motel or hotel room. What comes off the meat is probably cleaner than what comes off many of the people who use the shower.

mthusker

So you condone this behavior? So, as a former CO we should respect game laws, but when it comes to respecting private property, not so much? And just because you doubt it, your still wrong...LOL.