ORIGINAL: ShatoDavis
Brutal,
With a little practice you can bone the meat on the carcass in less time than you can gut and quarter. You're not cutting steaks on the mountain, you're removing large portions of meat from the bone to be cut into steaks later.Even if meat spoilage wasn't an issue, which I believe it is, and even if the pack is realitively short I prefer to pack as little weight as possible. I see no reason to carry the bones. So unless you can drive a pickup to your elk and hoist it in the back I will bone per the instructions already mentioned. that is provided that the laws allow it. I know that in some states that you must have proof of sex still attached to the carcass.
You do have ot have sex attatched here but you could still leave the pecker and or testicles attached even if you did have to bone it out. You could just leave it dangling by a peice of connective tissue if you had to. I personally don't worry about it as likely all you'll ever get is a warning unless they have collaborative evidence to suggest you were poaching a bull etc.
I'm all for boning out given a grim situation meat wise. However, if the weather is cool and I can get it out in quarters without killing myself than I'm for doing that. I've packed out my share even in some questionable temps and as long as you don't dally and you get the hide off it it'll usually be just fine.
I like to hang it in quarters because there is less surface area and i like to get a glaze on it ASAP. Since my buddy has a walk in cooler I'd much rather have quarters for processing than a big bag of bloddy meat.
It's a personally preferance and nothing wrong with boning and I'll do it when I have to.
I don't however think you should just automatically bone every time you get an elk down.
if you're having problems with bone sour, it's not a result of quartering, it's a result of not getting it cooled in time, in my opinion.
Whatever gets me to the cooler fastest is what I'm after and from what I've done and seen boning isn't faster for me. If I can get as fast as you guys then maybe it will be better.