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Old 08-05-2008 | 10:52 AM
  #11  
JNTURK
Nontypical Buck
 
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 1,251
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From: ELK GROVE CA USA
Default RE: Early Season Meat Tactics?

ORIGINAL: Bullet Hole Bailey

thank you very much,

so putting it on ice in a cooler sounds to be the best way to go if hanging isnt an option?
hunting just down of you i have lots of experience hunting in high temps (100 degree days).

all of the deer we (my family and i) have taken in the heat of august and early september have never spoiled. We can kill a deer saturday morning, recover and gut it out. Bring it back to camp and skin it (via vehicle or the old fashion way). clean with some water then bag it with a deer mesh bag. after that we bag it with a homemade giant bag (looks like a pillow). hang it in a tree and then come sunday morning (24hrs later) drive it home (150 miles away). No ice, no ice chest, etc. get it home, butcher it up and put it in a fridge to hang for a few days.

now to answer your question, if you cannot hang a deer to cool down (after gutting and skinning) you can do one of a couple of things:
1) de-bone the meat and hang it to cool (same process as above)
2) quarter and skin then hang to cool
3) de-bone or quarterand if you cannot hang then it will need to either get on ice or someplace to cool.

IMO, it is not necessary to get it on ice immediately. We have NEVER done that and all of the deer we have killed (atleast 6 a season on avg) have NEVER had one spoil. But, if you do hang a deer in the early season you MUST put the pillow type bag over it because if you don't then the blow flies, and other flies will lay there larvae through the mesh deer bag and spoil your meat.

Good luck this season.

Note: I remember your post last year about the nice blacky you took. if i remember right you are hunting on your land or very close to it and it was close to your house. If this is still true then i would just gut the deer, bring it back to your house and either de-bone or quarter it up and put it in the fridge.
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