BareBack Jack

The only way to keep your meat cool and avoid a ticket is get it out of the woods.If you are alone this means packing by your self and it takes some work and sacrifice.You owe it to the animal to at least eat it.

Once your animal is down skin,quarter or debone and place in GOOD,HEAVY game bags.Take black pepper and sprinkle on all game bags,even before placing 1/4's in rub peper all over them(keeps blow flies and the ilk away).
Then hang each game bag 4-5 ft off the ground lay pine bowes on the sunny side to shade meat and help with air flow.Load your pack and get the meat out,if this requiers a all nighter then so be it(you shot it deal with it).If you let it spoil the loacl game wardedn will likely get you for wanton waste(or poaching)and revoke your hunting privliges.
I have slaved over many a 1/4 and a freinds 1/4's to get them out.It's part of early season hunting,if you go with a freind or freinds it make the task alot easier and they can always go back and hunt once the works done(or they may not after a pack like that).
BBJ

Johnsonmi

Thanks for all the good responses. Sounds like the best thing to do is get the animal field-dressed and bags.

Nicolai Barca

I don't see any problems with submerging the whole animal to give it an intial quick cooling but once you cut into the skin exposing meat, do not get water onto it! The trick to preserving meat is to keep it"Cool and dry". You can use plastic bags to dunk pieces into the stream but really, how cold is the water? It may be cold enough to cool it down a little but the juices will drain from the meat into the bag and then you have wet meat that is cool but not cold, therefore another bad situation arises. I would keep a cooler of ice in your truck, gut theelk quickly tofacilitate internal coolingand get it to the ice as soon as possible. Definitly bag it in cloth meat bags and hangthem in a shady place for the meantime. Might be a good idea to salt the meat in order to buy more time (common practice here) and pepper everything to keep flies from contaminating it.

I have another trick to throw out. Find a crack in the rocks and find some kind of plant whose leeves are clean and feel cool to the touch, you know what I mean? Fill the crack with the leaves, place your meat or meat bags on them and cover with more leaves. I was searching interviews with Hawaiian shore fishermen from the early 1900s and found that they used this method with ti-leaves to preserve fish in the heat. They called it a "cool box."

timwlarsen

Thankyou. You guys are great! Although being a aquatic biologist, I never given much thought to this situation. I have always been iffy on boning out an animal and hauling 130# of mush on my frame pack. Too tough to strap and mush around and 3-5 miles takes some time. The water temps are mid 40's, which would maintain cool meat during the day. I use pillow cases to wrap the meat, although I think placing them in garage bags before the stream would be an excellent idea. Thatwould maintain the recommended dry. Thanks so much.

hillbillyhunter1

Something you may want to consider for the truck is one of those old big electric chest freezers--they're big and insulate well and if they work you can rig up one to run of the truck motor. My partner had one last year and it worked absolutely great.

Might Mite

Exactly what we do.

Elkcrazy8

Just pulled 2 out of the creek. Took 2 1/2 days to get them out, not an ounce lost. Water temp was measured at 48 degrees. Meat was ultra cool when removed, all packing done in early AM and on ice before noon temps rose. One of the elk sat for 2 days in the stream........ The meat bags were removed the night before and spread out on tarps to drain the water weight off. I was elected to sleep on the ground next to the meat with my 44 to keep the bears away, thank goodness I didn't have any mid-night visitors!!!!

The big key factor is to break open the rounds and the neck to get the internal temps down as quick as you can. the meat will spoil first here.

Nicolai Barca

The juices fromthe meat will accumilate within the plastic bags. It won't be dry per se but it will last much longer than in the open. It's own juices will notleach meat flavor as stream water would, so it's okay.

AK Jeff

One of the best ways to keep your meat from spoiling is to use a quality synthetic game bag instead of those heavy cotton/canvas bags. T.A.G. bags are the best on the market. They're lighter, more packable, breathe better, wick more moisture, and clean much easier than heavier cotton fabric bags. I did an in field test this year of the TAG bags vs. a couple of heavy cotton bags on a bull moose I shot and the results were hands down synthetic. The cotton bags got saturated and stunk, and they weigh something like 5x as much and don't pack worth a damn. I threw away all of my heavy cotton bags after that hunt and I won't ever use them again. You can get TAG bags here:

http://www.pristineventures.com/products_gameBags.html

AK Jeff

timwlarsen

Those do look tough/tear resistant and mush more pack-frame friendly. Is the mesh tight enough to keepmost insects out if they are still around?