ELKampMaster

Rookelkhunter,

Regarding your trailing question, " *how do you guys feel about letting the meat sit and cool/rinse in a stream after reaching camp?"

I got to admit it is tempting -- cooling and cleaning. Problem is I' ve read and heard (no end) that water and elk meat is a bad combo especially if there is going to be any warmth on the meat at all afterwards -- seems like H2O on elk meat just brings out the worst of the microbe world no matter how good it looks initially.

That said, we do carry HEAVY 55 gallon drum liners in our pannier/lashing rope/mannie/meat tools package that our horse carries. The idea being if it was one of those hot hot days and we had two or three down at once we would put the quarters in the bags and the bags in the creek with cordage holding the top up out of the water -- the meat would cool but not get " wet" -- don' t know as I' d leave it in there all day -- once cooled down to water temp we would probably carry it to the nearest north side timbered spot and hang it and let it crust up (if it wasn' t already). Then have our pack (draft) horse working hard and long to get it out of there. We haven' t tried it out yet, but that' s the backup plan.

So, long story made short, you might want to try our " emergency" cooling plan once you get the meat to camp versus putting your meat straight into the stream.

Never Go Undergunned,
EKM

Robb92

we hang our elk butt up, then we split them down the back and put themin game bags.