Two things not mentioned yet are room in your pack for the deer, and the pack itself.
I'm assuming it's legal in CA to bone out a deer for packing, but legal details will be important on what you have to bring out along with the meat as proof of sex.
I'm here to tell you that it's easy to get enough gear, even light stuff, in a pack so that it's hard to find space for the meat. The alternative is making multiple trips between your rig and the kill site for fetching gear and meat. That's pretty common up here with larger game that simply won't fit in one trip such as moose, bou and elk. But even a larger deer can add 100 pounds to what you're already carrying.
I've never been a fan of internal frame packs for this reason. They never seem to fit me well in the first place, but they also don't seem to hold camps plus meat all that well. My favorite combo meat pack and camp pack is an old Camp Trails Freighter frame with their Moose Bag on it.
The frame is long and wide with a great waist band. It supports heavy loads well and best of all, wants to stand upright when you sit or take it off- a big deal with 100#+ loads and long walks. Just easier to get up and down on rest breaks.
The bag expands in two ways- It has a huge main compartment that gets taller when you want, and it has large side pockets down either side. There's a draw string top to bottom that collapses the main compartment and draws the two side compartments in and flat against the frame. There's room below the bag for a sleeping bag and tent against the frame, and if you can't get several days worth of camp and food in those two side compartments, you're packing too much. Meanwhile that big meat compartment is staying closed flat and ready for meat. You can literally leave your pack arranged as-is for hiking, then expand the meat bag and put over 100# of meat in the meat bag without disturbing or rearranging anything else on the pack. Dandy, especially if you have to overnight on your way out.
Dunno if that pack and bag are available today because mine is so durable it's still in good shape after 25 years of hard use, and I've had zero reason to take even a small gander at anything else available today.
Whatever pack you select or already own, think along the lines of the features and "events" I just described when planning the shank's mare logistics of your hunt.
You won't face such a thing with deer, but I well remember (like a nightmare) when two hunting companions got carried away and each shot very large Roosevelt elk bulls over 6 miles inland and 2,000' higher than the coast where we'd anchored the boat. It was December and we had a little less than 5 hours daylight in serious brown bear country. It took the four of us three days to pack all the meat out, sleeping alternate nights on the boat and in spike camps. Gotterdone, but 20 years later I'd still like to strangle those two yayhoos. :cursing:
