• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

Warm Weather Hunting

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Guest
Well, early ML begins in PA in a few days (next Saturday) and it is hot as July here. What reccomendations do you guys have for preserving or protecting the animal from the heat during the trip to the butcher? I can count on a 1 hour drive from the field to the butcher. Do I need to ice down the carcas, fill the cavity with ice bags or just let the moving air in the truck bed do what it can?
 
Deaconjo said:
Well, early ML begins in PA in a few days (next Saturday) and it is hot as July here. What reccomendations do you guys have for preserving or protecting the animal from the heat during the trip to the butcher? I can count on a 1 hour drive from the field to the butcher. Do I need to ice down the carcas, fill the cavity with ice bags or just let the moving air in the truck bed do what it can?
When I've shot deer in this kind of heat, first stop is a convenience store that has bagged ice and three bags still in their plastic, go into the cavity.

NOTE:
The bed of a pickup usually gets very hot from the entire exhaust system being mounted right up tight underneath it...a couple of pallets on the floor of the bed keeps the carcass raised up off that heat and allows full air movement around it
 
Nothing holds in heat like hide. The hottest hunting I've ever done was for antelope in Montana and Wyoming, and they spoil faster than fast. We would skin them out immediately, and I'd do the same for deer. Takes about ten minutes when you are decent at it. Best ten minutes you'll ever spend, no matter what you do next to cool them out and keep them cool. Of course, I wouldn't recommend our method of cooling for Pennsylvania or North Carolina where there are lots of folks around. We'd tie the skinned antelope onto the roof rack, and put the rig up to 60 or so on the highway for half an hour. Cooled fast like an old swamp cooler due to evaporation. Once they were cool we'd shove them into old army surplus sleeping bags to keep them cool till nightfall, then pull them out of the bags and hang them overnight to keep them cool.

Whether using ice or some other method less likely to impress the tree huggers like a ride on a roof rack for the actual cooling, I'd still skin your deer first.
 
That might work up on the high plateau, where the relative humidity is low, and the nights are cold, but down her on the flats, you need to skin the hide off the deer, and wrap it with cheesecloth to keep the meat clean while letting air in to cool the meat. Keep it out of the road dust and pollution to keep the meat tasting something better than exhaust fumes from semis. Get Ice on it ASAP. Ice is sold in 10 lb bags at almost every gas station and stop and puke in the country.

I use garbage bags over the skinned sections of my deer, wrapped in cheesecloth, to keep the meat clean, and give a place to put the bags of ice. I buy the cheesecloth in the Auto section of K=mart, or discount houses, where its sold in 7 yard amounts for polishing wax jobs on car finishes. Seven yards will do more than 4 White tails, so its relatively cheap. The stuff comes in a tube form, rather than as a folded sheet. The tube can be opened up like a sock to slip over the entire length of the deer if you must. I like to remove the hind quarters, wrap them and bag them separately, then both from legs, and wrap them after removing the lower legs, together, in an separage bag, and then wrap the neck and rib cage in a final bag. Removing the legs sections, makes the rest of the deer light enough for one person to carry easily. All go inside my truck or car, and are surrounded by bags of ice, then covered with a tarp, with a bag or two more of ice on top of the tarp( cold air sinks.) I also fold up the hide so the inside is INSIDE and the fur out, then bag it and put a small zip lock bag inside the plastic bag with ice in it, to help keep the hide from spoiling, or attracting flies. It also goes under the tarp during transportation.

I am fond of heart, Liver, and tongue, and those parts go in a separate zip lock bag(s) in a cooler on ice. If I have to stop overnight, I want to be around my own campfire, eating fresh liver and onions, with bacon strips melting over them. The older liver gets the more bitter and tough it gets because the enzymes in the liver continue to break down the sugars in the liver. Fresh liver is sweet, and tender- like prime rib. Heart and tongue need to be slow cooked, and can wait on ice a couple of days before being cooked. Eat the liver, first.
 
Before ML season got changed from early Sept to october, I found myself hunting in temps that were in the high 80's at times. It was a race to save the meat as soon as the deer dropped. So I say ditto to everything that has been mentioned so far. Skin it, ice it, and cover it if dirt is a problem. Personally, I like to keep the carcass opened up in the back of a truck to air it out, but dirt and pollution isn't a big problem here.
One more thing to add that sometimes gets overlooked. Be sure to remove the windpipe a.s.a.p. It will start to go bad before the meat, and will spread the decomposition process to the meat. Bill
 
Sept. of this year we had to drive almost 8 hours to and from our hunting area. 2 deer in the back were skinned and then 2 big ice bags were thrown into the body cavity.

Do that, try not to make any needless stops and get them home ASAP.

This years deer had to have been the best tasing deer we've shot.
 
I don't think you will have a problem with heat. It's so hot and humid here in Fl. when I get up in a tree I take my shirt off and try to dry out. Laid my shirt on a limb yesterday morning and sweat was dripping from it down to the ground. I had to roll it up to keep it from dripping.

Even in this type heat I've taken as long as 6 hrs before getting deer out of the woods, dressed and on ice with no bad results.
 
just saw the weather on tv and there calling fer rain and 56 fer saturday opener....i won't be making it out....that's my daugters wedding day and daddy has to walk her little girl down the aisle....smoke some deer fer me while all ya PA guys are out there saturday :thumbsup: :v ...............bob
 
:shocked2: ...""".that's my daugters wedding day and daddy has to walk her little girl down the aisle...""" :shocked2: durin huntin season???????????????? :shocked2: oh my!!
 
RC said:
:shocked2: ...""".that's my daugters wedding day and daddy has to walk her little girl down the aisle...""" :shocked2: durin huntin season???????????????? :shocked2: oh my!!

yeah some things just rule over others ya know....i got from sept 29th to jan 12th to fill my 3 tags i have so far, with a couple of weeks off in between....have 2 more tags to git if i need too, so i'm set....right now it's been in the 80's here in PA so i haven't even been out yet as it's just to darn hot to hunt to me....i'm in no hurry :blah: :v .............bob
 
was 80ish sat. when we took stuff in to camp...way to warm to hunt!! i start ml. the 13th..got thru dec 20th..(?) 4 tags..oh.. the oh my..thing..was evidently the new son in law don't hunt! :shocked2: :shake:
 
RC said:
the oh my..thing..was evidently the new son in law don't hunt! :shocked2: :shake:

him and his father are gun collectors....have bout 100 handguns between them both with a couple of hunting rifles in there too....never heard him say they go, but i'll git him out sooner or later :thumbsup: :v ...............bob
 
My Daughter did the same thing to me last year...opening day of muzzleloader, October 7th...boy have I had fun hanging that over her head! :grin:
 
I didn't spring gobbler hunt when I got married and when I started guess what? Wedding date falls in first week of season. When my daughter got married (she married a hunter-YEA!) made it clear no wedding during hunting season. Son-in-law went along with this. Keeps down on the family circus if ya know what I mean! wvbuckbuster
 
Back
Top