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Hot hot hot

J

Jgetch

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2017
Messages
463
Location
Wisconsin
It’s supposed to be in the 80’s up here in Wisconsin for the opener. I’m wondering how you southern guys deal with the heat. Not so much hunting but after the kill. What’s your strategy for getting the meat cool? How long are you letting the deer lay? What am I not thinking of? Normally on hot openers I just stay home but I’ve got a water hole that I put in last year and I’ll bet that thing is gonna get hit hard Saturday morning. Probably won’t let it fly unless a nice shooter shows up but if it does I want a strategy for making sure I’m able to enjoy the meat.

Thanks
 
Hydrate your body. A lot of guys use new light weight clothing. I keep an ice chest on the truck packed with ice. I quarter up the meat and put it in garbage in the ice chest. Aging the meat can me done several ways. You can hang a deer for several weeks if you have the correct temps, however I haven’t seen temps that are needed to properly hang a deer while living in Va in the last 20 years or so.

There was piece in Field in Stream or another publication about aging the meat in a freezer a # of years back. (As a boy and young man my dad taught us to do this did this.)Freezing the meat breaks down the muscle fibers. Once you get home clean the meat, cut it up into what and how you are going to use it. Hopefully you have a spare fridge. Take the meat and put it on baking cooling racks which are sitting on a baking pan. Let the blood drain out for a day or two if you can. Then grind finish off your meat to the cuts you want make, your sausage, steaks or burger etc. then freeze it for a month. The meat will be tenderized.

Letting the meat hang gets the blood out of it. It also lets natural enzymes help break down the tough fibers etc. By doing what I suggested does the same thing. You ever taste strong gamey venison, a lot of time it can be from meat not being properly aged and getting the blood out of the meat.

On a side note. If you are making jerky. You should always freeze the meat for a minimum of a month to 6 weeks first. This helps to kill any organisms that may cause illness.
 
We’ve done all our own processing, aging, sausage making, dry curing and cold smoking for years. My question is really about the first hour or so after the shot. Is the strategy down south just “get to it quick, quarter and cooler”?
 
Make a good shot, then get the skin off and the meat cooled as fast as you can. You have at least a few hours after death. Stuffing ice into the gut cavity helps some, but removing the skin is most important. Where you really run into problems early season is bad shots when you have to let them lay. Then it's a crapshoot. The fur isn't super thick yet, so you do have that going. Wait until it's cold to shoot does for the freezer.
 
I hate hot weather down here where we hunt if you kill one you must get to it quickly if not the blowflies and yellow jackets will try to take it from you. Like the above posts, I prefer to wait for the colder weather.
 
I don't gut them in the field, I have to take them to check station in some areas or I get them back to camp. I don't pull the knife out until they're next to the cooler. Once you open them up the bacteria starts. I have the luxury of 4 wheeler or drive close in most cases so the recovery is not that long. Once in the cooler I will continue to ice and drain for several days . this removes most of the blood. Its Hot here! Early season I wear swim trunks and tank top. I soak my Bug Tamer in cooler water before my walk in and climb. Midday I'm either sitting in a pond chillin or in the camper with A/C napping

P.S. Just don't nap in the pond that may not end well here in FL!
 
We typically take our deer to the processor whole, so we just get to it quick and drive fast. :)

Seriously, if it’s real hot, we will gut it, shove ice into the body cavity, and lay a few more bags over and around the deer to get it cooling off. Don’t let the heat keep you from getting your deer. 80s isn’t hot for where I hunt. We see 80 in January some days! Only once have I had meat spoil because it sat too long. And that was my fault. It was my first bow kill and I really wanted my dad to see it and have a picture with it. The temps hit the 90s that day.
 
We have temps in the 80s at least some days almost all season. You have more time than you think. Most people here put the meat in coolers on ice some even add water initially just to make sure that everything gets cooled down. Then just keep adding ice while leaving the drain open. I do believe dry aging is better than ice but you lose a little meat either way. If I know I will be a little while I will field fess and go ahead and cut the pelvis rib cage so everything will get some airflow. Just have to be careful with your blade. It’s a really bad feeling to bust guts or stomach open knowing it’s 90 degrees and it will be an hour or longer before you get to clean water and cooler locations.
 
vabwhntr said:
Gut it, skin it, and get the meat in a cooler or refrigerator as fast as you can.
Click to expand...

X2. No time to waste make a good clean shot is key. Don’t waste time drag that sucker throw some ice in the cavity for the ride home. Do as quoted above!!!
 
we will typically have 90+ temps for a lot of our entire season. Cool the meat quickly, bones are your biggest heat holders so deboning or cutting relief cuts can help. I typically get mine to the processor w/I 3 hours and have not had a deer sour yet. Most of the time I field dress them immediately, get them to the truck as quick as I can then stuff the body cavity with a few bags of ice and then drive fast :)
 
I field dress ASAP, get them to the truck ASAP, get a couple bags of ice in the chest cavity ASAP.... that’s my method.


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I'll echo what everybody else has said, work fast. I do what I can do get critters cut up and in an ice chest pronto. I quarter and debone, which I think helps tremendously with that. Definitely don't bother gutting in the heat if I can help it.

I cut the backstrap, hams, shoulders, and neck pieces off and then take them several yards away from the carcass to skin and debone. This gets the meat away from the flies, who prefer the gutty bits. It also keeps me away from the stank.

I've always used a contractors bag to shove the meat in, mainly to have a clean place to set it down as I go and to keep blood off of my pack. Some strongly prefer game bags, since they breathe and supposedly "cool" the meat better. I think having it off the bone and out of the hide is more important. That, and the fact that I could jog back to the truck with 40lbs of meat on my back if I wanted to. Lot quicker than dragging.

That being said, it's not as bad as you might think. People have been killing critters in warm weather for eons without the advantage of ice and refrigeration. I think a fresh killed deer in the woods is a lot cleaner than something that goes through a slaughter house, and will take much longer to spoil. I think that's why so many people report great success with various methods. It's harder to screw up than we think.
 
I've killed a lot of deer, in the deep south, during the first week or two of the season when it's extremely hot. And, I've actually had times when I wasn't able to recover an evening shot deer until the next morning, during that early part of the season. With that said, I can honestly say that I've never lost a deer that I found in less than 15 hours after the shot due to spoilage because of the heat. It takes longer for a deer to spoil than most hunters realize.

When in doubt, I've found the best way to tell if the deer is still good is to cut a plug out of the inner hindquarter near the groin and smell it. If it's spoiled you will definitely know it.
 
WHW said:
I've killed a lot of deer, in the deep south, during the first week or two of the season when it's extremely hot. And, I've actually had times when I wasn't able to recover an evening shot deer until the next morning, during that early part of the season. With that said, I can honestly say that I've never lost a deer that I found in less than 15 hours after the shot due to spoilage because of the heat. It takes longer for a deer to spoil than most hunters realize.

When in doubt, I've found the best way to tell if the deer is still good is to cut a plug out of the inner hindquarter near the groin and smell it. If it's spoiled you will definitely know it.
Click to expand...

Agree with this if you keep your shots away from the guts. I have lost only 2 left overnight and that was because of coyotes and a bobcat.
 
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