You’ve downed your animal and are ready to start cleaning it. You’re probably realizing (or remembering) that from here on out, the fun part is over and it’s work. Your next steps will determine just how much work you’ve signed yourself up for.
I’m on foot; I’ve hiked supplies to last me 10 days several miles into the national forest in Colorado. In and out, it’s all on my back…no horses, no ATVs, no vehicles. By far the best method is hunting with friends who have no problem helping whomever is successful hike out their meat. With this kind of help you may only have to make one trip. But even one trip can be a nightmare if your meat isn’t optimally loaded.
The end result
My goal is to be comfortable. I want to be pain-free before, during and especially after the hunt. That goal infuses every decision I make. In the context of packing out my animal, I’ve made the important decisions in advance. I’ll be boning out all of the meat. If I’ve shot a bull or buck, my preference is always for a European mount, so I’ll only need the head. So how do you best get over 200 pounds of meat and an elk head out of the woods?
Most important question
Where are you going to put it? Backpackers carry substantial loads every day and place their heaviest items—food, stove fuel and bear canisters—high and tight to their spine. Learn from their example. Moving the weight to the absolute bottom of your pack bangs into your butt with each step, overworks your hip flexors and leg muscles and saps strength fast. Strapping the meat to the outside of an already loaded pack shifts your center of balance comically far; I’ve seen hunters compensate with nearly 45 degrees of forward lean, which guarantees a nasty, miserable trek. Meat is very heavy and often leaks a lot of blood when compressed in your pack. If you’re with me on loading high and tight to the spine, a thick, unscented black trash bag keeps the blood from soaking anything else in your pack.
I don’t use the “meat shelves” that are all the marketing rage on packs. They don’t put the weight where it needs to be for miles of hiking with lots of vertical gain and loss.
Your options
Game bags. My shoulders and quads still tingle from memories of hauling my first elk out with game bags made from stretchy cheesecloth material. Everyone I’ve ever hunted with has a set of these bags and for quartering an animal or undoubtedly every situation where you are not strapping the meat to your pack they work. When you place them in your pack the stretchy material immediately transforms into meat bowling balls that limbo their way to the bottom of your pack. They are hard to strap in place and I don’t recommend them for packing meat out for any serious distance. To cure the problem of excessive material stretch, I tried a synthetic game bag designed for boned out meat that had minimal give. What I didn’t anticipate was that these bags—over a foot wide by 30 inches in length—are simply too broad to secure in my pack. Again I’m sure I’m not the ideal user for this bag…what I want to accomplish is a little more extreme.
What I finally found is a strong silnylon sack make by Kifaru that measures 9” wide by about 24” long…it holds an honest 70 pounds of meat and has a strap that will allow you to–strength permitting–pull it up a tree for drainage and critter protection. I put jackets, sleeping bags or whatever I can under the vertically oriented meat bag to support it and keep it as high and tight to my spine as possible. And with the meat in the trash bags, nothing leaks on my gear.
Summary
For comfortably packing meat out and hiking miles to make that happen—with multiple round trips—keep the meat in a tall, narrow tube. Pack the meat in your pack, tight to your spine about midway up your back extending up towards your neck. Following this formula won’t negate the fact that you have another 70 or more pounds on your back, but it will maximize your chances of being able to make multiple trips without reaching for an excessive amount of ibuprofen when it’s all over.
Recommended meat bag:
Kifaru Meat Bag
9×26”
1oz
$24
www.kifaru.net
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