Early deer season is hot! That means meat care is crucial
Southern-states bowhunters face a challenge when it comes to field dressing deer during the warm season. Here are some tips.
Friday I’ll join hundreds of other Oklahoma bowhunters who will rise well before dawn and trek into the woods with their sights set on a white-tailed deer, elk, or black bear.
We’ve prepared all we can. We’ve learned and adjusted and practiced with our archery equipment and are ready for the final exam. Most of us have trail cameras placed and might even have an educated guess as to when and where a particular deer might show up.
All this planning and prep, and what’s on my mind? Filling my cooler, ice management, game bags, field dressing, and packing meat back to the truck.
True confession: In 13 years in Oklahoma I have never hunted deer the first half of October. This year, as I like to do, I’m challenging my pre-conceived notions and forcing myself into early season hunting to make myself face a strong bias and learn something in the process.
I hate hunting in hot weather, and by that, I mean anything over about 70 degrees. I have a significant cold bias. Any day of the week I’d rather field dress a deer with numb fingers and snow to wash the blood off my hands than to race the hot clock against flies, ticks, and meat spoilage with sweat dripping off the brim of my hat.
Most write-ups on warm-season meat care tell hunters they face three enemies, temperatures above 40 degrees, bacterial growth, and time. I would add three more: Foreign matter, surface area, and distance/accessibility.
Keep it cool, keep it dry, and keep it clean. That’s the rule for minimum waste and good table fare. Sounds basic, but at times it can be a real challenge—even when you have a good shot and the deer drops nearby.
Temperature, time, and bacterial growth are indeed the offensive line of the opposing team.
They increase in danger exponentially with external temperatures above 40 degrees. Not only that, it’s important to consider the internal temp of that deer or elk. White-tailed deer and elk are Cervids, and like most ruminants, they have a normal body temperature of 101.4 degrees.
To follow the food-handling advice of the USDA’s Meat and Poultry Hotline, consumers should never leave food out of refrigeration for more than 2 hours. If the temperature is above 90, that window shrinks to one hour.
Chris Gabriel, the owner of Wild Country Meats, said the two most important areas to guard against heat spoilage are the hindquarters and the chest/shoulders area. If it’s quickly available, a couple of 10-pound bags of ice can work wonders, he said.
Open the pelvis and the chest to help that heat escape after gutting the animal, he said.
“You’d be surprised what a couple of bags of ice can do for you,” he said. “If it’s me I’d say put a bag of ice in the chest and another in the back, wrap it in a tarp, and head to the processor,” he said. “If you’re not bringing it in that day, then you need to quarter it and get it into a cooler or something like that.”
Much depends on the day's weather and where you stand when that deer drops. That’s where that time and temperature guideline bumps into distance/accessibility considerations.
If you’re hunting at a spot accessible by ATV, can drop a deer with a clean heart shot, and are hunting close enough to be at a meat processor or your buddy’s walk-in cooler in less than an hour, I would argue in some cases there is no need to field dress at all. Just load it up and go!
If meat spoils in an hour at 90 degrees, temps above 100 obviously are that much worse. Remember, you’re starting out with a 101-degree internal temp on that fur-covered deer. Avoid letting a carcass lie in direct sunlight even if you do have ice in the cavity. And don’t goof around taking photos for 45 minutes. If the weather is hot you don’t have time for that.
Foreign matter and surface area are the backfield players that just seem to find creative ways to cost hunters pounds and pounds of good table fare every year.
Nothing is worse than splitting a deer open neck-to-pelvis and then dragging it to the truck or strapping it on the back of an ATV for a dusty ride home. That should be an obvious no-no. Bag it or wrap it in a tarp.
Sometimes quartering or de-boning a deer or an elk is necessary for packing it out. Guys like me who don’t own an ATV or a giant 4X4, that’s what we do.
It’s a fine strategy for keeping the meat cool even if you’re not carrying a buck on your back, but the more cuts made in the field the more surface area is exposed.
I’ve never been able to explain it, but fresh cuts of meat simply seem to be magnets for hair and dirt and bugs. The stuff turns up out of nowhere no matter how clean you think your sight might be. And all of that soiled meat will be trimmed away and tossed to the trash at the butcher’s table.
Field-dressing game on remote hunts in Alaska I had two best friends; a 10-foot by 10-foot tarp and a set of heavy-duty game bags. I’ll use them again here in Oklahoma.
I’m not close to a game processor’s facility, but I will be within ¼ to ½ mile of my truck and a cooler full of ice. I don’t want to deal with a gut pile where I park the truck, and it’s a relatively short pack to the road, so I will fully field-dress and “quarter” my deer in the woods.
The deer will be dragged to a clear spot, the tarp will be staked down and I’ll have my clear/clean workspace. I’ll have, heavy-duty game bags, Ziplock bags, and lawn-and-leaf garbage bags at the ready.
I will skin the deer quickly as possible and then use the “gutless quartering” method. It’s basically quartering a deer without gutting it first.
The exposed surface area will be the biggest challenge. That, and time needed to make cuts and get pieces bagged and on ice. Shade and a little breeze will work wonders for me. I’ll pray for those. And I’ll also hope it doesn’t rain.
I’ll have the meat in canvas game bags and will set them inside heavy-duty trash bags inside the cooler to keep them dry as possible. They won’t be in the cooler for more than an hour or two. Even with the meat protected by trash bags, I’ll keep the cooler plug opened and the cooler on an incline to drain any meltwater.
When I get home I’ll break down the quarters (see videos attached) and talk with my landowner about what we want for sausages and such. The heart and tenderloins will hit my dinner table in short order, however.
Hot weather is a challenge for meat care, and it’s a good idea to check with your processor about delivery times. Gabriel said Wild Country is available 24/7 specifically because they don’t want deer to sit out in warm weather.
“We take pride in that meat care so that’s a big deal for us,” he said. “We want people to know we will get that meat into a cooler as soon as possible and put out a clean, healthy product.”
Likewise, it’s nice for processors (and your future dinner guests) to know that hunters are processing venison as quickly as possible on hot days, all the while keeping it clean, dry, and cool as possible.