My friends Moose spoiled In a day????

Raised said:
Hi guys,

I've never hunted myself (yet!), but have hiked in the backcountry a few times and you always have to be concerned with bears getting to your food during the night... So how the heck do you guys manage to leave delicious critters overnight in the woods without some carnivorous animal eating half your catch?
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Game poles

Plus the poles are in camp and the guts are where the animal was shot.
 
350 Mag said:
Take an article of clothing and make a scent trail around the kill site....then leave jacket or sweatshirt over top of the carcass. That is usually enough to keep the carcass safe from Wolves or Bears.

Fresh human scent in the area will keep predators/scavengers away over-night.
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I was gonna say something similar.

My dad was an old timer hunter and learned from older, old timers and indigenous hunters … after gutting and before they could say get help to quarter and hang the moose … they filled the cavity with some pine twigs to keep the birds out and placed a t-shirt on the carcass to keep away wolves … it was assumed bears were a little more stubborn. Bugs are less of a problem after first frost too … colder is better for hunting.

So, our old game butcher used to say you have about four hours to gut an animal before gases start to form in the guts … I’m not sure of the science and timing, we always gutted asap, but think about about how bodies eventually start to bloat and float to the surface in water … all belly up like filled with a ballon.

They sometimes used an old chain saw that was filled with vegetable oil instead of regular oil and do a quick quartering of the carcass.
 
Hunting seasons soon. With elk we had to open up the neck and top of the shoulders also to get that area to cool faster. The way some guys treat game animals it's no wonder their wives don't want to cook or eat it. As to using a air conditioner to cool game the lowest factory setting is 65 degrees so you have to by pass the controls so it it will cool lower .
 
City Boy said:
I was gonna say something similar.

My dad was an old timer hunter and learned from older, old timers and indigenous hunters … after gutting and before they could say get help to quarter and hang the moose … they filled the cavity with some pine twigs to keep the birds out and placed a t-shirt on the carcass to keep away wolves … it was assumed bears were a little more stubborn. Bugs are less of a problem after first frost too … colder is better for hunting.

So, our old game butcher used to say you have about four hours to gut an animal before gases start to form in the guts … I’m not sure of the science and timing, we always gutted asap, but think about about how bodies eventually start to bloat and float to the surface in water … all belly up like filled with a ballon.

They sometimes used an old chain saw that was filled with vegetable oil instead of regular oil and do a quick quartering of the carcass.
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it is 30 minutes for caribou ... not all ruminant are build the same. cost not too much to gut and skin and quarter the animal. i had more than a few times to bone out caribous ...
 
Shame on them if you can't field dress an animal properly don't hunt cause you end up wasting an animal they are idiots as far as I am concerned wild game is delicious if you dress it cool it properly. When I hear this situation it pisses me off.
 
There should always b a plan in place before anyone pulls the trigger,sometimes bad luck happens but by the sounds of your story it was just negligence that caused that moose to spoil its a shame that moose was wasted and I hope everyone involved learned there lesson
 
As someone who worked in the meat industry for 25 years ,slaughtering and cutting I can tell removing the internals are key !

As far as leaving the hide on you would want the weather to be cold to allow this ! Up off the ground so air flow can be facilitated using limbs if you can’t hang it !

They used to slaughter veal calves and skin them the next day , after slaughtering they went in to a blast cooler so they chilled down quickly
The reason they did this is so the carcasses remained pale and did not discolour with the hide off to far ahead of processing ,cutting .
Leavenworth
 
As my Dad would say, they were piss poor hunters that shouldn't be allowed to shoot anything!


Have a plan!
- Animal down.
- Skin, gut and quarter right away. Honestly, this can be done quite quickly! I have done a moose in 20 minutes with an axe and a pocket knife.
Watch the Fred Eichler clip where he breaks down and elk in just a few moments with a Outdoor Edge knife. (4 quarters and the backstraps)
Of course easier with 2 or more people, but very possible when alone...just takes a few minutes more.
- If not deboning or packing out right away, cut large muscle groups along muscle group lines down to bone to let heat out of bone to aid in cooling meat and preventing bone-sour.
- Best to move meat a distance away from gut pile and bloody mess to hang if you cannot pack out then.
- Hang or place up off the ground, on logs/branches/bushes if you cannot pack it out right away.
- Cover with a sheet or branches if you do not have gamebags. (Keeps most birds off if you cannot be back at first light to pack out)
- Get out to a cooler as soon as practicable, regardless of ambient temperatures. A trip out of the bush to do this will save meat, even if it means a little less hunting time for one or more of the people on a group hunt.

Have heard many tales of how to keep animals off your kill. Waste of time as most of these are just tales and do not work! Most common examples:
- Hanging or placing a coat on the kill; if a bear or other predator wants it, they will take it...the scent will only slow them down a little, until they are sure it is safe to approach, not prevent them from taking over the kill.
- Peeing all around the kill site; as effective as the coat strategy. (How many parks, campgrounds or hunting cabins have bear tracks by/around the outhouse, or scratches on the door?) Is where the piss poor hunter statement originated? LOL
- Leaving the hide on and pouring Pinesol on the fur; why would you put a non-edible product on your kill that can get onto the meat???
At the end of the day, (pun intended!) or during the night, if a hungry predator is close enough and scents the kill, they will find it and claim it - not much is going to prevent this (except a larger predator that the smaller ones are wary of)...and worse in areas where the predators have become habituated!
It is interesting to note that in areas where predators are regularly hunted, they are more wary of humans, activity and scent. Where they are not, they have no respect for humans and can even be brazen in their actions around people. And once they have associated people with food, are an educated problem animals that will be hard to re-educate without assertive action!
But as in most cases, more worry than actual experience.

Be prepared, have a good hunt, execute the plan, and enjoy the fruits of your labour!
 
BlackRam said:
As my Dad would say, they were piss poor hunters that shouldn't be allowed to shoot anything!


Have a plan!
- Animal down.
- Skin, gut and quarter right away. Honestly, this can be done quite quickly! I have done a moose in 20 minutes with an axe and a pocket knife.
Watch the Fred Eichler clip where he breaks down and elk in just a few moments with a Outdoor Edge knife. (4 quarters and the backstraps)
Of course easier with 2 or more people, but very possible when alone...just takes a few minutes more.
- If not deboning or packing out right away, cut large muscle groups along muscle group lines down to bone to let heat out of bone to aid in cooling meat and preventing bone-sour.
- Best to move meat a distance away from gut pile and bloody mess to hang if you cannot pack out then.
- Hang or place up off the ground, on logs/branches/bushes if you cannot pack it out right away.
- Cover with a sheet or branches if you do not have gamebags. (Keeps most birds off if you cannot be back at first light to pack out)
- Get out to a cooler as soon as practicable, regardless of ambient temperatures. A trip out of the bush to do this will save meat, even if it means a little less hunting time for one or more of the people on a group hunt.

Have heard many tales of how to keep animals off your kill. Waste of time as most of these are just tales and do not work! Most common examples:
- Hanging or placing a coat on the kill; if a bear or other predator wants it, they will take it...the scent will only slow them down a little, until they are sure it is safe to approach, not prevent them from taking over the kill.
- Peeing all around the kill site; as effective as the coat strategy. (How many parks, campgrounds or hunting cabins have bear tracks by/around the outhouse, or scratches on the door?) Is where the piss poor hunter statement originated? LOL
- Leaving the hide on and pouring Pinesol on the fur; why would you put a non-edible product on your kill that can get onto the meat???
At the end of the day, (pun intended!) or during the night, if a hungry predator is close enough and scents the kill, they will find it and claim it - not much is going to prevent this (except a larger predator that the smaller ones are wary of)...and worse in areas where the predators have become habituated!
It is interesting to note that in areas where predators are regularly hunted, they are more wary of humans, activity and scent. Where they are not, they have no respect for humans and can even be brazen in their actions around people. And once they have associated people with food, are an educated problem animals that will be hard to re-educate without assertive action!
But as in most cases, more worry than actual experience.

Be prepared, have a good hunt, execute the plan, and enjoy the fruits of your labour!
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do not do it too fast this is were accidents happen.
 
medvedqc said:
do not do it too fast this is were accidents happen.
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Yes, there is always the safety to consider when trying to do things too quick.

This is where experience really makes a difference!
An experienced person can do it fast and safely.

I will always recall watching my paternal grandfather teach me to break down a deer when I shot my first whitetail when I was 15. (Growing up on the farm (my maternal grandparents), we always slaughtered and butchered our own animals, and I thought I knew a thing or two about it.) My paternal grandfather taught me some good lessons that day!
His little Old Timer pocket knife had that deer skinned quartered and hung in about 15 minutes!
Only knife I ever saw him use hunting or trapping. And it was always razor sharp! And he didn't have much scraping to do on furs and hides when he was done.
Only time he slowed down was skinning heads or paws, and even then he was quick and efficient. 60 years of doing that will result in that kind of work!
I still cannot do this as quick and clean as he did! But then again, I still only have 2/3s of the years of experience and cannot even guess at the percentage of fewer animals overall as he had with regular hunting and trapping, let alone his 45 years of guiding.
 
i learnt with cree people in northern quebec and those guys were going and efficiently for any caribou or bear.

after 3 seasons one of my client complained as i was not going enough fast while making his cape and doing the head ... i said to him 2 reasons: plane is 5 hours away going and returning and second i m trying to avoid some work for the taxidermist ...

so yes with decades of experiences people can do both i will never and live well with that. but again do not have 60 years of experience lol ...

but a sharp knife is always helping a lot.
 
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