How To Ship Elk Meat Home

Should you be then lucky this fall or winter, here are a few tips on how to transport meat home from your chase.

Traveling to hunt is something I look forrard to every year. The planning, the anticipation, the trip, and the camaraderie have combined to create some of the nigh memorable adventures of my life. I especially enjoy years when I describe an elk tag in a difficult-to-become unit of measurement. It's not and so much that I want (or need) some other mount on my wall. Rather, it'south the hazard to harvest a whole lot of meat that my family, friends, and I volition enjoy for at least the next year.

Maybe you've been at that place before: you make a perfect shot on an elk, whitetail, or mule deer. He goes down chop-chop. You're high fiving your hunting partner; taking pictures. Then, the realization hits home that you take a lot of meat that needs to be transported home. Having a plan on how to get that meat home from your chase beforehand will relieve y'all a lot of headache afterwards.

How to Transport Meat Dwelling house From Your Hunt

There are several ways to go meat home from your chase regardless of whether yous're driving or flying. If you lot're driving, consider coolers and dry ice. If a aeroplane is conveying you lot to and from the hunt, you can check or conduct on meat, according to the TSA. Of course, if you're big-game hunting, checking in a few coolers will probable be your all-time option, should you choose to get that route. There is also the shipping choice, especially for those flight who apply a processor near the expanse where you lot killed the animal.

Drive

The road trip tin be a weary experience, especially on the fashion back. Only for the price of a few tanks of gas, food, perhaps a hotel room, ice and/or a portable freezer, this is the about cost-constructive method for getting meat dorsum home from the hunt. If yous Google "portable freezer," y'all'll find an array of options, almost of which will fit nicely into the back of a pickup truck. These tin be plugged into a cigarette lighter with an adapter and so that y'all'll never have to worry almost ice. Heck, y'all could unload information technology and plug information technology back up in your garage for extra storage.

The solid double roto-molded coolers we run into everywhere are likewise great options. Wrap your meat well. Newspaper does the trick; it's a corking insulator. Put dry ice on the bottom of the cooler and pack your meat on acme with another layer of dry ice over it. If you can, let the cooler sit in the common cold for a 24-hour interval, or pack it with ice and close it. This will extend the longevity of the ice when you pack information technology with meat.

[caption id="attachment_1032" align="alignnone" width="805"] Having a programme on how to get that meat home from your chase beforehand will relieve yous a lot of headache subsequently.[/caption]

Fly

If you're flying to the hunt, then you take 2 options for getting your meat dwelling from the hunt. You tin fly with it, or ship it. According to TSA , "Meat, seafood and other non-liquid food items are permitted in both carry-on and checked bags. If the food is packed with water ice or ice packs in a cooler or other container, the ice or ice packs must be completely frozen when brought through screening. If the ice or ice packs are partially melted and have any liquid at the bottom of the container, they will not be permitted. You also can pack frozen perishables in your carry-on or checked bags in dry water ice. The FAA limits y'all to five pounds of dry water ice that is properly packaged (the bundle is vented) and marked."

The rules are straightforward. Similar driving, a Yeti cooler or something like that holds ice a long time is preferable. Have you ever watched an airline employee load numberless on to the conveyor belt that puts them in the bottom of the plane? They are not gentle! A flimsy libation or ice breast probably won't make it past your first leg of the flight.

Ship

Whether you fly or drive, there is ever the option to ship meat home from the hunt. Perhaps you decide to use a local processor. Or maybe you don't want to deal with the hassle of checking a bunch of cargo onto an airline that may lose information technology anyway. If you've driven, sometimes the road trip doesn't terminate with the hunt. Any your reason for not getting meat from Betoken A to Point B as speedily as possible, shipping is a pretty reliable, if expensive, pick.

A meat processor volition know how to become it to you lot safely. If you're going to pack and ship yourself, these guidelines from the USDA are super helpful. They recommend overnight shipping, which will be costly. So put this expense into your plan. And hey, should you leave the hunt with an unfilled tag, that's a few hundred bucks you could spend on a steak dinner or two on the fashion domicile.

In essence, knowing how to ship meat home from your hunt is all part of the big-game hunting experience. These adventures sometimes take years to plan and one of the well-nigh important parts, getting meat home, is sometimes overlooked. Consider taking a few actress days which volition let y'all to make the trip by vehicle. If you're like us and live in the East, there's something special about breaking away from the urban barrier into the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains beyond.

Source: https://tractoptics.com/blog/how-to-transport-meat-home-from-your-hunt/

Share this post