Game meat transport

NightStalker

New Member
I’ve been wondering about this for awhile.

How do hunters from other states get the meat home after the hunt?

Thinking about logistics hoping to do a hunt in the near future
 

Ratdog68

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Last fall, I paid a butcher to cut/wrap/freeze my Mule Deer (SE Montana), I then bought a GOOD cooler, loaded the meat in and found some dry ice. The third day, the meat was still frozen hard/solid (in Seattle).

I am planning on a different approach for the future. Setting up my rig for dual batteries, a solar charger, and a 12V fridge/freezer. Butcher/wrap/freeze it myself and transfer into cooler with dry ice as overflow when the freezer is full.

When I was hunting in Alaska, and transporting my meat home, I'd cut/wrap/freeze myself, and take the boxes of frozen packages to AK Air Cargo and request them to keep it frozen. I had ONE instance when it was left out in Kotzebue, and began thawing. However, in spite of the incompetence of the Kotzebue ground crew, my meat arrived to Seattle in good shape and not spoiled. AK Air Cargo simply had to deal with some blood seepage from a couple of packages. When they tried to whine to me about it, I set them straight with what happened, their whining stopped abruptly when they realized I might file a complaint against their Kotzebue ground crew's incompetence.

If the meat is fitting the category of potential "Chronic Wasting Disease", you MUST NOT attempt to bring skull/spinal chord (fresh/raw kill) across State lines. My deer skull/antlers are being professionally mounted and are then OK to bring across after I go get it from my Montana taxidermist.
 

Chopperdrvr

Deep East Tx
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Every state has it's own set of rules for transportation of game meat, but they usually all require a few basic things. If it is a game animal requiring a "tag", the completed tag and proof of sex must accompany the meat during transportation. If you are allowed to process the game at camp prior transport you will usually be required to include a "game transportation form". This is nothing more than a piece of paper with the name and address and license number of the person that killed the animal, etc. This is also used if transporting donated meat from someone else. I.e., your buddy killed it and gave it to you. If this isn't what you wanted to know, sorry for the boring lesson.
 

NightStalker

New Member
My mistake I was going to say it would be a hog hunt I’m trying to fig out how to keep the meet from going bad. I hate flying so I’ll drive
 

Chopperdrvr

Deep East Tx
SUS VENATOR CLUB
That’s easy then. I keep hog meat in a cooler for 7 to 10 days before packaging for the freezer so just bring enough coolers for the amount of meat you want to bring back. I usually only quarter it out before the trip. You want to try to keep the meat in as large of a piece as possible while aging so just quartering is fine, but skin it. Try not to let the meat sit in water so drain it often and replace ice as necessary. Then enjoy.
 

NightStalker

New Member
That will work.

Some day I’d like to set up an enclosed trailer with refrigeration to travel with but that’s in the future
 
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