pony soldier 1

[diamond hitch]

As a member of a very small and becoming rare group of elk hunters, I would like to share some things I have learned over half of a century. The pockets of my coat have few items I can't live without. I keep about 15 ft of hemp rope (3/8 in) for towing the elk away from the gut pile. This makes me a smaller target from predators. I keep a fair amount, of parachute cord in small bundles of 15 - 20 ft. I have used them to tie my dead elk on a steep hillside while gutting it and position the body to make it easier and safer to work on. I also use them to tie up poles to get my quarters off the ground and out of reach until I can get back to them with my stock.

I usually carry an 7 or 8 wheel block and tackle. I have had cheap ones with plastic rope and watched them blow up. Spend the money and get one with parachute chord or braided rope. I modify the upper attachment with either a dog choke chain or carabiener type connections. It can be used to lift an elk off the ground to quarter or drag one out of a creek as I have done at least twice. I usually have a saw to cut trees to brush up my kill if it is too late to get it quartered before dark. I have used it to cut poles to get the meat off the ground when I have to come back the next day to pack it out.

Someplace in my coat I usually have a good quality headlamp as well as a small flashlight. Wandering through downed timber in the dark is always a memorable experience. I don't think everyone needs these things but they are the tools my partners and I have used successfully over the years .

 

[Muskeez]

Interesting thoughts. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Muley_Stalker]

I find using the gutless method easier and faster.

 

[406dn]

I too use the gutless method. I can't ever see dressing an elk any other way ever again. Every time I do one it goes faster than the previous time. I keep a small plastic tarp and old bed sheet on my day pack. I set out the tarp and sheet next to the elk, so that as I remove quarters, they get placed on it. That makes keeping the meat clean very easy. When all the meat is off the elk, I bag up the backstraps, tenderloins and trim into equal bags. Then one horse gets the hams, another gets the shoulders and bags. Then away we go.

There aren't many more useful items to have with you than parachute cord. I remember repairing a breast collar it on a horse a couple years ago.

 

[diamond hitch]

I'm more convetional and it takes me about 4 hours to cut up an elk so I like to pack out the quarters, scrub them, wrap them in sheets and hang them in the barn. In a normal year they freeze and I can cut them at my convenience. I have been known to freeze whole quarters and cut them after the season. This is my winter's meat supply so I am pretty picky about how I take care of it.

My experience with users of the gutless method and it may only be here but the places I seen it done they only take the prime cuts and leave all the hamburger meat (about half of the elk) in the woods for the birds and critters. I've done it the old way for 57 years so I will probably continue. I had a partner for 18 years that maintained it was a sin to leave the skin meat and would flesh out the hide and add it to the hamburger pile. I grew up eating beef tongue and one year I cut an elk tongue out and it was quite good. I guess it depends how you were raised.

 

[elkduds]

5 links of upper chain (3 for pulleys, 2 for hangers) adds more mechanical advantage. This simple tool is good for all kinds of heavy lifting and pulling. Smaller than a soda can.

 

[Muley_Stalker]

I'm more convetional and it takes me about 4 hours to cut up an elk so I like to pack out the quarters, scrub them, wrap them in sheets and hang them in the barn. In a normal year they freeze and I can cut them at my convenience. I have been known to freeze whole quarters and cut them after the season. This is my winter's meat supply so I am pretty picky about how I take care of it.

My experience with users of the gutless method and it may only be here but the places I seen it done they only take the prime cuts and leave all the hamburger meat (about half of the elk) in the woods for the birds and critters. I've done it the old way for 57 years so I will probably continue. I had a partner for 18 years that maintained it was a sin to leave the skin meat and would flesh out the hide and add it to the hamburger pile. I grew up eating beef tongue and one year I cut an elk tongue out and it was quite good. I guess it depends how you were raised.

I promise you i'm not leaving an ounce of edible meat on the ground. However, I don't eat guts and don't consider it edible. My season is mid Sept and it's usually pretty warm to hot. I might be a long way from my Jeep and I need to get the meat out as fast as possible. I use the method that's the fastest but still gets all the meat. I used the gutless method long before it had a name. (63 years) I figured it out on my own. It just seemed like the smartest way to get the meat out.

Enjoy your old way to do it.

 

[diamond hitch]

No offense meant Elkstalker. Like you I have found a way to quarter and load an elk in about an hour and 15 min. When I leave a kill site there is only a gut pile four lower legs and a head. Surprisingly the closer I get to the road, the more meat I see left in the woods.

I grew up on the northwest side of Montana on the Idaho border. A normal first week was 75 - 80 degrees and you had to fight for your meat with the blow flies and the yellowjackets. Speed was of the essance if you wanted to eat that winter. I've seen people skin out their quarters and wrap them in plastic garbage sacks to keep the flies off of them. Under those conditions they sour over night. we also experienced seasons of warm rain. Another way to see your meat sour. You have to get those front quarters (on a big bull) cool fast by either quartering or filleting.

Those early years left such an impression on me because of the crisis created by the shot that two years ago at the break of light there were 30 head of legal elk within a shootable distance out the front window. The weather had been in the mid 70s. I have had enough bad experiences with commercial meat cutters that won't employ them. Based on that, we took a family vote and watched them mill around for a half hour in the front field while we ate breakfast rather than shoot any and have to cut meat the second day of season.

In the past a similar situation occured, we killed three, spent the day quartering and cleaning, spent the next day cutting and wrapping and found ourselves with 5 weeks of season left and no reason to go anywhere. I enjoy the search as much as the kill. It makes for a difficult decision.

My way works for me and you have found a way that works for you, as long as the meat is used we are both right.

 

[Muley_Stalker]

No offense taken. I just wanted you to know some of us are responsible. As a meat hunter my first goal is the get all the meat out and be editable. It's just me and my dog now and I can get an elk to last me all year.

What's really hard to keep the meat fresh on a bear. It's a Sept hunt too. Thick hides and a thick layer of fat keep the meat hot for a long time. I need to work really fast to save all the meat. We have to take out the hide and head for inspection. Otherwise, i'd leave it at the kill and speed up the process.

Anyway, we seem to think alike. Even if we do it differently.

 

[RidgeRoamingRichard]

No offense taken. I just wanted you to know some of us are responsible. As a meat hunter my first goal is the get all the meat out and be editable. It's just me and my dog now and I can get an elk to last me all year.

What's really hard to keep the meat fresh on a bear. It's a Sept hunt too. Thick hides and a thick layer of fat keep the meat hot for a long time. I need to work really fast to save all the meat. We have to take out the hide and head for inspection. Otherwise, i'd leave it at the kill and speed up the process.

Anyway, we seem to think alike. Even if we do it differently.

This will be my first year bear hunting and I'm concerned about the same thing. If I get one down, do I need to pack out the meat/hide/head the same day? Spring in MT is hard to predict, but i imagine we will be in the 50s or 60s by then.

 

[Muley_Stalker]

Good question. I never thought about that. I always just took it all the same day. You'll have to hang up the head and hide to keep the critters off it.

You have bear inspection in Montana too?

 

[RidgeRoamingRichard]

Yup, they want the hide and head within 10 days. My buddy and I have a 4 day hunt planned and it seems like a waste to shoot one early and have to cut the trip short.

 

[Muley_Stalker]

They give us 5 days. I usually bring it in the next day. I don't need to camp anymore, so i'm home.

 

[diamond hitch]

I agree but since you brought up bear hunting I thought I should share a packing story from my high school years. In the 60s bear were about as common as flies and nearly as annoying. One of the local packers for the forest service ran a nice string of mules and in general was a nice guy and very professional. His son- not so much. He shot a respectable black bear and borrowed one of his fathers mules. It's a shame he couldn't borrow his fathers experience and judgement.

He got to the kill site, put a blindfold on the mule and loaded the bear on a very nervous mule. He got the bear tied to the decker packsaddle but failed to tie the legs down. The first log the mule had to jump the paws came up and then slapped the sides of the mule like a bronc ride setting the spurs on the first jump. The mule responded to paw slap and jumped again to confirm the first paw slap. Now fully assured that he been attacked by a bear the mule set about ridding himself of the offending bear by bucking, kicking, hitting trees and various mule moves.

In about a mile the bear abandoned ship and they found the decker pretty well broke up in another half mile and his father's mule between 2 and 2 1/2 miles farther down the slope tangled up in a doghair thicket.

The bear came out on their backs. The mule and the decker were never quite the same and the mule string was no longer available to the son. Remember- you can't fix stupid!

 

[Muley_Stalker]

Sometimes I put a quote by John Wayne as my sig. It goes like this.

"Life is hard but is a lot harder when you're stupid."

 

[Woodrow F Call]

Pics of block and tackle?

 

[diamond hitch]

block and tackle