# Packing out an Elk



## Bowslayer2

I have packed out quite a few elk (on my back) and now have goats that I am looking forward to using this fall. I have been pondering the question of how to ""split" the elk up to pack out on the goats. 
Ok... the front shoulders likely weigh 25 to 40 pounds each deboned.... and the hind quarters are likely between 40 to 70 pounds each deboned. Backstaps, tenderloins, etc. weigh 20 to 30+ pounds or so. 
How do you split each quarter up to distribute the weight evenly between the goats? It seems to me that cutting the quarters into smaller chunks would allow more meat to dry out. Is there a trick to splitting it up and keeping it from drying out, or am I just over thinking it? 
Either way, any hints or ideas on packing the elk meat onto the goats would be appreciated. 

Thanks!


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## Bob Jones

Back in the days of survival hunting, when boys were boys and men were... well, boys...

The meat was dry rubbed with salt, then wrapped in the skins. 

I imagine a plastic trash bag would do well keeping meat from drying out. Suck or squeeze the air out of it before tying it closed. Then even if the meat does dry out a bit, being salted is salvageable.

The plastic bags might also keep your saddle bags fresher. Some people use plastic buckets for saddlebags is such situations for carrying drippy stuff or otherwise nasty garbage.

Now the absolute best idea, is that you set up a processing camp and slow smoke (low temperature) the meat for about ten days to preserve it.It makes the whole load lighter, and the smaller pieces are easily distributed for weight. My wife makes sure I have plastic bags when I leave the house...


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## imported_ashley

I have been pondering that very question. We have adopted the gutless method and have been boning out our animals for easier pack-out. I try not to cut the meat up too much to keep surface are to a minimum so I am thinking that one goat gets the neck meat and loins and misc. which would be easy to to split up, and maybe if you have one really big goat he could potentially take both shoulders if they are under 60 lbs or so combined, but I see no other way for the rear quarters except splitting the rear quarter in half and draping it over the panniers some way.... 
The only good way I can think of is cutting it up; just make sure its nice and cool and clean to minimize waste... Hopefully we get some elk this year to try it out!! Good Luck!!


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## jross

I have packed elk out on my back, on an ATV, and on mules, but not on the goats, yet. In these cases we just quartered it and hauled it out bones and all. The advantage of that is less work out in the dirt up on a mountainside, and the hide keeps thing clean. But if I do pack one out on the goats (or on my back again) I will definitely bone it out. I would try to avoid carrying out bones and hide that we aren't going to eat anyway.

I have a video made by a hunting guide who shows how he bones out an elk. He's really good at it. He basically props it up on its belly, slits the skin down the back, lays the hide of one side over onto the ground, and fillets the meat off the bones and lays the chunks of meat on the clean inside of the hide. Then he cuts them up into pieces that will fit in 1 gallon zip lock bags. When he's done with that side he lays the hide from the other side over and repeats the process. Then it's just a matter of loading the bags into the goat panniers and keeping them balanced.

This may not work well in hot weather tho. I've heard that putting meat in plastic bags and not getting it chilled down quickly is a bad idea. Fortunately I've been getting drawn for late cow hunts so cooling the meat isn't an issue.


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## StykbowMT225

I see a lot of varying opinions here thought I would add some points of interest I have learned.

I went on a moose hunt in Alaska last fall. It was a 110 mile float trip and we were only bowhunting. Minimum fine in Alaska for letting meat go to waste is $1000.00 and/or 7 days in jail. My hunting partner and I did a LOT of research none the less. I recieved most of my good information from a guy named Larry Bartlet. If interested you should google that name. He lives in Fairbanks, and has books and videos on keeping meat clean and fresh while in the woods.

Some of the main points I took from Bartlet:

1) Meat should always remain clean and DRY. (there will be a protective crust that forms on the outside of the meat and that is perfectly fine. Rubbing citric acid on the meat will help preserve it and keep flies away to some extent.

2) Use high quality game bags. There is a type of game bag called "tag bags." I bought mine in AK, and they weren't cheap (somewhere in the realm of $75 for a pack of 5,) but they are high quality and reusable. Do not use plastic bags if it is warm! Do NOT use kitchen trash bags! If you look on a box of normal kitchen trash bags it says something to the effect: "Not for storage of food meant for human consumption." This is due to the powdered agents they add to prevent foul odors. Best not to use plastic bags at all as they will prevent the meat from cooling as well.

Other techniques include using a meat thermometer to make sure the meat close to the bone stays cool, hanging the meat every night or suspending it off the ground if trees are not available. Last resort involves INDUSTRIAL trash bags (ones without the powder chemicals) and using rocks to sink the meat in a cool stream or lake, but keep it DRY. Moisture and heat leads to spoilage. You do want to keep the surface area to a minimum, but that is tough to do with goats.

Thanks,
Doug


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## Bob Jones

The guy that insisted I be his hunting partner used to tie deer across the hood of the truck and drive around in the hot sun all day while we shot a few more. After a couple of days of this, then he'd hang them in the garage for a week. They sure were tender...


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## idahonancy

We have been packing elk meat out with home made game bags. The outlet stores like Ross Dress for less and TJ Max will sell 100% cotton 600 threads per square inch bed sheets. This is the highest thread count count I have ever been able to find. At home I sew simple rectangle game bags from the sheets. We always have these with us in our hunting pack. Back at base camp we use a heavy cotton duck cloth game bag to hang the meat. (These are a little to heavy to pack everyday while hunting). We hang the meat high due to the bears and dogs. These bags are made local here in Coeur d'Alene, ID at Lyle's Fabrics. He has an online store if you want them. I wash and bleach them and reuse them for years. 
After many years I have finally drawn a moose tag for Idaho. I'm not sure how many packs the goats, my husband and I will be carrying to get a moose out.


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## Rex

I've packed out a lot of Elk. You will need to debone it. I use the gutless method which is quick and simple. Do one side at a time by skinning half the animal and lay the hide out flat to put the meat on so it doesn't get dirty. As soon as I get a quarter deboned I split it in equal halves and put it in game bags and set it in the shade while I work on the next quarter.

If the Elk is a large bull I figure on one deboned rear quarter per goat. Then one goat per front quarter and two more for the neck, rib and loin meat making 6 total goat loads. I usually carry the head and hide myself. Obviously I put each rear quarter on my largest goats and the loose meat on my smallest ones. 

If the Elk is medium size like a cow or small bull then you can combine a front quarter with half the loose meat and bring it out with 4 goats.

It takes 2 goats to pack out a deer. I leave the bones in and put the rear quarters on one goat and the front shoulders and loose meat on the second goat.

I pack all my meat in cheap cheesecloth game bags and hang them up as high as I can get them while I bring the goats in. I line my panniers with small kitchen garbage bags to keep the panniers clean and keep the meat from drying out. Once I get to the truck I take the meat out of the plastic so it can air cool on the way home.


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## imported_ashley

FOr those that don't know the gutless method: refer to www.elk101.com

Its a great elk hunting web site


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## Mt Nebo Goats

My friend has a LE archery elk tag for this fall. Thanks for the informative post from Rex on a good way to load up the goats with all the meat to pack it out. Thanks That helps a ton. Hopefully we get the chance to use my goats to pack out the bull.


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## Bob Jones

Mt Nebo Goats said:


> Hopefully we get the chance to use my goats to pack out the bull.


When I go hunting I throw the bull... ;-)


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## Rex

Bob Jones said:


> [quote="Mt Nebo Goats":19zschvx] Hopefully we get the chance to use my goats to pack out the bull.


When I go hunting I throw the bull... ;-)[/quote:19zschvx]
Bob you throw bull even when you aren't hunting...


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## ryorkies

My turn to share.










The goats and I were there when my son shot with his bow. The elk was curious about the goats. 
All the goats did well for their first hunting trip. They went up on the hill when prepping.
But I think it was because of the buzzing bees. (that time of the year)


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## ryorkies

This is me on a trip to get water for the goats.
Which by the way they did not drink at all the whole trip.
Friday til Sunday. Yet water was available. What is up with that?
Of course they were eating mountain grasses not dried up hay.

The panniers were just old horse saddle bags. And one Northwest set.


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## Rex

I see the same thing with no water consumption when we first hit the trail. Often for several days. They have an amazing ability to go without water. I make sure they have access to it a couple of times a day and they eventually drink when they are thirsty.


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## McDanAx

Great read guys, thanks for sharing...

I drew a Unit 15 New Mex bull tag, packing a big boy out on our backs!! 
I didn't realize when I applied, this unit is full of roads. So the goats will sit out one more season, they are 3 this year. Above tree line muley hunt planned next bowseason. I can't wait to use my goats!!


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## Bowslayer2

Well, it was a fun 5 days hunting on my own in the backcountry, five to six miles in (with Copper and Talc). From day one I was in the elk, there must have been an early cow in heat. I missed a nice 6 point when my arrow hit a limb. Had 4 other bulls within range but no shot due to brush and/or trees.
Monday night I heard a bugle and snuck towards the direction of the sound (with two goats following). The bull saw me and the goats and stopped at 18 yards. I drew back and cow called, but a large tree blocked everything but the butt and guts. After holding way too long, I couldnâ€™t hold any more so I let down way to quickâ€¦. arrow fell off the rest and hit the dirt. I cow called again but the bull was intent on the goats. I loaded the arrow up and scooted three feet back, drew back my bow, aimed and shot him at 18 yards. He ran 40 yards to the right and I thought for sure he was going down! However, a black bear came out of the trees and spooked the elk, which took off in a flash. 
I was a little pissed, until I rememberedâ€¦â€¦.I have a bear tag and should shoot it (it was 35-40 yards away). So I drew back my bow, but couldnâ€™t get a shot (the bear was busy blood trailing the elk I think). I literally â€œchasedâ€\followed the bear for 50 yards trying to get a shot at him and he didnâ€™t even care I or the goats were there until he winded me. Once he smelled me, he took off. Thank goodness, as that would have been way to much work!!!!!
The elk only ran about 100 yards and died. I used the gutless method recommended above at this link http://elk101.com and it worked well, but would have definitely been easier with another person to help hold legs, etc. I used a tarp to lay the meat on. Overall, I am impressed with the goats. They didnâ€™t mind the elk at all. 
I had Copper pack 50Lbs of meat and Talc packed the 40Lbs of gear to the trailhead where I met my wife, daughter and our other four pack goats. We stuck my daughter on Treasure and walked the 3+ miles to the elk, loaded the goats up and came back. They did a good job, didnâ€™t mind the â€œdeadâ€ elk or meat and I only had to pack about 20 pounds of meat (due to my daughter taking up a big goats meat carrying capacity, which was worth it as she had fun). Packed out 200Lbs of meat. 
Also had a bobcat stalking the goatsâ€¦â€¦.but I guess that story is for another time.


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## tgallaty

Bowslayer2, congratulations! What an exciting hunt. Where were you?


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## Bowslayer2

tgallaty.... I can't give away my spots, spent too much time walking and scouting and scouting and walking. I got it in western Montana.....


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## joecool911

Nice pics! Thanks for sharing. I was with my buddy last weekend when he arrowed a bull. 20 yards. Fun!!!


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## Nanno

Thanks for the nice photos! I love it when people post pictures!


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## ryorkies

I am so glad you found the elk after it got spooked and ran off.
Great photos.
Alot more exciting than my trip. And yes. You would of had a lot of work
if you had gotten a bear and elk. 
Do you cut up your own meat? We just finished ours yesterday.
I have not found a butcher in this area I would trust. 
Some horror stories with butchers in the past.


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## Bowslayer2

We cut and process all our own game for a few reasons:
1) It is much cheaper
2) I have had some bad experiences with butchers as well and we are careful to keep everything sanitary and clean
3) We actually enjoy doing it (for the most part)

We finished with the processing yesterday. Lot of work. Made some teriyaki jerky and have some pepperoni jerky in the dehydrator now. We spent a lot of time on sausage and jerky recipes and got them down pretty good. Way too costly for us to pay someone to do it. We purchased a good grinder, sausage press, etc. a few years ago and it has definately paid for itself. Just put together a pastrami mix tonight..... never done it before, so hope it turns out ok.

Congrats on your elk as well. The goats are definately a pain sometimes, but well worth it and a part of the family. My daughter really likes them and tends to "hang" off them and bug them a lot. They put up with it good.


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## imported_ashley

Bowslayer, Amazing pictures! Thanks for the great story!! I am really looking forward to getting ours up into the woods! I am jealous... So how close were your goats in relation to you and the bull that you called in? Did he want to fight your goats or just check them out? I like that bobcat pic..you should have arrowed him!  As far as packs go, while you were hunting, did your goats have packs on? It is hard to find stories and pics like what you have posted, we really love reading them! How did it work having the goats with you while having a bull nearby...were the goats worried or curious?


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## Bowslayer2

Ashley,
I really didn't know what I was doing or how I was going to hunt until I got out there, this was my first "hunting" trip with the goats. My wife and I got them last December (not a great time to get livestock ). We took them on mulitple camping trips this summer and they performed well, but I was worried and stressed over how I was going to utilize them for hunting.

Finally, I figured I would just take the goats out with me and let them hunt with me and see how it went. If the goats were "horrible" and spooked the elk or were a pain, I figured I would just use them for "packgoats" and leave them at home while I was hunting. However, I really wanted to have them with me as they could pack my gear in and out and around, during the hunt, which meant I wouldn't have to!

Hopefully I am not too long winded here but the below is what I did, experienced and found to work for me.

First, I split my 30 pounds of gear between the two goats (10 LBS of it was food and snacks for the 8 day hunt; I didn't stay the entire time due to getting the elk before the end of the 8 days. The tent was 5 lbs, sleeping bag 3.5 LBS (with liner...was cold), one extra pair of pants, socks, shirt, water purifier, tarp to put meat on, etc. The point was too keep everything to the bare minimum I needed for weight as the goats and I needed to be mobile! At first, I thought I would pack the gear onto the goats every morning and hunt them through the woods each morning so....... I had my wonderful wife make me two sets of "quiet" polar fleece panniers. They worked great and were quiet! However, they are a little heavier than the regular ones (2.25 LBS each or 4.5 LBS a set) due to making them heavy duty to ensure they did not rip in the woods (heavy duty polar fleeced glued with a special glue to 1,000 denier cordura). I quickly found it was best not to pack them up in the morning for several reasons, one of which being the dew accumulated on the tent which tended to get everything wet and then required drying later in the day.

In essence, what worked for me was to set up a "base" camp, hunting the morning hunt then coming back to camp and either packing up the goats and moving to a new location or choosing to stay due to being in a good elk location and hunting the evening hunt and next morining hunt. The nice thing about the base camp is that when I woke up I was already into the elk. One morning I didn't make it more than 300 yards from my tent for the entire 3 hour hunt as the elk were everywhere! Beats walking in the dark for an hour or three before first light to get where you really want to hunt!

Overall, I did not really like hunting the goats with panniers on as they would tend to "push" their way through brush, breaking limbs, and making way too much noise. I preferred to hunt the goats without panniers and they would essentially follow me around while I hunted (wearing their collar only)! I was really apprehensive about having them follow me while hunting as it just didn't seem "right". But due to wolves, bears, mountain lions, (bobcats  ), etc. I definately wasn't going to leave them in camp. It took about three days of hard hunting, getting into elk and seeing that the goats really didn't spook the elk before I started to get used to having them hunt with me. They aren't loud, but they aren't necessarily that quiet either. 

When in or near elk or when the elk spotted me, I would just cow call. Overall, I had 5 different legal bulls (4 of them had cows) within bow range of me during my five days of hunting. I had the one I missed, 3 that I just couldn't get a shot at and the one I shot at 18 yards (also had 3 spikes in range, but not legal to shoot). A different bull than the five mentioned above, did spook badly when it saw the goats, but during that entire evening hunt, the goats were spooky as heck and wouldn't get more than 2 feet from me the whole night. I saw wolf and bear crap everywhere and so am not so sure they didn't smell or sense something I couldn't see or smell. 

All of the elk tended to watch the goats, which gave me opportuntity to "move" more than I thougth otherwise possible or comfortable with. Of course, I did cow call whenever the elk saw me or the goats. The elk were definately not "stupid" but they seemed more relaxed and confused with me and I seemed to be able to "get away" with more than normal. The goats gave the elk something else to focus on.... other than me.

It was actually kind of funny as the goats would just start grazing or just look back at the elk, most of the time they would ignore the elk and take the break as a chance to feed. One time Talc was raking his scurs on a tree when we were 45 yards from a nice bull and he wouldn't stop! So I grabbed a small rock and threw it at him, hitting him in the side to make him stop. He just moved closer to the elk and continued to rake his "horns" against the tree. In retrospect, it did sound like an elk raking a tree. However, as a bowhunter I am used to "quiet" and at the time I was just trying to get Talc to be quiet. The elk didn't seem to mind. Another thing with the goats that I found really annoying with them was they would sometimes feed in front of you when trying to get a shot at elk. When I tried to get a shot at the first elk that I missed, Copper had walked in front of me. I had to move up the hill on my knees 2 feet and push his butt out of the way, so the real reason I missed.........was because the goat made me move ). The goats didn't care about the elk. They also had never packed before and did a great job, never putting up a fight even with the "dead" elk, blook, meat, etc., getting stuffed into their panniers. 

From all my years of bowhunting it doesn't seem right to have goats follow you and have elk see them, but I will do it again, because it worked!


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## Zac

Thanks for that Excellent info bowslayer. This is exactly what i have been trying to find out about getting close to elk with goats. I do alot of solo elk hunting and i wondered how the goats would work while i am slipping in on the elk. Sounds like the elk are pretty much indifferent, or maybe just curious. I just got 2 alpine wethers this summer so i hope to find out how elk respond to them in the very near future. 
Great post!!


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## imported_ashley

Thanks for the story! We have been doing alot of backcountry bowhunting the past several years and we are going to start using the goats soon. We have so many wolves in our area, I have been very worried about having a pack come in and kill all of our goats; we have called in wolves while cow calling. I like the idea of making your bags out of fleece; we have been talking about what would be best for the goats to keep quite while moving. Ours love to rake their horns on trees; I shot my last bull who was intrigued with the sound of my fiance raking a tree with a stick so I thought that allowing them to rake their horns would help keep the bull's interest up. Thanks for the post!!


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## Rex

Nice Bull! Sounds like you had a great time. Thanks for sharing.


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## idahonancy

My husband and I just got back from our archery elk hunt with our goats at our sides in Montana. In our case I was the "caller" bugling and cow calling while hiding the rocks with my husband 50 yards in front of me with his bow. When we set up to call to the elk the goats will feed out for 5 or 10 minutes then rest. Most often they will position themselves between us leaving the space in front of the shooter free. This one bull came into 12 feet from my husband. This made for an unusual but successful shot. This bull was coming into my calls or the goats I was never sure but either way the goats did not mind the bull and the bull never seemed to stray off course toward the goats and myself.
We operate out of a base camp and day hike many miles. One goat carries frame-less pack and quiet panniers that I made. This pack is transferable between goats, camo colored, and dead quiet. It is not a heavy load hauler but carries all the emergency supplies and stuff we need to take down an elk. This lightens our loads hiking during the day. 
After the elk was boned out we made a trip back to camp to get the aluminum crossbucks, panniers, and our frame packs. Three of us and 3 goats took all the boned out elk meat and antlers in one trip. 
One trick I really liked was using king size pillow cases for meat sacks. You can put 20 lbs of meat in each end of the pillow case (tie the opened end off tightly) leaving the middle empty. Drape the middle of the case over the saddle and drop each of the heavy meat ends in the panniers. This keeps the meat well suspended. We had to descend a steep mountain. When going down hill I was able to tie the middle of the pillow case to the back of the cross buck to keep it from moving forward on the goats shoulders. The goats performed very well for us both hunting and packing.


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## Herb

Great job packing out those elk.


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