bone it or not?

[feisty's wife]

Which of you folks bone out your elk, does this make a real dif when packing it out? My first priority of course is to open the animal up and gut it, cool it...but this time I am elk hunting alone, and may be in one of those holes, any input appreciated. Skinning is also a top priority, I am not a total nut, just sound like one...NO WASTEE...NONE!!!!

[nitrobass]

I've been around a load of elk kills and have yet to bone one out. We've always quartered them which might be the hard way of doing it but thats how I've been brought up to deal with the things. Someday I'm sure I'll shoot one where I shouldnt and then boning might be the answer.

[Small Fry]

I have been on many a hunt where boneing it was the smartest way to get meat out. I always carry clear plastic bags not garbage bags to put the meat in. Drop in the pack and up the hill you go. In a good frame pack you can easily carry 80 pounds or more.

[Bait O' Eggs]

For years we always quartered and made 4 packs. The bull we killed the first weekend this year was late on Sunday, we boned and hung the meat in a tree and got out in the dark. We dont carry pack frames with us when we hunt, but we do carry a couple meat bags.

Monday we hiked in with pack frames and each carried 1/2 the boned elk out. Each pack was close to 100 pounds and we wouldnt have had the time to go back in and get another load if we didnt bone it (we had to be at work the next day). It was a very long pack.

I dont eat the bones, so why carry them off the hill? [img]graemlins/idea.gif[/img] It doesnt take long to bone an animal. I think most elk I kill will be boned.

But those horns are a different story Gotta pack them off the hill, leave meat if you have to make room for the horns :tongue:

[TAILOUT]

Boning the meat before it has gone through the rigormortous stage can cause the meat to shrink up making it much more chewy like rubber, if the meat is left on the bone it will be more tender. Measure a backstrap right when you bone it and then measure it the next day it will have shrunk.
Just my .02

[Radke]

One of the best reasons I've found for boning an elk is that it fits on your pack frame so much nicer. I just plop it into a large pillow case (obtained from your local goodwill or thrift store of choice), tie it up and tie it to the frame. It doesn't throw me off balance when I'm on a steep side hill. Also, I've read a few articles from fairly reputable sources that say you need to at least open up big pieces of meat to the bone so the heat can escape. Something about large chunks such as a hind-quarter 'bone souring' on you.

[tailchaser]

One thing I noticed about your post is you gut the animal before boning or quartering?? No need for that one buddy. It's just as simple to quarter an animal without having to deal with the guts and nothing is wasted. There's even a trick to get the tenderloins off of an elk without gutting them [img]graemlins/idea.gif[/img] . Makes the job a lot quicker and easier (less blood too).

I typically leave the bone on just for the sake it's good to have them to attach rope to and really cinch down a pack. It's a little added weight in the end but usually bearable.


tc

[ 09-10-2003, 07:22 AM: Message edited by: tailchaser ]

[skein]

Interesting, Tailout, I never thought of meat drawing up and shrinking, and how that would effect the tenderness.

How do you guys keep it clean while boning it out? I usually cut the tenderloins and backstrap out and carve the meat off the ribs, but leave the rest on the bone. And you're right, bones are heavy. Ugh.

Another thing with archery season is the yellowjackets. Ever have to fight the bees for your game? Boning it out just gives them that much more time to take possession of your kill. I'm not allergic, but bee stings are still not my favorite things.

Skein

[James in Idaho]

Skein:

What Tailout is talking about is called "cold shorting" in the meat industry. I posted a couple of weeks ago about this. For the best (as far as tenderness goes) meat, it should be left on the bone through rigor, which usually takes between 8 and 18 hours. It is temperture dependent. You want to bone after rigor has relaxed, and if you do bone the meat out, wrap and freeze it right away. Further "aging" off the bone may result in more spoilage due to the bacteria introduced when boning. So getting the meat off the hill on the bone is the best idea if you want to age the meat, but those bones are heavy! I don't even freeze birds without a couple of day in the fridge soaking in salt water, they are also more tender if they are not frozen before they rigor. I hunt with a friend who is the head of the meat science department at Utah State, so he has taught me a lot about meat care.

[id. painter]

I too have been around lots of big game kills , lots.
Do Not bone out the animal if at all possible .
Ive seen way too much meat left on the bones . After a guy kills animal rolls it around on the dirt , becomes tired and and starts getting a little lazy or isnt an expert at deboning ,,,,lots of meet waisted in a shot time. Also the meet will be better on the dinner table if it is left to age on the bone.. Why is beef always aged on the bone???? The longer the better!!!! 14 days is not too long if it is kept nice and cold. my .o2 . id. painter

[feisty's wife]

Thnx so much for the great posts, lots of good info. WHEN{not if} I get my elk, I beleive that I will not bone it, but will carry managable pieces, the hole I have in mind is not that bad, if I follow my topo and altimeter...agin, thnx a lot....Jennie, I love this site. Ken

[nitrobass]

I have to think the yield off of an elk is WAY better if you quarter it out and deal with cutting back at home when you have plenty of light, paper towels, and cold ones.

Shoot the thing, gut it, cut it into quarters, then call up Tailchaser and have him pack the sucker to your truck. Works like a charm.

[willametteriveroutlaw]

When i used to do flyout hunts for caribou in alaska, we always boned out our bulls right after they hit the ground and then stuck the meat bags, wrapped in garbage bags in a cold stream. We never had a spoilage problem and the meat was always tender.. If you know what your doing you can bone an animal in the same amount of time it takes to quater and gut one.

[tailchaser]

Always have to bring that one up don't you Nitro. [img]graemlins/berry.gif[/img] :grin: The one time you shoot an elk I'm there beside you. Should I tell everyone you jumped in front of me for the shot! :shocked: I should've taken the clean shot at your rump while I had the chance. :grin: As of the rest of your elk kills I can't believe any of them. And yes I offered my back in relief. It's still fond in my memory how we both looked up from a couple of dribbles of snow that fell on our backs, then POOMPFF!! We were transformed into snowmen. Kinda like god was playing a joke on us. Now that I think about it something strange always happens when you're in my presence. I seem to remember a happening one New Year's also? OOps better kill that one from the memory banks. [img]graemlins/eek13.gif[/img]

tc

[Mello-Yello]

My $0.02...

The only reason in the world that I can see justifying boning, is if you are relatively certain that you won't be able to get ALL the elk out before it goes sour, and you desperately need to reduce the amount of weight to be packed.

Elk don't always die where we want them to. And sometimes, our egos are in a lot better shape than our legs. I can tell you from experience, the best advice is to take your time, and don't think you need to grab what you can and make a dash out of the woods.

A practice I've used many times;

If you know it's going to be a L O N G day of packing before your reward is out of the canyon, the first steps MUST be to get the critter cooled down.
- Get the hide off pronto!
- I slit the hams right down the thighbone, then carve the meat from the bone about a half inch in each direction. I then wedge some small sticks in the slit I've created. This ensures air will circulate along the bone. Then bag the hams and find some shade. If you can't hang them, try to find something to lay them on that will keep air circulating beneath them. Ferns, sticks, whatever you can find.
- Get the shoulders free from the rib/neck area. The shoulders aren't usually thick enough to require exposing the bone, and the bone isn't typcially thick enough to retain heat for too long. Bag em.
- Get the windpipe out of the neck. This will allow air to circulate "through" the neck.

Even if there is no wind, air will circulate around the cooling tissue via confection.

If you're gonna be more than an hour from your rig/camp, pack some good game bags with you. The weight is insignificant compared to having to make a special trip back to get them.

IMHO, and there may be some sort of science to explain this, but I believe meat from a recently killed animal, can cool to temperatures considerably less than the surrounding air, if it's allowed to breath and is kept out of direct sunlight. More than once I've been amazed at how 'cold' an elk quarter is only a couple hours after it's taken, even on those miserably hot days.

Ok, maybe that was a tad more than $0.02...

[Hookset]

Lots of good advice here, everyone has valid points to consider. And I'll try to provide a few more.

I/we usually bone elk, like 98% of the time. Why? Because I don't like to pack anything I can't eat. Typically we pack elk from 1 to 4 miles and once had to pack almost 7 miles. When your struggling for each step, 5 to 10 extra pounds is just to much.

The biggest two items you can't ignore....is cooling the meat fast, AND keeping the meat clean. Someone mentioned bacteria, it's a real threat if you don't adhere to these two rules. Just ask any butcher who handles wild game. The end product is a direct result of the effort or lack of effort with field care.

Here's our process.

If you don't carry bags, you'll have to gut the animal to cool the meat. And if you remove the entrails far enough away from the meat, you won't be bothered by the yellow jackets and flys as much.

1) Cut off the top two legs at the knees. Skin half of the animal first, that's the upper side off the ground. Skin far enough to expose the backbone.

2)Remove the 1 exposed backstrap. The bottom backstrap is to hard to remove yet. Also, remove both tenderloins. Be careful, don't let the meat touch the ground and place meat in clean game bags.

Next, there are 2 versions here....

3.1) using just a knife, seperate the front shoulder and rear ham and place both on clean plastic tarp or a new space blanket. Whatever you'd like to pack in. You can start boning right away. Works good with 2 or more people, giving everyone something to do.

Or...

3.2) Start removing meat from the leg bone with the bone still attached. The beauty here is the meat can rest on the carcass since it's clean and the leg is well supported. Bone both legs.

4) Trim off remaining rib and neck meat.

Now, one half the elk is already finished.

5) Roll the carcass over and skin the last half. Be careful with the hide so you don't contaminate any meat with hair or dirt.

6) Follow steps 2 to 4 above to finish the process.

The variable here is game bags. If you carry them, then you can start with step 1 and not gut the animal. That's right, just start skinning. That's as long as the animal is warm and recently expired. No need to remove entrails. You can retrieve tenderloins last by making a incission along the backbone, slide your hand inside and using the brail method, feel the tenderloins and seperate meat from bone using your fingers, the knife is a little harder and more dangerous and you don't want to puncture the intestines or stomach.

There you have it. Clean bacteria free meat. Boning isn't really that hard. The secret is having a clean sharp knife, don't be in a hurry, follow the muscle seperation and shave off the bone. We never waste any meat with nothing and I mean alomst nothing left on the bones. All you need to do next is take it to a meat locker.

best of luck this season,

Gregg

[ 09-10-2003, 11:40 PM: Message edited by: Hookset ]

[nitrobass]

Jeez I forgot about the snowman incident. Unreal! Those must have been 20lb chunks of snow falling from the trees. In line with this thread - at least it cooled down the elk(us too) and kept it clean? It was funny how I happened to ease in front just as we got into that herd?

As for boozed up New Years experiences, yep those might as well stay deep in the gutter where they belong!

[Grantspastor]

I never boned it out...even with moose in Alaksa we packed out the quarters bone in. My thinking was less waste when butchering. When you bone the meat you are creating a whole bunch of new surfaces that will get dirty or dry out and need to be trimmed away

[Loosepin]

We allways skinned and quartered the elk with the bones in and packed the quarters out. Both rear hind quarters were in separate bags. The front legs were seperated from the front part of the shoulder. We would place the quarters in elk bags to keep clean. Some of them pack outs were pretty rough. The meat on the rib cage and the back straps and tenderloins, we would allways cut off the bones. Then the boned out meat would be placed in elk bags to keep clean and packed out. The rib cage and backbone would account for a tremendous weight reduction when boned out. I guess the reason we have done it this way because we were taught to do it this way from our father and the rancher. We finally decided to break tradition a few years ago and purchase an elk cart. This was diffinatly one of the most helpful tools we have ever purchased in the retrival of deer and elk. What used to take all day or even longer would be accomplished in a mater of a few hours. The elk cart is the only way I would want to retrive game now. Good Luck.

[Mello-Yello]

Yep, I'm really asking for it. I now have an ATV (Polaris 500HO) w/winch, AND a two-wheeled game cart. You know darn good and well, if I get something, it'll be downhill (steep) and on the other side of about half-mile of viney-maple.

Then again, I mostly just used the "Honey, I could die of a heart attack packing an elk out you know!" as an excuse to get the ATV...