Spoilage/ Elk Hunt story

[winterkill]

I sit at school and of course my brother get's to shoot Elk He was in the tillamook state forest near the north fork of the salmonberry river. The hunt we do is about 6 hours across the ridges until you get to the pickup. It requires about 5 guys to do it too. So Eli (my brother) is walking across these steep draws, then he realizes he lost his radio. He starts to backtrack to find it, then he hears a branch break above him. He looks and a spike is standing there looking at him. One of our guys had kicked him up about 1000-2000 yards up the ridge, and he was trying to circle back around below them. My brother raised up and he said the spike looked suprised, a "what are you doin that for," kinda look! He shot then he rolls down the hill and almost flattened eli. So now Eli has an elk down and no radio. He is about halfway across the hunt, its another 3 hours to the truck. So he walks out to the end to get the guys . Thing is when he got to the end it was around 4:30 in the afternoon. And darkness is fast approaching. It was the first time he has done that hunt, so he isn't too sure where the elk is. He found the guys, and they never even heard him shoot! They went back and looked until 10:30 at night, but they couldn't find it. So they headed out today to get it at daybreak. My question is without it being gutted, or skinned, what are the chances of it spoiling? Overnight it was in the low 40's and raining. It was the first elk my brother shot, and its funny cuz i'm the younger brother and I'm proud of him. He had been getting frustrated because I had shot about 4 elk and a couple deer, so he finally got to show me up. Out of our whole hunting party I'm glad it was him of all people to shoot it!
Ian

[Mello-Yello]

Hmmmm, this is not good. If he'd gutted it, it would probably be fine. An elk hide provides exceptional insulation and will prevent cooling for a very long time. Because the guts are so massive and dense, they'll hold heat for a long time. The one thing he has going for him is it's a spike, so the body shouldn't be too big, thus less density.

I would say there's a real good chance that it will be soured. :depressed:

Of course, it's his moral responsibility to go back and make sure.

Hoping for the best...

M-Y

[outdoor.spec.ops]

Good luck, and all you can do is hope for the best, glad I am not the one going to check, the smell could make you if it has gone bad. I have heard of some critters not spoiling overnight, and I hope this is the case.

[Rusty]

Tell Eli that in the future, he really should have gutted the elk on the spot and then propped open the chest cavity to allow for cooling. This MIGHT have saved the elk.

Secondly, you now know exactly what to get Eli for X-Mas. Invest in an inexpensive GPS, teach him how to use, and losing game will not be an option! (I know I wouldn't want to lose my first bull considering in 38 years of hunting in Oregon, I've only shot at, and missed 1 bull and harvested 2 cows!)

Please, I'm not being judgmental, so hold off on the "mind your own business" comments. Eli learned a valuable lesson, and I'm positive he'll be a better hunter in the future.

Rusty

[Killertraylor]

For future planning you might consider this. As a backup if we can't make radio contact, we always have a 3 shot locator. If you have an elk down, we pull out our pistol (or just use our rifle) and fire 3 quick shots to signal the others in our party. I agree - always gut your animal asap and then worry about finding guys to help you.

[Bait O' Eggs]

Animals get lost, fact of life. :depressed: Plenty of animals get wounded that people dont even know they wounded them. :depressed:

I was on a hunt this year where the guy stuck a large bull and found it a week later. We tracked blood for hours and then lost it dang close to where it died. :depressed: Never a good deal, and a sinking feeling in your gut when you make the call to give up.

In this case the animal was found after killing it which almost makes it in-excuseable. If your brother was older and had some experience this would not have happened. He could have done a 5 minute gut job and moved on for help. He could have found a way to get help, fired shots, built a fire, etc.... he would probably even been able to find his way back to the kill with some more experience.

I suspect with shooting an animal around 1pm one day and not finding it till the next morning at best it will be spoiled.

[Hogback]

I have a question. Is it legal to use a dog to find lost game? My son has a German Shorthair that can find almost anything.
Randy

[WildHawg]

A poor mans GPS (Orange flagging tape) and a gut job could have made this a recoverable animal, even if you did have to wait for morning (which you shouldn't have had to).
We all make mistakes--it is a real pity that this animal is likely lost due to basic errors in judgment and preparation though.
What was the outcome anyway? Sure hope it wasn't soured.

[periwinkle]

Hogback,, I'm thinking if your shorthair was off leash he would be running all the animals into the next county,,, and being shot at by many hunters.

[dla]

winterkill: 24hrs in that kind of weather isn't as bad as you might think. Muscle tissue is inherently sterile - the bacteria responsible for "souring" have to come from the outside or from the gut. As the intestinal area decomposes the animal will bloat. Even if it has started to bloat, it would likely not have affected the hams/shoulders and backstrap. The area around the bullet wound will be icky-pooh, mainly from blood seepage and that depends on how long the animal's heart kept beating - one more good reason to not shoot shoulders.

When an animal is skinned & quartered, any "souring" that occurrs almost always happens along the bone - starting from the outside and working in (a good reason to bone out for long trips). My theory is that opportunistic bacteria work their in along the bone starting at the knee joint.

[Freakwater]

My buddy lost a 5 point to spoilage last year. He took a shot at dusk. We looked for hours in a downpour and could not find it. Found it at first light the next morning. Quartered it and it looked fine. As we were packing out the first haul, we noticed the backstrap we had in big ziplocks had some green on it. Back at camp 30 minutes later, the backstrap was fully slimed. Green started showing through one of the quarters game bag. We spent the night trying to cut off bad meat to salvage good. Ended up only taking front quarters to town. By the time we got to Otto's we chucked them in the dumpster. It was terribly depressing. I'm still trying to learn from that one.

I imagine your brothers elk might suffer the same fate. If that's the case, I hope he learns from the experience. I'm not trying to judge.....I was in a similar situation last year. I wish I had read similar threads before my hunt last year. That's why ifish is cool.

Freak

[Fish4Fun]

I have to agree with what Mello-Yellow said, if he would have gutted the Elk before leaving it the meat might be ok. But, leaving the guts in and the hide on it, I am guessing it will not be good table fare. Since you have brought this to light on a public board, and no telling who has read it already. What are the game laws in Oregon about the wastage of a game animal.

[nitrobass]

Youch! That situation cant be good. I'm betting that it will be spoiled, and I'd also bet that it wont be found. On his first time through a really long hunt its hard to really remember much for landmarks or trails, especially without any marking ribbon or a gps. That sucks, sorry to hear about it! Good luck on the search

[Gun Rod Bow]

We all gotta start somwhere. Not a good start.

I'm not gonna get all preachy but...I travel very, very light but always have a 15' long piece of 1/4" cord. Gut it, get the hind quarters off and swingin in the wind. Get the rest up on something breazy.

Skinned or not, it should make it 24 hrs like this. No matter how bad they hack the quarters. All meat can be salvaged.

I added these two paragraphs in hopes it'll help someone.

[ 11-20-2003, 09:34 AM: Message edited by: Gun Rod Bow ]

[Hogback]

Periwinkle
I was just wondering if it was legal. In a perfect world using a dog to find lost game would I think save a lot of animals. I wouldn't be as worried about the dog as I would be myself or my son. The dog will only hunt as far out as he is allowed.
Randy

[Mello-Yello]

I have a buddy who trained his Black Lab from a pup to track elk blood. Not elk, just elk blood. It was just a crazy idea he had and tried it. He saved a bunch of blood from an elk kill and froze it. He'd go out and setup blind sets, and leave a nice treat at the end of the trail. He'd then take the dog out to the blind set. He said it didn't take the dog to learn this trick. Finally, one day a buddy of his called, frustrated that they'd wounded an elk but couldn't find it.

He took the dog out, they put it on the trail, and the dog took them straight to the now dead elk.

Word got out, and the dog went on to track some 15 wounded elk before he died of old age a couple years ago. :depressed:

I've thought of trying this with my now 11 wk old yellow lab.

I'm quite certain that it's not legal, as technically, you would be hunting (albeit wounded) the elk with the aid of a dog. But I think there's a fine line with ethics in this case. I think I'd be willing to take the fine vs. losing the animal. I'd have to draw the line though when every nimrod in the county that can't shoot came asking for help. [img]graemlins/dork.gif[/img]

Neat concept nonetheless...

[crabbait]

Long story short.......a buddy bow shot an elk several years ago (his first) and did not mark the way back to the spot he shot from (dusk shot). We searched until around midnight. he was sure it was a good shot.

Got on it at first light and found the place he shot from and the elk was 30 yards away, shot through both lungs. Decided to gut the animal and check it out (September in the mountains, maybe 40 degrees at night).

The meat was fine. The only thing lost was the liver. Got it into a cooler that day before noon. I think the saving grace was that the shot was through the boiler room and not behind the diaphram.

Never give up.

[outdoor.spec.ops]

Does anyone have the outcome of the Story?

[winterkill]

I have the answer!
They went back the next morning and found it. We were lucky and the temperature dropped overnight, and there was actually snow on the ground near it. We got it out and butchered it today. There wasn't much spoiled meat at all, it was like dla said, just around the guts. But we are making sausage out of it, and are gonna smoke it for longer then normal to be sure. Eli did learn a lesson from it, hopefully next time will be better for him.
Ian

[McBaine]

Glad to here they got to it in time. :smile: