Early Season Hunts: Saving the Meat and Cape

Early season hunts are often your best chance to tag a big buck or bull. The animals haven’t received much hunting pressure and bachelor groups are still hanging together. However, these hunts also present a challenge once the animal is on the ground. Hot, sunny days can ruin the meat and cape you’ve worked so hard to collect if you’re not prepared. Here’s how to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Get It Gutted and Skinned

Wade Ovard of White River Guide Service has been guiding clients to trophy elk, sheep, and mule deer in both Utah and Nevada for the last 20 years. He stressed that the most important step to salvaging the meat and cape on early season hunts is to get the animal cooling as quickly as possible. The first step in this process is to get the hide off as soon as you can. Ovard said, “Basically, just open it up, quarter it, and get it to where everything can air out good. Then get it to a meat cooler as fast as you can.”

Bob Atwood, owner of Blue Mountain Outfitters, also likes to get his clients’ animals cooling as quickly as possible by gutting, skinning, and quartering them immediately. If there’s road access to the hunting area, Atwood uses it to his advantage by hauling a trailer sporting a homemade cooler that will hold an entire skinned antelope right to the downed animal. Atwood said, “When [an antelope] goes down, we gut it immediately, get back to where the trailer is at, skin it, and get it in that cooler as soon as we can.”

Keep It Covered

Both outfitters use game bags to keep bugs and dirt from contaminating meat on early season hunts and hang the bagged meat in the shade while completing the skinning and meat cutting process. Ovard uses those made by Carnivore while Atwood opts for traditional cheesecloth bags. Whichever style you choose, keeping bugs and meat from contaminating your meat will help make sure that animals harvested on early season hunts look as good on the dinner table as they did in the field.

Caring for Your Cape

Aside from meat care, it’s important to preserve the cape of your animal if you’re planning on getting it mounted. When Ovard’s clients kill a trophy animal he gets it caped out completely and cooling as soon as possible. Ovard said, “If it’s an animal that somebody wants to mount, then we’ll just cape it out, roll it up, and leave it out for the night where it can cool down as cool as it can get. Then we’ll just roll it up, put it in a plastic bag or two, and put it right into a cooler with some ice. When you take your meat to the cooler, take your cape to the cooler as well.”

Unless they’re in a backcountry setting where a cooler is 3-5 days away, neither Ovard nor Atwood salts the cape. They also shy away from splitting the lips and ears since each taxidermist has their own way they want these steps completed.

Preserving Velvet Antlers

There’s nothing quite like a big rack sporting a full coat of fuzzy velvet. Some hunters will go a lifetime without harvesting a velvet buck or bull. Those that do should take care to preserve their trophy.

Start by handling the antlers gently. By the time hunting seasons roll around, velvet is slippery and comes off easily. Don’t drag your animal by the antlers or allow them to rub on anything abrasive. Once velvet comes off, it can’t be reattached.

Next, get the antlers cooling as quickly as possible. Just like the meat of your animal, the velvet will start to decompose immediately following the animal’s death. Keeping your velvet antlers cool helps to slow this decomposition process.

Finally, get the animal to a taxidermist as quickly as possible. Ovard said, “Basically, you just need to get them to the taxidermist so they can shoot them with formaldehyde so they don’t rot.”

Don’t let scorching temperatures and the threat of meat spoilage scare you away from early season hunts. Use the tips provided to care for your meat, cape and antlers and you’ll be enjoying the culinary rewards of the hunt for months and admiring the mount on your wall for the rest of your life.