Yesterday I was watching MOUNTAIN MEN.

In that episode they were hunting bison in one of the northern States.

The ground was covered in snow.

They got close to a herd of bison, and shot one.

Then they said they better hurry and skin it, as the meat will go bad in a a couple of hours in this heat!!

Then one of them starts trying to skin it, and sticks a knife in the guts.

Spilling all the gut content!

This after talking of how careful they must skin it, as the skin is worth $1,000!

When was it killed?
Back in the hide days they
were worth about $3-8 each.

George

an animal that large laying in 2' of snow will melt it's way to the bottom in a few hours no problem.
it will still have enough residual body heat to start going bad even after melting that much snow.
a moose will do it too.
4-6"s of ice under them isn't enough either.

That show is ridiculous, at best.

I was fortunate enough to be drawn for a Zama bison tag in northern Alberta, the first year that they opened up the hunt.
I shot a bull 3 or four days into the hunt, with weather conditions of -45 degrees. Chasing the bulls around in the forest with snow up to your knees was "interesting", but luckily they animals were fairly close to the road, as they use them for easier travelling.
We were able to dress the animal out (took all four people to pull the paunch out of the body cavity; imagine handling a five hundred lb. wet bale of hay!) and winch it to the back of an open trailer.
We propped the body cavity open, and even with the major cold temperatures, it was a fifteen hour drive to my home in southern Alberta, and we ended up losing 200 lbs. of meat in the shoulder areas that had already started to sour. The temperatures never got warmer than -20 all the way home. Just too much mass in those shoulders to cool right through!
Incidently, the animal dressed out at 1050 lbs. Still lots of chewing off that old bull!

Saeed, those hokey "reality" shows are nothing but faked bullshit using village idiots. Really.

Its best to get the hide off an elk or a Bison as soon as possible, I have seen elk start spoiling in very cold weather, starts in the throat and between the shoulders...A good idea to skin them out ASAP..Never saw one spoil in two hours..If you cannot skin them out then quareter them with hide on...if you slip with the knife, or gut shoot one, then use the snow to clean the inside as best you can..Its just common since.

.Don't watch reality shows and remember no matter how much trouble they come up with they have a 3 or 4 man camera crew filming it..pretty much puts reality to sleep.

I kinda like the Last Alaskans or parts of it..but again I don't take it seriously..

We shot 2 bison with one being a monster bull in 80 degree weather. We skinned and quartered them both on the spot and took the big bull to the locker plant. I figured it was about 4-5 hours from hitting the ground to the locker. No meat was lost. My take is the Mountain Man folks were full of beans. Additionally there is no reason to gut a bison or a big moose so no chance to open the rumen. You just keep on taking off pieces until the guts are all that's left.

Mark

The old man lost a moose cow, that they left on the mountain (30F in October) in Wyoming about 5 or 6 years ago.

Ended up with about 20 pounds of meat and the hide was fine.

I am of the theory that everything needs to be shucked out as soon as possible.

quote:

Originally posted by Big Wonderful Wyoming:
The old man lost a moose cow, that they left on the mountain (30F in October) in Wyoming about 5 or 6 years ago.

Ended up with about 20 pounds of meat and the hide was fine.

I am of the theory that everything needs to be shucked out as soon as possible.

Yup, that hide, meant to keep the animal warm in
cold weather means the meat will spoil very quickly. The bigger the animal, the more heat trapped in there. Wait too long and it will freeze on.

Grizz

Here's a hint Saeed: reality TV has nothing to do with reality.

Think of it this way; "what does it take to get all the meet on this carcass down below 45 degrees?" Getting the hide off those massive shoulder, I would say is important. Never shot a buff. Certainly true on Elk. I have carried one off the mountain and had the upside quarter cool and the one on the truck bed still warm when I got back to the meet pole. Didn't spoil but I thought about it.

I've shot both bison and elk and the very first thing that we do is get the damn hide off, along with getting the animal properly gutted. I had a friend shoot a nice 6 point bull and they did not find it until the next morning. Suffice it to say, all of the meat was spoiled. All you have to do to easily realize this, is to look at how thick the hides are on both bison and elk.

here in the yukon our bisons can bloat in 30 minutes like caribou.

yes you need to skin them very fast ...

If one wants good bear meat one needs to skin them ASAP also.

quote:

Originally posted by Norton:
Here's a hint Saeed: reality TV has nothing to do with reality.

Funny enough, I know they tend to over dramatize things.

But no where near what some of the idiots on some of the so called "hunting" shows.

quote:

here in the yukon our bisons can bloat in 30 minutes like caribou.

True in Texas too where the weather is much more warm. Properly cared for, bison meat is very good to eat.

Trust your instincts Saeed! You have killed enough buffalo in Africa to know how fast they can spoil.

I took a bison in Delta Alaska a few Octobers ago. The weather was cold for that time of year, maybe around 10 degrees. I killed it right around 11:00 in the morning and started in to skinning right away. My problem was that I was all alone and a big bull bison is a giant amount of work.
Moose are easy compared to bison as the legs and body are longer and it's easier to get leverage to move a moose around.
I always skin one side then take the quarters, neck and everything else I can take before rolling them over and doing the other side.
Long story shorter, I lost 100 pounds of neck meat to spoilage before I could get to it on the lower side. I've never lost meat to spoilage on a moose before.
Moral of the story, don't hunt bison alone.

Half of yall are calling these guys idiots and the other half is giving real life experience of large animals spoiling in cold temps.

Can someone explain to me who the idiots are?



Perry

Well, I know for a fact that in the middle of the African summer, we shoot all sorts of animals, gut them and take them to camp.

This might take several hours in the back of the truck.

Never had anything spoil!
we normally take the fillets and put them in a plastic bag.

These we keep by our feet on top of the lunch box!

There are few animals that have thicker coats than a bison. They will retain heat and begin souring very quickly. As pointed out, even in very cold weather an animal can spoil very quickly if processing is not begun immediately. Gutting the animal helps cool the interior but completely skinning it, propping it open is usually enough. Quartering and bagging the quarters is, obviously, even better.

We always peel and gut an elk as soon as it is down unless it can very quickly be moved to a truck and processing and even in that case we gut it so it starts cooling immediately. After gutting and skinning we cover it with branches, etc. to help keep eagles and other critters from helping themselves. I have never lost any usable meat from an elk souring, but we have lost meat to golden eagles while we went to camp to bring up the pack animals.

Elk is that best game meat I have had. Much better than beef.

No experience with bison, but lots of elk. My brother cut meat at a taxidermy shop for 2 years and saw hundreds of elk come through. In the dead of winter people would shoot cow elk in the AM, gut them and winch them into a truck. If they had a second tag they would drive around all day and bring it in at the end of the day. The shanks would be frozen solid, but the neck and deep in the hindquarters would already be sour and smell rotten.
You have to get the hide off because it traps so much heat and this is compounded by the sheer size of an elk. I am sure a bison is even worse because it has more thermal mass and the hide and hair is even thicker.
The above mentioned scenario is fine with a deer and you won't lose any meat.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
We shot 2 bison with one being a monster bull in 80 degree weather. We skinned and quartered them both on the spot and took the big bull to the locker plant. I figured it was about 4-5 hours from hitting the ground to the locker. No meat was lost. My take is the Mountain Man folks were full of beans. Additionally there is no reason to gut a bison or a big moose so no chance to open the rumen. You just keep on taking off pieces until the guts are all that's left.

Mark

Exactly! I’ve shot a couple bison and we never lost meat. We’ve also shot a number of early season elk that were left quite a while (some overnight) and never had any meat go bad. My theory is that late summer/early fall elk, especially where I like to hunt them in Arizona and New Mexico, have light hair and are adapted to dissipating body heat. Late season elk are another thing though. Once their winter coat comes in, we want to get them skinned and boned out as soon as possible, definitely within a few hours. They’re very efficient at retaining heat. Like Mark, I never gut any big animal like an elk unless absolutely necessary.

Yes in hot Africa the gutting and skinning isn't a problem, the go hours without touching them after the shot, they have very short hair,and don't spoil..Anyone that's hunted AFrica knows that...

An Idaho elk or Pacific NW Bison must be at least quarted with hair on or skinned and quartered is even best, they will spoil overnight in two feet of snow..6 or 8 inches of hair makes all the difference in the world..Ive shot many elk and more than a few bison, and never lost any meat thru spoilage..

Growing up in far West Texas hot desert, we kept meat in a dirt celler for weeks on end, and it never spoiled, the outside heat was 110 to a 120 degrees many of those days. the celler was cool and the meat turned black, once turned black its cured (basically jerky) and will keep for months on end, cut off the black thin cured tissue and you have cool clean raw meat..A process that's been in effect since forever....

overnight yes, two hours is horseshitt.

Always good, once the skin is off, to make some cuts in the neck/shoulders to dissipate some of that heat ..

I think Mark H. Young may have it right. Bison hide is so insulating, especially up front were the shaggy hair is, that skinning one is better than gutting it to cool the meat.