If you have ever been on an elk hunt, you know how much work it can be. Hiking for miles up and down the steep mountains at high elevations can be a lot of work, especially if you have a disability like I do. Elk hunting tests your physical and mental strength. They are smart animals that don’t always respond to calls the way you would like them to. When you put all of that together, the result is a low success rate.
The toughest thing about elk hunting is cutting up and packing out an animal if you are successful. On a recent trip out West, my hunting buddy and I tagged bulls a day apart which resulted in a lot of work for both of us.
We were hunting in a very warm climate. The temperatures were near eighty degrees every day. As soon as my bull took his last breath, we quickly took a few pictures, sharpened our knives and started cutting. Lots of work, hot sun and little drinking water quickly resulted in two exhausted elk hunters. After deboning and putting my meat into game bags, my buddy Tom hauled the meat to an ATV which was 500 yards away. With rocky terrain and steep hills, the five hundred yard walk seemed like miles.
We took my bull back to our spike camp where we hung the meat in a tree in the shade. After hours of cutting and skinning the bull, we were both dehydrated and each guzzled about three quarts of water. The night was cool, but not cool enough for the meat. The next day we knew we had to get my elk to a processor to be packaged and frozen to prevent it from going bad.
The next morning, Tom shot a nice 6x5. His bull was harvested even further from camp than mine. After a hike to his kill, we quickly cut up and hung his quarters. Given the afternoon temperatures and the fact that we were both extremely tired from cutting up two bulls in two days, Tom decided to have his elk packed out by horse. We were hunting outside a small town in New Mexico and luckily found a friendly packer, Barney Johns, who packed out Tom’s bull for a reasonable price. A couple of horses can make the difficult job of packing out a bull much easier. In one trip, a horse or two can pack out all the meat and antlers, whereas it can take two hunters three or four trips to do the same things with backpacks.
If you plan to do a backcountry elk hunt, lining up a packer before the hunt begins is a wise idea. If you’re lucky, you might harvest your elk a mile or less from a main road. If not, having a packer ready and waiting for your call can save your body a lot of pain and agony and prevent your meat from spoiling. Without question, if we didn’t have Tom’s bull taken out by horse, some of the meat would have turned green.
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