Retrieving Animals Next Day

[Smoky buck]

Originally Posted by Supergrit

Things often don’t work out the way we would like when it comes to hunting when i teach hunting to some one new I’ll be telling to then be prepared well to look in the dark and find it that night cause the next day is not a safe option.
Some of the hunting shows don’t teach proper ehics or maybe mentality when it comes to hunting.
Like I said stuff happens I once had some one send me a picture of big white tail that was shot it was left over night and the coyotes looked to have aten about half of it. The guy was so happy with the trophy rack but I was thinking what a waist. It can happen to anyone maybe I’m out of line but to not try to respect an animal by recovering the meat is this wrong to me. I would not be happy with my trophy unless I recovered the entire animal. Not saying it’s right it’s just the way I feel about it

I am not going to get in a ****ing match on this forum with others. But like I said I have recovered animals the following morning and been part of recovering other peoples animals the next morning no issues. I can tell you that I have had recovery be a lot worse than it should have from someone pushing poorly hit animals too. Meat was recovered no issues with predators. Meat loss was minimal usually just tender lions

I would not hang an animal on my wall that I didn’t fully recover. It’s not about trophies it’s a matter of things are not always going to go as your plan

Ask your question amongst different groups of hunters too

[ruger300]

I don’t do night recoveries anymore. Too many times a badly hit animal will still have enough to get up and run. Pretty hard shooting wounded game in the dark. In my opinion it’s a better case to let them settle down and lay up and hopefully succumb to their wound overnight for a morning recovery. Bad shots happen but I’d still rather recover the animal than it be lost forever.

[Jamie Black R/T]

Did it once and never again. Found a bull elk less than 100 yards from impact. Was dead right away but we weren't sure of the shot and left him over night.

Lost all but about 20 lbs of meat. Whole animal soured.

Thought it was fine at first had him out and hanging in a cooler by 8 am the next day. Was about -5 overnight. After a few hours of cooling you couldn't even go into that cooler without your eyes watering.

I will never leave one overnight again. Give them time yes...but if that means i'm heading back in at 2 am. I'm going.

I JUST hung that bulls antlers up in the shop a week ago. Shot him almost ten years ago but couldn't bring myself to even look at the rack for years still burns me up that I did that.

[Smoky buck]

For those who end up having to leave an animal overnight debone it right away so it starts cooling faster. Another one clean up all blood it spoils faster than anything else. Deboning in the field or as soon as possible

Clearly cooling is slowed by the animal being left whole so it needs to be sped up once you recover the animal. If you are hanging it whole or in quarters like you normally would your odds of spoiling are more likely. Clean all deboned meat with water with light vinegar(only a little) dry all the meat it you are going to hang it. Butchering right away is better

This is for those who find themselves in a position where they are dealing with an animal left over night to lower the odds of meat loss nothing more

Hunting is not perfect and you do it long enough you may find yourself in this position if you like it or not

[Dean2]

How do these threads always turn into finger pointing, guys calling others unethical, and on it goes. It was a very simple farcking question. Have you recovered game that was left overnight, what was the meat like. There is NO NEED to get into extensive discussion of why. If you hunt enough and long enough, you will see a ton of stuff that isn't what you would ideally pick. Anyone that says that isn't true is very naive. ANYONE who criticizes others without the full details, is way too judgmental for me, no matter what their actual level of experience.

Please stick to answering the OPs legitimate question and leave your Holy Roller crap for your street corner soap box.

[catnthehat]

I have recovered a few the next day, some were dead for a while, some not.
The buck that we recovered last fall was a high shot in the"attic".
On that buck we lost some meat but not the whole animal.
Cat

[58thecat]

Originally Posted by Dean2

How do these threads always turn into finger pointing, guys calling others unethical, and on it goes. It was a very simple farcking question. Have you recovered game that was left overnight, what was the meat like. There is NO NEED to get into extensive discussion of why. If you hunt enough and long enough, you will see a ton of stuff that isn't what you would ideally pick. Anyone that says that isn't true is very naive. ANYONE who criticizes others without the full details, is way too judgmental for me, no matter what their actual level of experience.

Please stick to answering the OPs legitimate question and leave your Holy Roller crap for your street corner soap box.

Wow, fella asked a question which of course sparks up a conversation, aaannnd many times as with forums conversations with no face value things are not fully understood and taken the wrong way plus it allows people to see a different perspective...

[Redrider]

Originally Posted by Jamie Black R/T

Did it once and never again. Found a bull elk less than 100 yards from impact. Was dead right away but we weren't sure of the shot and left him over night.

Lost all but about 20 lbs of meat. Whole animal soured.

Thought it was fine at first had him out and hanging in a cooler by 8 am the next day. Was about -5 overnight. After a few hours of cooling you couldn't even go into that cooler without your eyes watering.

I will never leave one overnight again. Give them time yes...but if that means i'm heading back in at 2 am. I'm going.

I JUST hung that bulls antlers up in the shop a week ago. Shot him almost ten years ago but couldn't bring myself to even look at the rack for years still burns me up that I did that.

I had the same experience as you but it was colder -20.
It was green in the neck and the rest of it stunk.
You might get away with it on a deer, but an elk or a moose, probably not.

We learned a lesson on that one.


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[KGB]

Makes a damn fine dog food!

[Maxwell87]

i’m almost always a morning hunter now for this reason, lost one deer two years ago and it still bugs me. found it fast the next day with all the ravens and coyotes around.

there are lots of examples of it going either way but i try not to risk it. nothing is worse than loosing a animal. if i’m out at last light i try to pick my chances really specific more than what i would do on a stalk first light or early morning. i have met enough people who seem to be happy about making jokes looking for birds and such that loosing a animal dosnt seem to bother them much and that does bug me.

i do appreciate some of the advice here and i always have headlamp, spare lamp and batteries, glow sticks, ribbon all on hand for this very reason if i do plan a late day hunt. using the ihunter app to drop pins on locations is great to in general for tracking. being prepared or not for this scenario probably does affect how some people approach this

[antler1]

Where I live and hunt the bushes are infested with coyotes as nobody hunts them anymore. Just as many coyote pix on the trail camera as deer in some spots. So leaving an animal out over night is just giving them an opportunity to turn your animal into a bare bones skeleton over night. So I am in agreement with others who say maximum effort should be made to find that critter. And think carefully before you let an arrow fly at last light.

[Swamp hunter]

Originally Posted by Redrider

I had the same experience as you but it was colder -20.
It was green in the neck and the rest of it stunk.
You might get away with it on a deer, but an elk or a moose, probably not.

We learned a lesson on that one.


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I've seen a couple guys next day recovery even on deer at minus 10 and they were green and stunk so bad you couldn't stand it. I'm not a believer. If you aren't going to look at night don't take the near dark shots maybe.

[Mb-MBR]

Originally Posted by Maxwell87

i’m almost always a morning hunter now for this reason, lost one deer two years ago and it still bugs me. found it fast the next day with all the ravens and coyotes around.

there are lots of examples of it going either way but i try not to risk it. nothing is worse than loosing a animal. if i’m out at last light i try to pick my chances really specific more than what i would do on a stalk first light or early morning. i have met enough people who seem to be happy about making jokes looking for birds and such that loosing a animal dosnt seem to bother them much and that does bug me.

i do appreciate some of the advice here and i always have headlamp, spare lamp and batteries, glow sticks, ribbon all on hand for this very reason if i do plan a late day hunt. using the ihunter app to drop pins on locations is great to in general for tracking. being prepared or not for this scenario probably does affect how some people approach this

When bow hunting for Elk, I focus on the morning hunt, usually hunt till noon when or when the calling falls off. Morning hunts are longer jaunts, if I do go in the evenings its not the same miles as the morning miles.

When I do hunt with a rifle, its a lot easier, sit, call, watch, see and shoot.

In both situations, I rarely have left an animal overnight, did that once and as others have experienced lost most of the meat, so I do my best to retrieve and if I can't haul it out that night, I always carry game bags and I put up a meat pole so we skin and quarter and hang and retrieve the next day. Have never lost any meat this way.

Circumstances and situations change, so one has to adapt. An experienced hunter has to make an experienced decision for themselves.

[Supergrit]

In my experience the animal is no good maybe if it was alive most of night might be fine.
Want hunters to know especially new ones that leaving to the next when there is light is for tv shows. There is at least a good chance the animal will be not good when you find it might help some make better choices and not be disappointed with themselves like my friend was from work.
If some did find there animals the next day and it was good to eat that’s good it worked out.
It looking to me about half the people say it was good and half say it was no good.
One thing for sure when I tried recovering animal the next day I wil never forget the smell probably why I get little sick to my stomach when I see this done on hunting shows

[-JR-]

Originally Posted by Supergrit

In my experience the animal is no good maybe if it was alive most of night might be fine.
Want hunters to know especially new ones that leaving to the next when there is light is for tv shows. There is at least a good chance the animal will be not good when you find it might help some make better choices and not be disappointed with themselves like my friend was from work.
If some did find there animals the next day and it was good to eat that’s good it worked out.
It looking to me about half the people say it was good and half say it was no good.
One thing for sure when I tried recovering animal the next day I wil never forget the smell probably why I get little sick to my stomach when I see this done on hunting shows

2x

[58thecat]

Made a few shots on last light in which walked in to hear noise going away from me so backed out, next day on first light get at it and immediately upon finding the animal, tag it and debone it.....never had skunk green meat to date.....worse meat I got rid of was shooting a buck that had been fighting for a long time...hung it in the garage...next morning the garage smelt like cat pee and the meat was just gross

[H380]

All situations are different so there is no defining line whether or not meat is gonna spoil or not if critter is left out overnight without being butchered ..I'm sure if taken care of in a timely fashion asap saves a good percentage of this ..The part I can't swallow is the hunting shows that recover the meat next day and pose for half a day with it and then go about taking it to processor for finishing ,that and the guy that brags about " well we are 12 miles back in the wild and it's +70°F and we are packing all the meat out tomorrow and save it " ...ya right .. I guess they have to say that to save face but how.much of that actually makes it out and is usable ?

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[58thecat]

Originally Posted by H380

All situations are different so there is no defining line whether or not meat is gonna spoil or not if critter is left out overnight without being butchered ..I'm sure if taken care of in a timely fashion asap saves a good percentage of this ..The part I can't swallow is the hunting shows that recover the meat next day and pose for half a day with it and then go about taking it to processor for finishing ,that and the guy that brags about " well we are 12 miles back in the wild and it's +70°F and we are packing all the meat out tomorrow and save it " ...ya right .. I guess they have to say that to save face but how.much of that actually makes it out and is usable ?

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I bet if you talked to a butcher who deals with wild game processing they have some holy crap stories

[Stinky Buffalo]

There are several variables to this, as well... Time of death is a big one. If you've been bumping the animal in the dark on the evening it was shot, there's a possibility that it wasn't dead that long before you find them in the morning.

Naturally a major variable is the overnight temperature. I had an elk out overnight once. It was late in the year - so the night was long. I was able to flag the last known position, and recovered her first thing in the morning. However, overnight temperatures were below -40 (it was about -40 when I shot her that evening). Even then, I was surprised that the guts were still warm (not hot). The meat was fantastic.

Originally Posted by 58thecat

I bet if you talked to a butcher who deals with wild game processing they have some holy crap stories

Oh, I'm sure they do!

[fishnguy]

I retrieved three animals the next morning after they were shot in the evening prior. One was a mule deer, that wasn’t dead when found in the evening. Another was a bull elk that was found dead, prepped for the night, and left to be taken out the following morning. The third was a young cow elk that was looked for but not found in the evening.

The mule deer experience was bad. Judging by the body temperature in the morning, it lived most of the night and likely expired closer to the morning. Most of the rear of the animal was eaten (or started to be eaten) by coyotes, one of which was shot on the body of the deer when it was discovered the following morning. So the best meat was lost, but everything else recovered. The meat itself was fine.

The young cow was shot broadside, not far from the edge of the farm field, literally last minuted of legal hunting light. She ran off the field and into the bush (river valley). She was looked for with great amount of effort but never found that evening. The next morning, however, she was found right away because she ran and collapsed into a washout that no one knew was there, basically just off the field. Regardless of the flashlights one has, daylight, being everywhere, brings a whole of a lot of different perspective on things. It was a pretty small “crack” to notice in the dark (and just off from where she was thought to had run) but the cow ran right into it and she folded up so that one wouldn’t imagine was possible. She clearly died right then and there when she collapsed. Because of the way she was folded and basically the entire body was in one big… not sure what to call it, but a “ball” would be a wrong word, but you probably get the idea, the body was still very warm closer to the middle. It did feel sketchy, but all four legs and rump were recovered and hung for the following few days in the shed. The meat was perfect and likely the best elk meat I had ever eaten (but I never ate an elk this young otherwise).

Here is what I wrote about the bull a few years ago on this very forum:

By the time I got to the bull, it was about 15 minutes past legal light and got dark pretty quickly. It was not a good spot he was in. He took quite a bit of dry timber down with him and was under a log. It did turn out to be a good thing afterwards though. I ended up gutting him, opening him up (just tied the legs in the opposite directions) and then burying him with timber that he brought down and then some. I used the log he was under to lean everything on. Turned out to be a little hut. I also pulled the gut pile about three meters away, so that the dogs would have something to eat before trying to get to the meat. I also threw my jacket on top of the “hut” as I heard (though I do not believe it) it would deter the coyotes. I climbed back out just after 8.

Today in the morning, my cousin and I went to get him out and were done in under 6 hours. Surprisingly, not even a gut pile was touched. The fist crow showed up about half an hour after us.

There was zero meat spoilage. It was fairly warm too. Here are the temps in Fahrenheit from the archive for the day the bull was shot and the following day when it was recovered:





As you can see, it was not that cold at all. I believe it was about -5C when I left, stayed the same through out the night, and started warming up quickly the next morning. It was definitely way above zero when we were done, like +7 or something like that (even though the chart above indicates differently). Even though the animal wasn’t skinned, the meat was nice and cool (maybe not as cool at the bone, but perfect otherwise).

If not clear from the above, what I did was I gutted it, dragged the gut pile a bit away, and spread the four legs in the opposite directions as much as I could and tied them to trees or whatever was there. I then buried it in the deadfall to keep the coyotes away. After the meat was recovered, it hang in my shed for another week, if not more, while I slowly processed it. The temperature was perfect for hanging that year (crazy for the season, but look at how last year went, lol). Again, the meat was excellent.

So yes, if properly prepared, I do not believe there is a big risk of spoiling. Of course, provided the temperature is not overly crazy outside. Definitely get the guts out. Definitely try to spread the animal as outlined above to maximize cooling. If the temperature is significantly below freezing, it makes sense to skin and quarter because the next morning will be a pain in the butt to work on it. I believe that if prepared as outlined above, in reasonable outside conditions, the risk of spoiling is virtually zero. But there are likely other factors that apply as well.

Another experience in regards to spoilage, I had a good chunk of meat spoiling in the freezer when an elk was shot, deboned (it was very warm outside, do not recall exactly, but definitely over +15C), packed in bags in chunks (as in the entire leg, for example), and placed straight to freezer at the first opportunity. The meat was fine before placing into the freezer, but in one of the bags, where a rear leg was packed, the part of the meat that was taken off the femur and was touching another part off the bone meat was completely spoiled by the next day when it was removed for processing. I mean it wasn’t an end to all, but a good chunk (likely over 3 kg) went straight to the garbage. So one has to watch what they are doing this way as well. That was my lesson.

Something else I was going to add, but cannot recall now. But anyway, provided the conditions allow and the proper care is taken, there is no reason for things to go sour. Sometimes it is just the way it is. Sometimes, the area where we hunt would not allow for the same day (or night, rather) recovery because it would involve too much risk of sustaining an injury while doing so. Sometimes, other circumstances are such that what has to be done has to be done. In my threads here I said several times that I wouldn’t shoot in such and such circumstances when I had a chance (either due to location or time of the day or both), but was suggested by others to just do it and deal with it after, haha. I think through our personal experience we all learn what we are comfortable with doing in what circumstances. I’ve done crazy things that I wouldn’t now. Leaving an animal in the bush for the night is certainly not beyond my personal comfort level though.

[CBintheNorth]

Originally Posted by antler1

Where I live and hunt the bushes are infested with coyotes as nobody hunts them anymore.

This was by far my greatest concern when we have had to back out on an animal.
I swear those little buggers hear the crashing and start heading over. They can get on a wounded animal insanely quick sometimes.

[Phil McCracken]

Originally Posted by CBintheNorth

This was by far my greatest concern when we have had to back out on an animal.
I swear those little buggers hear the crashing and start heading over. They can get on a wounded animal insanely quick sometimes.

Hehe...

Back in the late 80s, in the Chinchaga area, a buddy shot a rather big bull moose at last light in late September. He was about 2 hours from camp. He and his buddy gutted it, quartered it, and propped the quarters on logs.

Plan was to return in the morning with quad trailers. So they get there, and one of the rear quarters is gone. A grizzly took it during the night. They decided to let him have it...