Taking meat home….airplane

nksmfamjp

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Jan 5, 2004
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I'm an airplane hunter. How do I fly out, kill a big buck and bring home the meat?
My current method is very limiting.
 
OK what I do is to pack one or two coolers with the min old clothes you need to use. Usually ship my camo to someone I know or the group I'm hunting with, when finished throw away or donate to local Goodwill the old clothes ship camo back home. Then pack the cooler with frozen meat and small amount of ice. Longest flight travel was one connection and eight hours travel everything did fine. Dry ice is usually a no no as P7M13 stated for airlines.
 
Freeze meat solid in a quality cooler and use dry ice to keep it that way until you get near the airport. Dump the dry ice and tape the coolers shut. It will last much longer then needed. This is how my buddy flies elk back to the east coast.

And no - he does not ship all the meat, only what will fit in a shippable size cooler. The balance is donated.
 
To the OP, are you having it processed or planning to debone and pack yourself?

The reason I ask I some processing places will get it done and mostly frozen in 24 hours. I argue hanging yields better results, but during hunting season they chop em up as they come in. Secondly, any deer I have taken to a processor results in an underwhelming amount of meat :). I chalk it up to they don't trim everything as cleanly as they could. Say maybe a 35-45 qt cooler at most. I actually had one buck, medium size, that came out of the freezer in a box the size of what you see for copy paper at an office + a couple of grocery sacks to give it perspective.
 
In shipping our 4 caribou from Canada, the outfitter used plastic bins. The meat was frozen then packed with dry ice, which was ok for Delta at the time.
 
I fly back from AK with 2 to 4 coolers every year of salmon and halibut I catch up there (and moose and caribou burger from my buddy) . For about 10 years now I simply have it frozen for at least 24 hrs prior to leaving and use the cheap insulated meat boxes from Walmart to fly home with it. Never lost any meat to thawing
 
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