Out of state hunting questions

[popeandyoung151]

I’ll be heading to Montana in a couple weeks for a mule deer and pronghorn hunt. This will be my first experience out of Texas hunting. I have two questions for you experienced fellers.

1. When you kill a trophy, do you use a local taxi there and have your mount shipped or do you bring it home to your taxi? If you bring it home, does the guide typically cape it out for you?

2. Same question for meat? Just bring it all back in coolers or take it to a processor there?

Thanks for any help you can give and if you have any tips for me I’d love to hear it. Will be hunting with East Slope Outfitters in Eastern Montana.

[brokeno]

My son and I killed two elk in Idaho 2 years ago and we brought them back in 6 ice chests and processed them at home. I think the cost of shipping would be a fortune.

[mbrownlee]

Shipping isn’t as bad as you think, but if you are driving anyway then just bring it back. For reference, we shot 2 elk in Idaho back in September and to ship the meat and capes back it was $500. We had the meat processed there so there was a fee for that, of course, but the shipping for roughly 800 pounds of meat and two elk capes was $250 for each of us. Antlers are another story though! Expensive to get them back to TX so our outfitter is going to bring them to DSCI in January where we will pick them up.

[kenforu]

I brought my deer back from Illinois took the head to the taxi and the meat to Belleville after two days on ice. Just ask your guide he will know what to do and cape it out for you.

[Sleepy]

If the outfit is any count whatsoever, they will cape it out and cut the skullcap off. If there is a wall in cooler available, let the cape hang in the cooler over night to cool off, then wrap it up in a trash bag and keep it cold. Same with all the meat and bring it home.

Don’t let them put your cape in a bag of any sorts immediately after caping. It can retain heat for a while and hair could slip in the bag. Of course it may be cold enough up there not to have to worry about it much.

Bring it all home.

[diamond10x]

1. Cape out myself and bring home to taxi. Never been on outfitted hunt but in my opinion I’d rather do the caping myself instead of paying someone to do it as that’s me being cheap.

2. Bring home all meat to process ourselves. Just bring extra ice chests, this time of year out of state it’s not hard to keep meat cold.

IMHO bring everything home to do yourself or have someone local you trust do it for you. Someone out of state mounting an animal would worry me myself as well as a processor not getting me my meat or all of my meat to me. I feel having it taken care of local would give me a lot more peace of mind especially if it’s a feasible option.

[Texans42]

I’ll be heading to Montana in a couple weeks for a mule deer and pronghorn hunt. This will be my first experience out of Texas hunting. I have two questions for you experienced fellers.

1. When you kill a trophy, do you use a local taxi there and have your mount shipped or do you bring it home to your taxi? If you bring it home, does the guide typically cape it out for you?

2. Same question for meat? Just bring it all back in coolers or take it to a processor there?

Thanks for any help you can give and if you have any tips for me I’d love to hear it. Will be hunting with East Slope Outfitters in Eastern Montana.

Learn to cape a head, it’s not hard. Then you put meat in big cooler, cape in smaller cooler. If you don’t want to learn, push the outfitter to do it. They shouldn’t charge you. Most states have CWD transport laws so caping and skull caping is common practice for outfitters.

On an antelope wash the blood off the cape, it will stain the cape. It will be reddish brown instead of tan or white. So don’t leave it in bloody ice water either

[popeandyoung151]

Thank y’all for the input