meat preservation if you must leave an animal until morning?

First off, this is just my opinion, and there are alot of guys with more experience on here that might disagree with me. As far as leaving a game animal, I would never put off trying to retrieve an animal for anymore than the time that it takes for the animal to expire. I have always gone by this depending how much searching you can get in before nightfall. I would never give an animal hit on the front side of the diaphragm more than an hour. Those hit behind need alot more time, but not more than 5-6 hours. I have actually lost more meat to predators finding my kill before I do than I ever have from spoilage. As far as spoilage goes, the meat will do better than you think. The main things that I worry about with meat preservation are; First, get good meat away from things that accelerate decay such as blood, and internal organs. Second, keep the meat dry and as cool as possible, and last, keep flys from being able to land on the meat. As far as a timetable for when meat is lost and you should just pack out the horns, I say always pack out the meat. Meat does not all go bad at once, and though you may lose alot of the meat, you will always be able to trim back to some good meat even if it's just for stew or burger. NEVER put your meat in the water to chill it, dryness is more important than coolness.Doing all of these things has helped me in several wilderness hunts to arrive at the locker with nice red game meat that yields little loss.---------SS

I try to find it ASAP. I'm always hoping to see it die in sight and that's been the case for a long time for me. I quarter it and bag it without the skin on it except a bikini cut to keep proof of sex on a quarter if it's required. I also use lots of pepper on the meat to keep any flies and hornets away from it and retard spoilage. Hang it in the shade and the moisture evaporating will cool it. If the nights are cool you'll have a couple of days to get it out. If you manage to hit the guts put that meat in a separate bag or it will taint the rest of the meat. Same with severely bloodshot meat. You may be able to salvage some of it later but in most states you have to take it or get a ticket for wanton destruction of game. From what I've noticed the meat will be okay if you get it quartered and cooled in about 12 hours.
Mark

thanks for the help guys thats quite reassuring. also this is a bit off subject but ive left deer in trees overnight until i could pack them out on horse back the following day. i would personally urinate around the tree and leave articles of clothing around also to keep predators away. is this a good method to keep unnecasary animals away from your kill or a lil overboard.?

It really depends on where you're hunting and the type of weather. I've left several deer overnight to track them in the morning without any problems of spoilage. Last year in CO (August) I arrowed a buck a half hour before dark after shooting it in the liver........a fatal shot, but one that doesn't leave bright colored blood and takes a bit to die. I left him overnight without ANY problems. Of course I was hunting over 11,000' and the temps were cold at night and not many predators at that elevation to worry about.

On the other hand, I left one overnight in the Arizona desert a few years back with different results. I tracked it at night for a bit, but after kicking him up from his bed, I decided to come back a few hours later in the morning. He was hit in the chest, but for some reason had an incredible will to survive. The next morning, I kicked 7 coyotes off of him........they had 3/4 of him eaten in just a few hours. The temps were very cold in the morning, but I had not thought of the predators in the Sonoran desert. The salvaged meat was fine because of the cold temps, but it made for an expensive steak when you talk about pounds of meat per NR tag cost! ](*,)