KHC 148 - Meat Care: Techniques to Properly Care for Your Game Meat

Join us for a quick dive into preparing for hunting season like a pro! In this short episode, Cam shares expert tips on gearing up for a successful hunt and proven techniques to properly care for your game meat. Learn how to minimize waste, prevent spoiling, and ensure your harvest stays fresh! Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 Cam’s Thoughts on Losing Meat 00:03:11 Always Have a Good, Sharp Knife - Montana Knife Company Knives 00:08:31 Timing is Important: The Sun is Your Enemy 00:12:32 Order of Skinning and Remove the Meat After the Kill 00:16:42 Gutless Method 00:18:52 Removing Meat from the Head & Neck: Every Last Ounce 00:24:47 Solo Hunt Scenarios to Preserve the Meat 00:27:58 Meat Bags 00:31:18 Keep the Meat Clean 00:32:29 Keeping Bear Away From Your Harvest 00:36:50 Have a Plan Before Your Hunt 00:40:40 Cam’s Preferred Cuts: Taking the Meat to a Meat Processor 00:41:42 Keeping the Meat Cool & Dry in a Cooler 00:42:40 Final Thoughts: Gideon Compliments and Hate Comments Thank you to our sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: ⁠https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/⁠ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order LMNT: Visit https://drinklmnt.com/cam for a free sample pack with any purchase Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com/ Use code CAM for 10% off Grizzly Coolers: https://www.grizzlycoolers.com/ use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Cameron Hanes?

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• 0:41Cameron Hanes?

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• 1:22Cameron Hanes?

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• 2:15Cameron Hanes?

  This is the Keep Hammering Collective. We're going to talk about meat care on this one. It's been a hot topic.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Not the meat I'm thinking about.

• 2:23Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, not, not your personal meat care?

• 2:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27Cameron Hanes?

  No, we're talking about when we are successful in the mountains, how do we take care of that meat? Once the animal hits the ground, right?

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36Cameron Hanes?

  Cause it's, to be honest, it's a, the clock starts ticking.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  It's the most important part.

• 2:43Cameron Hanes?

  Right. It is. It's just like, um, I think the reason why I wanted to do this is there is a lot of, I see a lot of new bow hunters out there, which is great. I mean, I love it. I love, uh, when the arch, world of archery grows. But then I also heard a number of stories this year about bulls that were killed and the meat was lost. And that freaking kills me. Um, I'll just say, I'm not saying I'm better than anybody, but I'm saying if I got lucky, I don't know what I did or, or got the

• 3:23Cameron Hanes?

  right breaks, but I've been bow hunting elk since 89. This is what 36, 37 seasons now? I've never lost any meat. Okay. Or that's just elk, but I mean, I've been bow hunting for that long. I haven't lost any meat. Um, so when I hear, sometimes it happens. I understand sometimes you're going to make a poor shot. By the time you recover that animal, if you hit it in the guts and that's not intentional, that, that can happen. I mean, this is a very, very hard endeavor. You're not going to make a perfect shot every time. This is bow hunting. Um, so if you do make

• 4:02Cameron Hanes?

  a poor shot, maybe back in the guts and generally there's not a lot of blood on a, on a gut shot animal. Um, the recovery might take a while to get that blood trail unraveled and you could, if it's, if it's hot weather, lose that meat. So it can happen and it's, and it's not, it's, I guess there's, it's a fault of the, the archer, but nobody's perfect.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:29Cameron Hanes?

  This is not talking about that. This is not talking about

• 4:35Cameron Hanes?

  just a tough shot and, you know, long, hard blood trail and not getting there in time because of the weather. This isn't that. This is making sure that we're not losing any meat and we're honoring that animal and we're respecting the life of that animal by doing the best job we can. Once the arrow is released and the animal hits the ground, how do we get that meat out of the mountains, processed and in our freezer and then ultimately on the dinner plates of our family or friends that we're sharing our kills with. But how do we do that to the best of our ability?

• 5:12Cameron Hanes?

  So what I do just in general, I've learned this, I've learned this lesson and made this mistake myself, but have a knife at all times. I remember in 2007, Roy and I were moose hunting. This bull was coming in. It wasn't 50 inches with wide or didn't have the three brow tines. So as a non-resident, I couldn't kill it, but Roy was a resident. So I said, hey, do you want to kill this bull coming in? Came into like 16 yards. I said, you can use my bow. We shot kind of the same setup. He took my bow and my release and smoked that bull and got it down. Point is, we didn't have a knife. Somehow we got out of our camp, had our packs, had whatever. I don't know if we had knives from

• 5:56Cameron Hanes?

  eating in the tent and we took our hunting knives out and we're using it to cut up. I don't know what, but point is, we didn't have a knife, so we had to use a broadhead to gut, gut that moose. Not perfect. We got the guts out. We went back the next morning after, you know, it was cool up there. So the meat was, was fine, but gutting a moose with a broadhead, very, very hard and not very efficient. Yeah.

• 6:23Cameron Hanes?

  So always have a knife. And when you have a knife like this one here.

• 6:28Cameron Hanes?

  This is what I have just basically on my, this is my binos and rangefinder and then I got Allen wrenches here and I have all sorts of goodies in here like a toothpick. I put my phone right there. But part of this little kit is, I've got a Montana knife right there. And it's just, it's not like the, the one I use all the time, but it's something I can at least open up an animal and get those guts out if I need to. And then, and then work on the animal here. It's super light, holds a good edge. What I, so I'll have a few different knives in my pack. That one's gonna be on my bino harness because you never

• 7:08Cameron Hanes?

  know when you need a knife. But this pack out Skinner, this is available right now. This is like pretty much my go-to knife. Did somebody use this and not clean? So I need to, Montana knife needs to come get these knives and sharpen, sharpen them up and clean them. But yeah, so if I have these three knives, I can do pretty much anything, right? Because this one, this is the Skinner, which is, this is amazing because if, if you think you got this whole blade angle here, so you can utilize that whole blade, get that skin off and it works great for that. But this is pretty blunt right here.

• 7:49Cameron Hanes?

  So when you're, when you're trying to start the cut to get the guts out, if you're gonna gut the animal, sometimes we do gutless method also, which I'll explain. But that's a pretty blunt tip to try to get in there and try to go up. Generally, you come from the genitals up to the sternum, you open that up, that's where you pull the guts out. That's pretty blunt to do. Sometimes it's better with it, with a good point like that to get, get that started and get that opened up. And then, when you get down to where you're trying to get the bottom jaw off or the, cutting the head off, where the spine attaches up there, sometimes you need this knife, this blade is very durable. You see how thick

• 8:31Cameron Hanes?

  that is right there? And you can kind of get in there, whittle around. I think you and I worked on that on my bull and got that, that head off. But you want a durable blade because this is very thin. I'm not saying it's not tough, but you could snap the tip of that off pretty easy when you're trying to get that bottom jaw off or something like that. And then this is just kind of like a mid-range, little thicker blade for sure.

• 8:57Cameron Hanes?

  These thick blades, they're gonna be a little, you're probably gonna lose the edge a little quicker than on this blade here. This one is, is so slight that blade will, I think it'll last a long time. These thicker ones, they're more durable, but it makes that,

• 9:16Cameron Hanes?

  it makes that a little more susceptible to getting dull or quicker, but it's gonna be stout.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:22Cameron Hanes?

  But you might have to just, you know, run it over a stone or something like that. But these are the three knives I use. So a sharp knife is key, always having a knife on you, having the right knife for the job. Again, I, we've done it with a broadhead, so could you do it with something other than these? Yeah, but, uh, and a lot of people are using the, like the replaceable blade knives, which are very sharp. They're like scalpels, but God, they go through a lot of those blades and they're always breaking.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  I know. And to me, there's, there's something about using like a fixed blade, old style knife.

• 9:58Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  You know, it's, feels better, but yeah, something I always bring to in my kill kit is a little ceramic sharpener. I mean, you're not gonna get a perfect edge, but it will make it sharper.

• 10:08Cameron Hanes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Make your life easier while you're back there.

• 10:10Cameron Hanes?

  I mean, the, I have got an old green handle one.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:14Cameron Hanes?

  So light, but you just do like five of those, you're back in business.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 10:18Cameron Hanes?

  It doesn't take, you don't have to be like leather strong. You don't have to get crazy.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:24Cameron Hanes?

  But yeah, so that's the key knives. Again, so once the arrow hits the animal, time is of the essence. We don't wanna get on the blood too quick in case it's a poor shot and we don't wanna push that animal. We're just assuming we make all decisions there correctly. But it does make a difference on how quick you get there and how fast the animal dies or how much time you're giving it. Cause say, um, it, it is kind of a hard one. I remember last year in Oregon, my bull, I was unsure of the, you know, we went back and looked at the shot. I'm like, God, it looks pretty good. It's a little bit back, but I didn't, it's a warm day, it's like, or a warm night.

• 11:09Cameron Hanes?

  It's gonna be like almost high 50s, 60s. I didn't want that bull dying. Say I shot in the evening. So if he would've died in an hour, so if he would've died at say nine at night.

• 11:22Cameron Hanes?

  Wouldn't got in there till like get slide at six, maybe by the time you get in there at seven, that's 10 hours. Yep. So if that bull would have died, if that that arrow would have caught lungs and liver, or he would have died in an hour, it would have been 10 hours before I got on him. And 10 hours in that temperature would have lost all that meat. So I'm like, no, let's give it a couple hours. Let's go back in there, see if that bull's dead. He wasn't dead. Um, jumped him, had to back out again. And what this was, this was terrible. We talked about this and I hated this part of it. But, um, we went back in the morning, the bull was still alive. He was so weak, he couldn't get up. I, I shot him and, and killed him.

• 12:02Cameron Hanes?

  Um, the, the only benefit to his suffering was that the meat was perfect. Yeah. Cause he stayed alive. And while I felt, I mean, I don't, you know, uh,

• 12:20Cameron Hanes?

  probably had, I was pretty emotional about it just because I don't like animals suffering. But,

• 12:28Cameron Hanes?

  yeah, I don't even know if I'd choose that over the meat. I'm sure, I'm sure I would because the alternative would be like the animal would died and we'd lost the meat. So then what was the life of the animal? Right. For, so I didn't want him suffering, but I guess that's better than losing the meat. Uh, point is sometimes there's going to be decisions that you have to make based on the blood you're seeing, the shot that you, you know, thought you released and, uh, how the animal reacted and the weather conditions, you know, if it was a cold night down in the thirties, you could still lose some of the meat on the ground that was laying on the ground side of that, but you'd probably be all right. Um, so you have to consider all that. Um, point is like, yeah, you just can't ignore any factors. So.

• 13:14Cameron Hanes?

  When we're, when, aside from all that, considering all that, you get to the, up to the animal. Um, this last bull I killed, and it makes a difference too on where the animal dies. Where the last bull I killed and went off, bottom of the canyon, shade, water, cool. Perfect place to work on a bull. If the bull dies up on a sunny hillside, whole different deal. Now it's like, now it's, time is of the essence. You gotta hustle or you gotta try to get that thing out of the sun. The sun, that's why that drove me crazy, that video the other day with, you know, the, the lesser Rinella's video.

• 14:00Cameron Hanes?

  I don't even know what he's doing, but the, the meat's sitting in the sun with flies flying around and it's just like.

• 14:08Cameron Hanes?

  I just don't even get it. So the sun is your enemy, the sun is your enemy in hunting and meat care and everything. The sun is, stay out of the sun. So whether you gotta get that bull somehow drag it out or just get, get to work on it. Um, as soon as you can get some meat off that bull, uh, you, you do it. But to start off, you walk up to the bull, um, you might take a couple of photos, whatever. We're assuming that's gonna be quick and then, okay, let's, let's start breaking this thing down. So what I do is I usually do one side at a time. The bull's laying on, you know, its left or right side.

• 14:49Cameron Hanes?

  And, uh, I always start like lift its back leg, go from the knee, uh, inside the leg to the genitals, basically. And, um, then you go up the belly type thing and, uh, up to the front leg. Whoever's working on the front leg, you're from the back of the knee there, you're down on, on like, uh, so you're coming here. And you're coming here right at the, right here, and then you're coming straight across to the chest. This line will come up here and essentially you're just skinning all that, that hide off and you're getting off. Uh, you can pull the cord. Shoulders off then, once you get that done, once you get that all that hide off, uh, you don't need a saw or anything. The front shoulders are, don't have a socket,

• 15:32Cameron Hanes?

  so you can go, go right here. I try to go and get a lot of this neck meat at the same time, because that's just like such a good chunk there. So I get a lot of the neck meat, oh, a bunch of the meat here off the chest and then pull it off. Because to get the backstrap to the, to its full potential, you have to pull that front shoulder off. Um, because the shoulder covers part of the backstrap, which that's like the premier cut on a, on any big game animal. But, uh, so you can pull those front shoulders off, no joint, but I try to get a lot of extra meat there. We put that in a bag and we set that either on a rock or a log or hang it, get some air circulating around it.

• 16:13Cameron Hanes?

  You can get the back leg off same way. You go down to the, to the ballon socket. Um, you have to be careful there because your knife can go in and hit guts. Um, so you'd be careful on that inside cut, especially coming up towards the top of the back from that ballon, ball socket. But you can get that whole back half or back quarter off and then get it in a bag. So now, assuming we got the, the two quarters off on that side, then I pull the backstrap off. You can really get to it once you get all that out of there. Um, then this is where some people, like with the gutless method, uh, you don't have to necessarily gut the animal to work on it. Um, when you're by yourself, sometimes it's easier to get the guts out of there

• 16:57Cameron Hanes?

  because it's, you know, a lot lighter to move around. But if you wait, so if you can do the gutless method, which means you don't gut it, you don't split it and take the guts out. Um, you still have to get the tenderloins, which are basically right under the spine in the back. To get to those, you can get them from the top. You come in, you got to push the guts down and you kind of get that, it's a big chunk of really good meat, that tenderloin there. Um, but to get it out, you'll have to hold the guts down. The longer you wait, the more gas fills up in that stomach and it makes that tighter. It's really hard to push the guts down and get that tenderloin out. So if you're not that dialed in, or you're not that quick, or it's going to take some time.

• 17:42Cameron Hanes?

  You might just want to pull the guts out. Leaving them in makes the gut, the, the sight a lot cleaner. Yep. And what a lot of people do where they still screw up. And when I talk about these, these guys that lost some of this elk meat, some of it is you put so much focus on the hunting and the shooting and the whatever is great. It's great. You got the animal killed. You've got to put just as much focus on the meat care and you've got to care just as much. And I think a lot of, a lot of times people shoot this arrow, they walk up to the bull, they look at it and they're like, I don't have no idea what to do. Never thought about that part. Never thought they were actually going to get a bull killed. I mean, they might've thought, yeah, I want to kill one. Well, what does it mean when I do?

• 18:26Cameron Hanes?

  And uh, it's tough to pull up YouTube video out in the middle of the mountains. When the day's getting warmer and you've got this dead animal here, that's not the time to do it. Um, so do your research beforehand, but what I see a lot of guys do is they've heard this gutless. They've heard like, uh, pulling the guts out, uh, but they don't know exactly what that entails. So you start pulling the guts out. Where people screw up and taint some of their meat is, uh, when they're cutting the intestines, things like that out. This meat or this blade goes and it hits the bladder. You hit the bladder, there's urine going all over the meat, right? So that's not good.

• 19:11Cameron Hanes?

  They're hitting, uh, I mean, you just have to be careful where that blade goes. Yep. They're hitting the guts, the guts themselves, which you know, got the green shit in the stomach that comes out. That'll taint the meat. So you have to be very careful on where this blade goes when you're, when you're gutting those animals. Why I do like pulling the guts out sometimes, even if I have help, but I get all the meat. I mean, you've been around, you've seen how, you know, I take all the rib meat, all the stomach lining meat. There's even like some, uh, tenderloins up, I call them the front tenderloins up in the chest. Until you pull all that stuff out, it's tough to get those, those front tenderloins.

• 19:54Cameron Hanes?

  So I go, I take so much meat off, like on the, on the last bull I just killed, we got 304 pounds of bone down meat, which is so much, normally people get a little lazier when they're miles back. That's a lot for bone in. Yeah, for, yeah, for you, yeah, even if the bones were included, this was all boned meat. So it was just solid meat, but people don't, you know, is good, bad, whatever you can say, whatever you want. They, they're not as thorough in the wilderness in the miles deep as they are. Maybe like if they took it to a shop and they got the bull out whole and like it's spending time on it. I get the same amount of meat out no matter where, no matter where it is. But, um, so I'm taking all of them.

• 20:38Cameron Hanes?

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• 21:18Cameron Hanes?

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• 22:03Cameron Hanes?

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• 22:17Cameron Hanes?

  To get all of it, sometimes it's easier to have those guts out. I'm just saying that if you're gonna do that, just know anatomy, know what you're keeping that blade out of. Know you don't want to taint that meat. So yeah, then, then we get up to the neck. The neck, as we know, is super thick hide. It'll dull up these blades in a hurry. That's why I think multiple knives help, but you're pulling, not to yourself, but you're pulling through that neck meat or going through that neck meat of the back of the, of back of the neck there. And then we skin that out so we can get the head off. But also there's 40 pounds of meat on that neck. And people will say, oh, some people, they like talk

• 23:01Cameron Hanes?

  down on the neck meat. I don't talk down on any meat because I can turn any of that meat into something good. Caproni, sausage, jerky. I don't give a, I'm taking all of it, right? That's what we owe, we owe it to that animal to respect its life and take everything we can. So yeah, we, we pull that out, get all the neck meat off. And by the time it's, it's set and done, that's a bare carcass. I take pictures of every carcass that, that I kill just to verify, just because people talk all sorts of shit. But I also just want to show that this is, if it's done right, this is what it looks like.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:36Cameron Hanes?

  So I have, I have that too. But, you know, I mean, the last thing I ever want to be accused of is, is one waste of a game animal, which leaving meat out there just because you're tired or you don't care, or you know, you're, you want to make a social media video to bully a woman. I don't think that's a good, good answer.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, especially clearly being at home where you have all the means to have already processed that animal if you choose to do it yourself.

• 24:07Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Is pretty wild. But.

• 24:10Cameron Hanes?

  It's just, I mean.

• 24:14Cameron Hanes?

  You can say whatever you want. Actions speak a lot of the words.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  You do know you could have taken the same video with all that meat packaged up, right? You know, it's like.

• 24:23Cameron Hanes?

  He was so excited to bully a woman who, and you think about this too, it's like Lydia, she was showing how much the hunt means to her by, by sharing her emotions of a vulnerable state, basically, or vulnerable time, because she just overcomes so much to kill a bull after 16 days on public land by herself, hunting solo, so struck by emotion, the hunt means that much to her, that she was just crying. So that, you get somebody who's being a detractor of that behavior while they're disrespecting the kill, the very, the very, the most important thing of why we do what we do, so clueless, so quick to want to make

• 25:08Cameron Hanes?

  a social media video to bully this, this girl who busted her ass, and it's like, showing how much hunting means to her and how much that animal means to her, the exact opposite of that is some clown bullying that girl while their meat rots in the sun.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 25:27Cameron Hanes?

  That's tone deaf. That's, that you're such, your ego is so out of control, you're so fucking lost, you don't get it.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I saw someone that was, you know, oh, why does she have to record it? That's not the, the, the foot we want to put forward for hunting. And I'm like, no, it is.

• 25:44Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  That is.

• 25:45Cameron Hanes?

  What do you, you want some, you want to look like some bloodthirsty dumb who doesn't care and disrespecting the animal? Or do you want somebody who's just like, wow, this hunting means a lot to, to this person?

• 25:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:59Cameron Hanes?

  I mean, because people who don't understand hunting, they would think that we don't care. We're emotionless. We don't give a about anything.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  I, I would bet you everything that if you take someone who doesn't like hunting, they're going to use the video that.

• 26:16Cameron Hanes?

  The lesser Rinella took more to prove their point that hunting's bad than they would Lydia's.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 26:21Cameron Hanes?

  So, so what are you doing?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  What does that say?

• 26:23Cameron Hanes?

  What are you doing?

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 26:24Cameron Hanes?

  Fucking clown.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  But when, when you're hunting, how, how much does kind of the scenario in which a bull might go down, uh, play into kinda your, your game plan? Cause I know you talked about with Winaha, the first couple of days you went in there was like, if I kill a bull down here by myself, it's hot. What am I gonna do?

• 26:44Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I went in for that scouting trip. It's season though. I mean, I could've killed a bull and I had a three 50 bull at 50 yards and I had a three 60 bull at 20 yards, but at that time I didn't, I couldn't guarantee that I would be able to get that meat taken care of ethically and, and quickly enough to, to ensure I wouldn't lose any. Uh, to me, it wasn't worth killing that bull when that question was still there. It's, the meat is everything and people, you know, they turn it into all sorts of stuff. It's like, you know, and you can, you can get tricked into saying, well, are you a meat hunter or trophy hunter? I'm both. I mean, I have trophies here. All these animals mean a lot to me, but the meat means just as much or more at that time. This is just for, for

• 27:25Cameron Hanes?

  history, right? This is just to share, you know, this is just for, to remember the incredible adventures we've had, but the meat is what sustains me. That's what matters. That's that, the meat of the kills I make is as valuable to me as gold is. If somebody said, here's 10 pounds of gold or 10 pounds of the, of the bull you just killed, which do you want? I'm taking the bull.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:48Cameron Hanes?

  That bull means everything. Fucking gold, fuck it. I don't care. So, so I'm, I'm both. The trophy is very important. The, having these memories is important. I look at these animals, I remember everything, but I eat the meat every day. So it's a, I would never kill a bull by myself in a situation like that because I didn't know for sure how I was getting it out. I had to figure that part out before I was gonna kill a bull down there. So that's just, I think that's, that's what it means to be an ethical and honorable hunter.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Right. Well, I think too, it's like, okay, take one of these bulls and if you lost the meat to it, you know, you'd be devastated.

• 28:25Cameron Hanes?

  Every time I looked at that bull, I would think about that.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. But if you, if you lost the rack, you know, but got to keep the meat, it wouldn't be as devastating.

• 28:32Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. I mean, I, there's plenty of racks I don't have.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I, I've obviously been on hunts with you and, uh, you do not relax until the meat is taken care of.

• 28:42Cameron Hanes?

  No, I can't. It's just like. Until it's done and in the, in a cooler in the freezer and clean and I can't.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 28:52Cameron Hanes?

  And people who say otherwise or do, or that's why I see that video like from Matt and I'm just like, it just makes me sick.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:01Cameron Hanes?

  Because it's like, I couldn't imagine doing that. I couldn't imagine

• 29:10Cameron Hanes?

  having, so the purpose of that video was negative in nature, shaming. I couldn't imagine shame, the, the, the want to shame somebody overweight the value of that meat. I just don't even, I don't get that type of person.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  If you're gonna talk shit, you better make sure your shit is on lock.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:35Cameron Hanes?

  Anyway, um, so a, another part that, you know, I've learned this lesson myself.

• 29:42Cameron Hanes?

  Uh, as I said, I haven't lost, I've never lost meat, but I've went unprepared some, or less prepared than I need to with the knife. Sometimes the game bags, I've, I know I've had to put a, a bowl. Uh, this is with South, we were hunting the eagle cap. I think in 1999, I killed this bull and I didn't have any meat bags. So all my camo clothes are the meat bags. My, I had predator camo, it was all full of the bone down meat. My shirt was, it was like a whole person laying there and the meat was in all my clothes. So I had no clothes, but, uh, um, you want to have good meat bags. We had a shitload of meat bags on the winter haul one because Tanner had some, Wayne had some,

• 30:23Cameron Hanes?

  but they were good lightweight meat bags. Uh, we had eight of them, I think eight or nine at that time, which we had eight people packing. So it made it perfect for putting in, you know, we had all that bone down meat. Like I said, three or four pounds, but when you have it divvied up between eight bags, it makes it pretty manageable, but. Also, those more bags means that meat isn't stacked on top of each other and, and trying to cool. If you put, so say for example, you have one giant meat bag and you got both quarters, all the neck meat, all the scrap meat, all the rib meat, and it's all in one big wad, that's going to stay hot for a long time. So you have to be able to separate that meat,

• 31:06Cameron Hanes?

  more meat bags help that. And then another key part is this air. You just got to get air around it. As I said, sun, shade, that's all important. You'd be surprised how long meat can last. Say if it's 80 degrees out in the sun, but the bottom of this draw and there's water down there and you're on the north side of the timber, it might never get above 50 in there. And then if you have a little wind, that meat's going to be fine for fuck, probably a week. If you get that hide off, you get that meat off the bone because bone can sour meat. So you get that meat off the bone, you know, Wayne, he boned out those back quarters, which we were fine on time. But generally, if you were by yourself and you're worried

• 31:50Cameron Hanes?

  about how much time it's going to take, you get that meat, just like he did, he boned those back quarters, get that meat off the bone. So the bone can't sour it and it's going to last five days back there. If you get good bags, around water, get a little breeze around it and it's in the shade and the north side timber, you're good. Another tactic people do, people take garbage sacks. In this, you don't want meat in a garbage sack in the heat, but we've done this before where you put the meat in a garbage sack, tie it up, then you can put that in water. And that could be in a creek. Or last, or

• 32:29Cameron Hanes?

  maybe, I think it was last year, Truitt killed this buck down over on the coast and a big old buck right at dark, broke that whole buck down and I laid it, there's a, there's a clip on my Instagram, but laid it on a log over water. And it was just in the morning, it was just like it'd been in a refrigerator. But yeah, so it's like, there's a few key things that we have to do. And then everything else is, there's a lot of variables.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. What about kind of?

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Keeping the meat as clean as possible as you're taking it off the animal. And that's something that you'd, you know, find really important.

• 33:06Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, I get, I get mad when if there's hair, if people are cutting through the hair and it's getting on the animal, or this is what drives me crazy. You're, you're working on the animal. You go to step over the animal to get to the other side and you just kick dust and dirt and shit. I'm like, what the you just kicked all this dirt on that. So I'm psycho about keeping meat clean. And as I said, when you do the one side, then you have to flip it over. So I'm always like, okay, were we flipping this over? I don't want to, you know, have this other side backstrap that I hadn't pulled out yet, rolling it over in the dirt. Right. So like on this last one, we laid

• 33:50Cameron Hanes?

  a game bag down so we could flip it over. But yeah, it's just being intentional about what's going on with that meat. What decisions are decisions are you making? Let's keep it clean. Keep hair off of it. Keep dirt off of it. Keep it out of the sun. Let it get cooled down. Get the bone out of there. All of this matters.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  Um, my other question is, you know, we've heard a couple of stories of which, you know, whether you believe them or not, but people losing, um, you know, a whole elk to a bear or whatever, might come in and open one sack or whatever. But what's a, I mean, what's a tip to help keep bears away if you, if you're taking a load or whatever it is?

• 34:26Cameron Hanes?

  Um, taking a load?

• 34:31Cameron Hanes?

  I don't, I don't know if that, that's what you said. Um, but, uh, yeah. So what I do, like, like on that one, we just did, I like camping right with the meat. If, if a bear's going to come in and get in the middle of the night, it's going to have to go through us first. Um, but most people don't want to camp out where, you know, a bear could potentially come in. So. Leave a coat, leave a hat, leave some scent, leave a shirt. Get that meat up off the ground, make it tougher to get to, you know, coyote can come in and if it's low can get it pretty easy. A bear can climb, but the harder you make it and the more

• 35:12Cameron Hanes?

  obstacle or not obstacles, but the deterrence you put out there like human scent. You could piss around. I don't know if it makes any difference, but all the stuff. If it gives animal a little pause to coming in to be like, God, I smell this, I smell that. I don't like this. I don't like that. That I don't like that thing waving around like, you know, flagging waving around. Animals don't like stuff like that because it's different. That might buy you some time as you're, you know, taking that load. And so you pack out a load to the truck, you come back during that time, those little deterrence might have kept them off the meat. But yeah, it's a generally bear. I mean, I think people.

• 35:56Cameron Hanes?

  I hate to think about it, but

• 36:00Cameron Hanes?

  there could be hunters who kill and wouldn't be upset if a bear got into the meat. So they could say, oh, I lost it. Would have packed it all out, but bear got it. I don't get it.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:14Cameron Hanes?

  But there's scumbags and everything, even bow hunting.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I know one of my buddies had a bear get into a game bag and he just, you know, was like, okay, well, it's this meat's probably touched, but we'll take the rest of this in the game bag. It's like, you don't throw away the whole game bag.

• 36:30Cameron Hanes?

  No, no. It's a, I don't know, people, people do make, make interesting decisions every day. I can't speak to that.

• 36:43Cameron Hanes?

  All I can share is the lessons I've learned and kind of my approach and hope that people consider it and it, you know, it just makes the experience a more memorable and just knowing you did, did it right. I think that's, you know, when you're if if you lost meat.

• 37:06Cameron Hanes?

  Whether it's on your own, or you know, a poor decision on your, on your part or not, or maybe a victim of circumstance, whatever. When you're looking in the mirror at yourself, you know, you're the one who has to live with that. You know, I killed that animal and lost that meat. I don't want you to have to de- deal with that.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:25Cameron Hanes?

  People get used to ignoring all sorts of flaws in theirself. But I just know, I can say a bunch of BS, but when I'm looking at myself and I'm just like, I know if I, if I didn't do things to the best of my ability and it doesn't feel good. So I just want to share this and I just want people to be able to look at themselves in the mirror after they kill and be like, I did it right. I did it right and I honored that animal. I honored what it means to be a bowhunter and I can sleep well tonight.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. Makes sense. I mean, it's the reason we do it, so.

• 37:58Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, it's, it's the only reason. It's a, you know, man has hunted forever. People don't get hunting, you know, in some ways nowadays, because I guess it's not technically necessary, but man has hunted as long as we've walked this earth. So this is as natural as it gets. And, and since we were born hunters, born, bred, this is what we're designed to do. Taking care of that meat is a huge part of that. We've got to do it right.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah. And I will say too, it's, you know, if you've never done it, your first animal is going to take a while, you know, which is fine.

• 38:36Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Um, as long as you're, like you said, you've got it in a good spot, but just watch a video or something. There's so many out there.

• 38:43Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, there is.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Learn how to do it. Watch a couple.

• 38:46Cameron Hanes?

  Come up with a plan before.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:48Cameron Hanes?

  I mean, I, I know, you know, you might feel like you're never going to kill anything and it's hard. I mean, success on bull elk is six percent. It's like 94% fail. So I understand not going out every time thinking about, okay, I'm this, it's going to happen this time. And then when it does happen, you're sort of unprepared. So just prepare.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:09Cameron Hanes?

  Like it's going to happen, just so you're ready.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah. I remember the first mule deer I killed by myself is getting dark and I was like, well. But then, you know, I could fall back on the videos I watched and it was fine.

• 39:21Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  You know, it sure I made a mistake and I cut the back strap a little short, but it's, you know, I still got the meat off of it. So it's, it's not a big deal. It's not the end of the world.

• 39:30Cameron Hanes?

  I remember like my stepdad killed a buck. I was a kid. He's just like, wasn't the greatest teacher at this time. But he said, go bone that animal. I'm like, I don't, I don't, he's like, all you do is you, you follow the, the lines of the muscle to the bone and, and get it off there. And I'm just like, I had no, I didn't even know anything. So I cut all this meat off this deer, tiny little chunks. Did not know what I was doing. Probably, you know, normally when you're cutting meat, you know, you got the grain of the, of the, the muscle, you know, it makes a difference on how it's going to chew, right? When you're actually processing it to cut for packaging.

• 40:13Cameron Hanes?

  Well, when I cut tiny little chunks off that whole deer, there's no grain is going everywhere. So then, yeah, I was, I was always in trouble for something, but definitely in trouble for that one. I just didn't know. So I've been the, I've been the kid who like, I have no idea what to do with this thing. I'm going to try to figure it out though. And then I've been, I've also taken Taylor on his first buck, or I think I killed, or I mean, I, I got it a few of his first kills, but finally one time he killed this buck. And I'm like, no, I said, I said, you're, you, you gotta do this yourself. You're gonna, I'll, I'll help you. First thing he did, took this knife,

• 40:55Cameron Hanes?

  jammed right into his thumb. He seemed like almost cut his thumb off. And I'm like, all right, get the. So point is that's, we all, that's how we learn.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:08Cameron Hanes?

  It's trial and error, but we didn't have videos back then. So I, I even had, me and Tanner were talking about this. I had a, a video breaking down a buck on my bone eating trophy blacktail DVD and. When I kill blacktail this year, I think I'm gonna bring it here and I'm gonna break it down just like I would an elk out here in the driveway. We can just film it.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:29Cameron Hanes?

  Cause it's the same process and I'll just go through on a deer, how to do it. And that'll be out there. I mean, but there's a million things out there for people. It's a, just watch it, just try to, um, just try to like, just like our hunting skillset. We're trying to improve, try to improve your meat care skillset and, and, um, yeah, take that to the next level too, because as we've mentioned a couple of times, that's, that's as important as anything.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, if you're, you know, confident in your butchering skills and your processing skills, maybe it'll make you more confident in your killing skills.

• 42:05Cameron Hanes?

  I mean, it all helps.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:08Cameron Hanes?

  It all helps. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. Was there anything else you think of?

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Hmm. That's it for questions.

• 42:15Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, I guess someone might wonder, you know, what, if there's any kind of particulars you ask for when you take it to a, a meat processing place or anything like that.

• 42:28Cameron Hanes?

  No, I mean, I just, you know, I want all of it. Uh, I put a little fat in usually with the pepperoni and the, and the hamburger, um, just to hold it together because it's, that stuff's so lean, it won't stick together generally without some suet in there. But yeah, it's, no, I mean, most I just want to, I let them do what they do. They're, they're the pros at cutting it up. I tell them what I want, steaks, hamburger, uh, jerky, pepperoni, all that stuff. It's what we live off of. It's what I like to share. But no, just trying to get it there in the best condition it can be in. And I just want the butchers to see it and just be like, yeah, okay, this person took care of it. You know, you can tell, you can tell when somebody drags something that's all dirty and

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:13Cameron Hanes?

  up or with something that's clean. And, uh, yeah, I just, I just want to have, leave a good impression on who's ever processed it.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I think the other thing is, you know, people get their meat into a cooler with ice and they don't protect it at all and it gets soggy, you know?

• 43:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah. I mean, having the, the meat sit in water is not good. So you let that ice melt.

• 43:38Cameron Hanes?

  I guess wet meat is better than rotten meat.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:42Cameron Hanes?

  But still not great. Drain that water out. Try to keep the meat above the ice. Try to put a barrier if you can. And maybe a garbage sack might help in this case, but uh, yeah, don't let, you know, having the meat sit in the water isn't great. Uh, it's not good for it either. But yeah, a lot of little things to consider, but having a cooler, having ice, having good game bags, having, uh, getting it to the processor as quick as you can. Some people, you know, they got a long drive and that meat sitting back there in the sun, that's not good either. So let's think about all this stuff.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Yep. I think that's it.

• 44:19Cameron Hanes?

  Oh yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Tanner said, you do a great job on the podcast. He said, your questions and your insight are like, he said, James is actually smart.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Oh, that's, I've got him fooled.

• 44:35Cameron Hanes?

  He goes, he goes, you can tell him if you want to. Cause I'm like, I go, I don't know if he's ever heard a compliment, but no. Uh, I think he really liked, uh, the, you know, the discussion on, um, well, shit talkers is joking around, but like the hunt recap and stuff. And you had some, even you talking about that it didn't feel good to be the weakest link, but it's important. I think just how, just insightful that was, I think that's stood out to him because people could look, think of that situation and perceive it as all negative. When.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:09Cameron Hanes?

  Some negative, but it's a lot of positive. So I, this.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  I mean, the, the negative is only self-imposed, right? So what are you getting? Whatever.

• 45:19Cameron Hanes?

  Anyway, you, yeah, you do, you do a good job. And, and I just wanted to acknowledge Jack as Tanner mentioned it. I'm like, okay. Well, yeah.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  That's nice of Tanner.

• 45:28Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, that was good.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Um, someone did say, I saw a comment that said, Cam is the man for Gideon.

• 45:36Cameron Hanes?

  That's another shirt, another shirt.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:38Cameron Hanes?

  So we got, now we got four shirts.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:41Cameron Hanes?

  I didn't see that one. Where was that?

• 45:43Speaker 01

  It was on YouTube.

• 45:43Cameron Hanes?

  She, come on, guys.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Well, someone responded to that and said, uh, fuck you, Gideon for president.

• 45:50Cameron Hanes?

  Okay.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  We got some comment wars going on.

• 45:52Cameron Hanes?

  Yeah, we'll, we'll take the, the middle of those two.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:55Cameron Hanes?

  No, but anyway, just wanted to get this out. We had a couple, I had a couple of thoughts. I wanted to do a couple of quick podcasts, one on equipment, one on meat care, just on the heels of season while it was fresh and, uh, thought we'd share this and hopefully can help others.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:10Cameron Hanes?

  All right. Have a good day, guys. Keep hammering.