Deal with the meat now for good eating later

FAIRBANKS The sooner you cut up a moose, caribou, sheep or other game animal, the better it will taste later on.

Bring as much tarp or plastic sheeting as you can; you can't have too many blue tarps on a hunting trip. That way, if you are caught in the rain you can build a small shelter to keep meat and yourself dry.

''It's how the meat is taken care of more than anything else,'' said Virgil Umphenour, hunting guide and owner of Interior Alaska Fish Processors, which also processes game meat, last fall.

''If you get a good, clean, almost instant kill and butcher it immediately and hang the meat immediately, that's the most important thing,'' he said.

The best way to cool meat is to remove it from the body of the animal. The quicker you do that the better off you will be.

Even if you shoot a moose, caribou or sheep late at night, you should tend to it that night instead of waiting for daylight, advises Dave Kelleyhouse, a longtime Alaska big-game hunter and retired state wildlife biologist.

''Start a fire and start skinning,'' Kelleyhouse said. ''Get the hide and hair off the quarters and let 'em cool. Get 'em off the ground, get them hair free.

''It really helps taking that carcass apart. By taking the hind quarters off and taking the front shoulders off, you're cooling everything down.''

Here are a few tips on meat care:

Keep it clean

Bring a small tarp or some Visqueen to place meat on after it is cut from the animal.

You can use the skin as a temporary clean spot but it's nice to be able to set meat aside from your working area where you won't accidentally kick dirt or grass onto it.

While you skin the animal, be careful to keep the meat over the hide and not to let it roll into the dirt or against hair. This is especially important when handling rutting moose. Rinse off any rumen, bile or urine that gets on the meat.

Take extreme care not to puncture any organs, especially the stomach, which will taint the meat.

Keep it dry

Use heavy, canvas game bags instead of the cheaper, cheesecloth-type bags that rip easily. You can wash and reuse canvas bags year after year, which saves you money in the long run.

Bring as much tarp or plastic sheeting as you can; you can't have too many blue tarps on a hunting trip. That way, if you are caught in the rain you can build a small shelter to keep meat and yourself dry.

If you are in a raft, devise a rack to keep the meat off the floor of the raft.

Never store meat in plastic bags.

Cover your game bags at night with a tarp to prevent frost or dew from wetting the bags.

Keep it cool

Do whatever it takes to keep meat cool. Keep it in the shade and keep air circulating around it. Pack the meat to the woods if you must to get it out of the sun.

Building a shelter over a source of cool air, such as a mountain spring, stream or lakeshore, can help.

Bring trash compactor bags (they won't rip) that are big enough to hold large pieces of meat and submerge them in a stream or lake to keep the meat cool, if you have to.

Make sure you don't allow any water in the bag. Submerge the meat during the day and remove it at night, hang it and let the crust form.

Let a crust form

If flies or hot weather aren't a problem, let the pieces sit out on the tarp and form a crust before you put them in the game bags. This makes the game bags less bloody and much less attractive to flies.

Don't bone out your meat unless you have to. Reduce the surface area of meat by leaving it in large pieces and you won't lose nearly as much to trimming later on.

When you get the meat to camp, hang it in a tree, on a rack or in a small stand of alders. The hanging area should be close enough to camp to see, but not so close that a bear could cause problems.

Tim Mowry is a reporter for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.