Shipping Hides/Antlers

[COOSEFAN]

I am trying to plan for additional expenses that I will run into on my Alaska trip. If everything goes as planned, I'm hoping to have two Moose racks and two Caribou racks and hides/meat to gat back home! What is the best way to deal with the meat? What is the best things to do with the antlers? Will I have to split skull plates? Do any of you have good/bad experiences with shipping these items before? And my main question is "how much $ should I plan on paying in order to ship these items back home?" I'm sorry for buggin' you all with all my questions, my outfitter has been "out-to-sea" for the past couple of months, so I have gotten very little info since. His wife keeps telling us to be patient, everything will be great, don't worry, he'll be getting us all the info we need! GREAT.......but, it's only a month away! Oh well..thanks for any reply's. JIM>

[coueshunter]

Jim, get on Monster Muleys and send HunterHarry an email and post this question there. I am pretty sure you will have to split the skull plate but if you get a bull that is B&C potential, then they probably have a carrier that can air ship the horns as is without any skull splitting. As for the meat, once its frozen, you can carry on some of it in boxes as additional luggage ( just check the weight maximum's) and then pay for the rest to either be extra luggage checked on your plane or shipped. When I came back from Kodiak, we packaged my deer meat in an empty suitcase and checked it on as an additional bag. The horns were real small compared to a moose, so they were not an issue. Just post this question on MM and you should get some good responses that will help out.............Allen..........

[COUESAZ]

I have seen full sets of moose antlers come up the lugage shoots at sky harber. They were not split at all. They were not even wraped up. Just the actual skull plate was shrink wraped. The carabue would make me nervous because they are weaker.

[ajohunter]

The only time you might have to split the skull late is if it will not fit in the bush plane or it is unable to be tied to the struts on the bush plane. You can bring the antlers back as checked luggage, but like was said earlier you must wrap the skull plate and cover the sharp ends of the antler tips. Some people have their meat processed and bring it back in ice chests as checked luggage. I had my moose and caribou meat processed in Fairbanks and they shipped it to me air freight on Alaska Airlines. The cost was around $140 if i remember. The day they put it on the plane they called me on the phone with the flight informaton and i picked up my still frozen meat at the Air Cargo Terminal at sky harbor. Hope this helps.

[billrquimby]

The skullplate of my moose from the Yukon had to be split to fly the antlers out in a little SuperCub. I didn't mess with trying to get the antlers/cape home myself. I left that up to the outfitter, who shipped them direct to my taxidermist in San Antonio. I don't remember what it cost, but it didn't seem that expensive at the time.

 

I would have loved to have taken some moose meat home, but I was lucky to get out of our camp at the edge of the Arctic Circle at all that winter.

 

I was the last client of the season and my guide and I were stuck in a 12x12-foot shack made of 1/4-inch plywood for 12 extra days by bad weather. When we finally had an opening in the clouds, the outfitter arrived in his 'Cub, and landed on skis on a "landing strip" the guide and I stamped out on the ridge above us. There was room in that little plane for only him, me and my rifle and gear. He brought out the guide, meat and trophy parts in three or four more flights after I left.

 

The outfitter flew me straight from the camp to Dawson City where I caught a commercial plane to Vancouver BC, but there was no time to change clothes before boarding. I flew out wearing the same heavy wool hunting clothes I'd worn for three weeks.

 

The Canadians on that plane apparently were used to smelly hunters, but the deskclerk at a five-star hotel, the closest hotel I could find near Vancouver's airport, certainly wasn't. He must have thought I was homeless, or worse, because before I could say anything he looked at me and greeted me with, "You know, our rates are v-e-r-y expensive." I wanted a bed and bath so badly that I didn't care what it cost.

 

Other oufitters took care of shipping my caribou antlers and capes to San Antonio, but I did bring home elk and Siberian roe deer antlers and capes from Mongolia with me. Air Mongolia wanted $400 in excess baggage costs for each passenger's third piece of "luggage," and each of the twelve Americans on this trip had brought a duffel bag and a rifle case. We got around having to pay $4,800 by splittlng the skulls and duct taping the antlers of all twelve of our elk and making two huge $400 packages -- one for the capes; the other for antlers. We protected the tips of each antler with short pieces of garden hose that we'd brought specifically for that purpose. A represenatative from Jonas Brothers Taxidermy in Seattle (we'd booked our hunts through them) was waiting for us when we landed in San Francisco, and took everything off our hands.

 

Usually shipping a substantial amount of meat home is not worth the effort, but moose meat is a different matter. It's the best game meat you'll taste on this continent.

 

Bill Quimby

[DEERSLAM]

On my caribou hunt in the Northwest Territories coming up in Sept. it will cost an extra $100.00 for each set of antlers that are unsplit. And that's just to get them back to Yellowknife. Not sure what it's going to cost to get em all they way home. If they don't make book they are getting split for sure. I'll just have to take some measurements for the taxi.

[Red Rabbit]

Jim,

If you split the skull plate, I'd suggest that you saw the plate with a sideways V as opposed to straight line between the pedicles (helps the taxi align the antlers on the form). Pieces of garden hose help protect the antler tips. Check w/ your taxidemist how he would prefer them. Figure maybe one pound of boned meat per quart of ice chest.

 

RR

[COOSEFAN]

Great info guys! Thanks. My buddy that is hunting with me is a Taxidermist, so he'll do the skull splitting, I'm not too worried about record books myself but we'll see when/if the time comes! I will continue to look into it, let you know what I do, thanks again! JIM>

[Outdoor Writer]

If you attempt to bring in the caribou racks without splitting the skull plates, take either a 1" diameter branch or a piece of 1" x2" that's a couple inches wider than the midway part of the rack width. Then tie it across the beams with twine and cover the twine with several layers of duct tape. It will help keep the rack from getting broken. Not sure when you're going, but if it's early, the antler tips might still be soft. So as others suggested, either duct tape the tips well with a piece of cardboard over the very tip or add a short length of garden hose. I've brought 'bou racks from AK, NWT and BC this way with no problem. But they will charge you extra, and how much depends on the airline.

 

I split my red deer antlers so the shipping crate from NZ didn't have to be huge since international air shipping goes more by volume rather than weight. If you do split racks, best way is to cut about 7/8 of the way through the plate from nose to back end, then twist the plate so the remaining part breaks. It then provides a good starting point for lining up the plate to put it back together because sawing it leaves an obvious gap the thickness of the blade.

 

I put mine back together by first drilling two holes on each side, fitting the joint together and putting long sheetrock-type screws through the skull plate into a 6' long piece of 2" x 8". That served as a heavy enough base to keep the antlers steady while I applied fiberglass resin and cloth to the joint. Once that dried, I took the screws out and did the same to the backside of the joint. Of course, you can also adjust accordingly to the spread you'd like.

 

If you do kill two 'bous and two moose, it might a be a lot cheaper to have them shipped to you by a local taxdermist up there. The green hides are VERY heavy. The one from my BC moose weighed 60+ lbs. by itself and the antlers were about 45, if I recall. Fortunately I had driven my own vehicle on that hunt.

 

Maybe someday if we ever get together, I'l tell you about the funny incident that happened on my way home with the moose antlers tied on top of my Coleman canoe, which was atop my shell on a Nissan 4x4. Let's just say the park rangers in Jellystone NP get nervous when they see moose antlers that aren't attached to a live moose. -TONY

[COOSEFAN]

Thanks Tony, I have never heard of the twisting the skull plate trick, but makes perfect sense, I'll remember that. I also didn't think about the weight factor of the fresh hides, that woudl be ALOT of weight if we fill all our tags! I'll check into that as well. That would be an adventure driving through the park with antlers strapped on! Thanks, JIM>