By Jeff Obrecht, Publications Writer

After checking several dust-covered, sun-baked pronghorn at a check station shortly after I moved here 22 years ago, a veteran, salty game warden poised this rhetorical question: After going to the grocery store, would you open the packages of meat and cheese and strap them along with other perishables on top of the car and then drive around on dirt roads?

That question has stuck with me over the years and helped prompt my field care ethic.

When the weather is warm, you should treat your game - even big game - just like your groceries.

Obviously, some think big game -- particularly pronghorn and deer -- are impervious to losing their table quality. It's not uncommon to see these carcasses strapped to the top of vans and SUVs returning to Indiana and other points scattered across the continent under the warm October sun of Indian Summer. Many veteran hunters with discerning palates are convinced field care neglect is the main reason pronghorn have been tagged with the undeserved rap of being strong flavored and only fit for sausage or jerky.

Granted, there aren't many coolers big enough to hold a whole deer or pronghorn - but they sure can in pieces - and the pieces can actually be pretty big. Coolers large enough to handle deer or pronghorn front and hindquarters are common these days. Put the quarters - and they don't necessarily have to be skinned - in high quality trash bags and place in the cooler with ice blocks or frozen milk jugs.

The key is having a fairly clean place to quarter the animal so you don’t get the exposed meat portions of your quarters violated with dirt. Now, I can tell you from experience that in the absence of trees to hang the animal, deer and pronghorn carcasses can be wrestled (literally) on a tailgate or a clean tarp on the ground and quartered. That's a great technique if you're looking for a challenge and want to get hair all over you.

Engineering and technology to the rescue. I'm not a gadget guy. In fact, I'm rather miserly. But for any pronghorn or desert/plains deer hunter, the $100 or so for a tripod hoist is one of the best hunting investments around. They set up quick and are plenty sturdy. You get the carcass suspended just like it was hanging from a beam in your garage or a sturdy limb and with that can proceed to do full-fledged boning if you have the time. Just like a range finder or maybe an electronic dog collar, the initial outlay may seem a little frivolous, but when you really need it, there's not only absolutely no regrets, you're amazed at your intelligence and preparation. I've also seen hoists assembled off a vehicle's receiver hitch.

In addition to knives, bags, ice and water, a cutting board is a valuable field butchering tool. There's some thin fiberglass and durable plastic out there that work dandy. So will a hunk of plywood.

Be advised if you do any big game dismantling to protect the meat, leave evidence of sex attached to the carcass if your license or hunt area requires it. For example, if the area is antlered deer or elk leave evidence that it's a male on the hindquarter. Same for a doe/fawn deer or pronghorn license - leave part of the udder attached or with a buck fawn part of the genitals. (The size of the ID feature lets officers know it was a fawn.) Any deer, elk or antelope licenses don't need evidence of sex since any animal was legal - but it's a good idea to leave it anyway just to stay in practice and are less likely forget on your next restricted license.

And if you've got multiple dismantled animals in coolers, please keep the pieces of each animal together and as easily identifiable as possible. So, in other words, please don't put all the party's backstraps in one cooler, all shoulder blades in another, etc. If the individual animals are sacked together it really makes a field check easier and more efficient and gets you down the road much quicker.