How do you take your game out?

[reinert]

Deer always get dragged out, however far, in one piece; no problems there, thankfully, even at my age (so far! I'll be 70 in a couple of months! ).

Elk, now that's a whole other animal (pun absolutely intended!). I've packed them out quartered on horseback, packed them out quartered on my back, and with the proper permit, I've boned them out on the spot and packed them out in separate meat bags. Whatever's "easiest," and that's a word that rarely is considered when working with a downed elk. Nonetheless, when the field dressing starts, my mind is always pretty much thinking of the word, "egress."


Didn't get an elk this year, didn't even get a shot... I'll save my "egress" energies for next year. I've got a good friend a bit older than me, and when there's a plan in the future, we've started to put the acronym, "ATP," at the end of a text or email. It keeps us covered; it means "All Things Permitting."

 

[North East Redneck]

Regarding deer, I've dragged them, carried them across rivers, quartered them hanging from a tree. Bought a game cart a few years ago, much easier to roll them out of the woods.

 

[schwob2]

I hunt a lot in the maintains for chamois. When I was younger, I mostly backpacked the animal down the hill. However, this can become quite dangourous as you have additional weight which pushed you downhill. After an accident :-( I prefer to drag my game downhill ...

 

[ballardw]

The "rule" the last few times I was on a big game hunt was "only shoot game uphill from an accessible road". So dragging/packing was all downhill.

Note that little of the hunting area had much of anything you would call flat and the slopes were steeper and higher than "rolling". Think ridge.

 

[The Happy kaboomer]

Back the truck up to it. Put the ramp in place and drag it up into the truck. OR. Drag it to the truck with 4 wheeler. Put down ramp and drag it up into the truck. IF, I shoot one that runs into a thick place I call a couple off friends for help.

 

[Geezerbiker]

That's what grandsons are for. "Boy's I need a hand here..."

Tony

 

[Schlitz 45]

My last two elk (both spikes) I de-boned all of the meat in the field, wrapped in the hide & strapped to a pack frame & humped it out on foot, not the easiest but not a lot of choices for the terrain I hunt.

 

[hps1]

Back the truck up to it. Put the ramp in place and drag it up into the truck. OR. Drag it to the truck with 4 wheeler. Put down ramp and drag it up into the truck.

Bad back has resulted in a number of different methods of recovery over the years. First solution was:

As the size of critters increased, the ramp became a better solution when transporting off ranch:

but usually use boom to pick up in pasture and transport to camp (both systems use same boat trailer winch mounted in truck bed:

When the critter is in an area not accessible to the pickup, use the jeep with ATV winch/boom on back of jeep to get out of the brush and transfer to truck at camp.

Regards,
hps