Hauling game out from the back country

james2562 · Aug 13, 2012

Are there any solo hunters that go hunting in the back country and have to hike a couple of miles out with their game?

How do you do it? do you butcher the animal on site and hump out as mich as you can carry? do you drag it out on a litter? How do you get you deer, elk, etc out?

Mark W. · Aug 13, 2012

Traditionaly it has been Backpacking as much as possible out in as many trips as it takes or as many friends backs as it takes. Other options are the Elk cart a cross between a irrigation pipe trailer and a wheel barrow. I have also seen a guy use a modified old ladies shopping cart the kind with two wheels pulled along behind. He modified it with larger air inflated tires from Harbor frieght and then put a longer handle on the cart. It still folded up to be packed in. He had to put the wheels on it once it was unfolded. But he was able to haul an ELk cape and head/rack out in one trip with some of the choice cuts. Then on the second trip he managed the rest of the meat. between the cart and his pack.

But yes quartering the animal is a must.

Rock solid · Aug 13, 2012

Depends on the size of the animal, the terrain, and the weather conditions. Typicly I bone it out and take as much as I can on the first trip then come back with the pack frame and make as many trips as nessisary. If it's a bad location I might run into town to call a friend for help. If I'm on an old closed logging road I'll use a mountain bike to speed up the process. I put it all in game bags and hang whatever I'm leaving from a tree limb high enough and far enough away from the trunk to be out of reach, And make sure to make plenty of noise on the way back incase something is snacking on your kill.

deadeye · Aug 13, 2012

This may help.........http://www.northwestfirearms.com/hunting/25560-hauling-elk-out-woods.html

Twodogs · Aug 13, 2012

I hunt alone and have used my Rokon many time as my pack mule.

nwwoodsman · Aug 13, 2012

Put a wheel barrow in the back of your truck. You can easily pile in the quarters and head and strap it down

Redcap · Aug 13, 2012

I have a skidder. It goes anywhere I please.

Velzey · Aug 14, 2012

Most roads are closed in the Imnaha unit I hunt. No motor vehicles of any kind. I debone and pack out on my pack frame. Be prepared to spend the night, as most of my sucess has been just before dark. But thats what flashlights are for.

jbett98 · Aug 14, 2012

Here's a sad story related to this post.
I was building a custom redwood deck a few years ago in Portland. It was a new house and every time I used my 10" 15 amp beam saw that was plugged into an outside outlet, it tripped the GFIC (ground fault interrupter circuit) breaker inside the house.
The reset plug was located inside the kitchen, not outside where I was working. If the homeowner's wife wasn't available to reset the outlet, I was done for the day, so I asked her if I could run a heavy duty electrical cord under the garage door so I wouldn't be without power when she left.

She opened the garage door for me and while I was laying out the power cord, I mentioned that GFIC outlets were a pain, but were a great safety invention.
She pointed to the concrete floor were a large pockmark in the new concrete slab was, and said to never mention the word GFIC to her husband.
She said that he would go ballistic and please don't ever talk to him about it.
I had to ask, because he was the nicest guy I had met in a long time and why would he be so upset with them.

The year before, he had drawn an elk tag on the coast, and after three days of hard rain soaked hunting, finally got his trophy elk.
It was miles from the road and down at the bottom of a very steep valley. After hiking out with the first pack load, he threw his back out.
He struggled with each load, but managed to get it all out.
Had it professionally butchered and wrapped and stuffed it all in a new freezer. Problem was, the electrician hadn't installed a dedicated 20 amp plug in the garage.
Every garage plug was wired to a GFIC plug, and when the new freezer kicked on, it tripped without him knowing about it.
Four days later he starts to smell something rotten.
He ripped the GFCI out of the wall and took a ball peen hammer to it on the garage floor. She opened a work bench drawer and showed me the broken pieces he had hammered to bits. I asked why he kept the pieces of the GFCI, if it made him so mad.
She said every so often his back injury would flare up, and he would take a piece and beat the hell out of it. She said it made him feel better.