To drag or to carry? That is the question!

[Bugsy]

Some thoughts from and bitter experience.

1) only squeeze the trigger once you are confident of the extraction, and if extraction will be a ballache then don’t squeeze the trigger

2) Roe sacks are mostly very poorly designed as a load carrying device

3) dragging is hard work. I am not convinced sleds make it any easier. If I drag then rope around head and just drag - if its grass, bog and its a little wet makes it a lot easier

4) well designed frame packs - aka American type packs are designed to carry heavy loads, and put the weight properly on your hips via the waist belt. And are long enough for most adult sized men. With a big load you want the weight properly distributed. Roe or Sika sacks don’t do this.

5) if you can reduce the size of the bits you need to carry. Consider that skin, bones etc will only be discarded at the other end so keep the haunches hole, take off the backstraps and fillets, and bone out the shoulders, and take off the meat on the rib cage. Plenty of crows, raptors and small birds (blue tits etc) all will welcome the pickings off the rest of the carcass. Worth chopping / breaking into smaller bits so that it can easily be dispersed.

But appreciate that in many places not really an option to cut up the carcass.

6) often though carrying considerably easier than dragging. Spreading the load with a few people really helps. A pole with animal slung below is traditional way of carrying a whole animal in many parts of the world. Stretchers and stretcher carts have been used / still are used in many places.

7) Quads argos etc all work but are expensive and can make quite a mess to the ground so not always popular. Helicopters are brilliant.

But if you can, best to take a beast where it is easily extracted.

Heym , when I’m dragging I puncture in through the tongue and create a slot where I push a rope through and tie around the bottom jaw so it keeps the head pulling nose first , a fella showed me once how to slip the rope around the head and then around the nose to drag it but needless to say I wasn’t paying enough attention and can’t do it . Do you do it this way ?

 

[Bugsy]

Because I don't live your way the dreich days are my favourite. I have friends that live your way and have a open invite when ever I like and the same invite is extended to them that they can stalk with me when ever.

Your a lucky man if it’s an open invite , nice thing about down here is the fact there’s roe , sika , red and a few hybrids . My mate is coming over from Ireland in feb for for the last days of the hinds .

 

[Paul 600]

Heym , when I’m dragging I puncture in through the tongue and create a slot where I push a rope through and tie around the bottom jaw so it keeps the head pulling nose first , a fella showed me once how to slip the rope around the head and then around the nose to drag it but needless to say I wasn’t paying enough attention and can’t do it . Do you do it this way ?

Lasso of your choice around the neck and a half hitch around the nose. Even better if you use a forestry cone as it will not snag on stumps etc.

 

[nun_hunter]

Heym , when I’m dragging I puncture in through the tongue and create a slot where I push a rope through and tie around the bottom jaw so it keeps the head pulling nose first , a fella showed me once how to slip the rope around the head and then around the nose to drag it but needless to say I wasn’t paying enough attention and can’t do it . Do you do it this way ?

Tie the rope around the neck then with the end you're pulling on make a simple loop. Place this loop over the nose or lower jaw so the end from the neck goes over the end you're pulling. This way when you pull the rope it'll tighten the loop on itself around the nose/jaw and stop it sliding off.

 

[Pete6.5]

Your a lucky man if it’s an open invite , nice thing about down here is the fact there’s roe , sika , red and a few hybrids . My mate is coming over from Ireland in feb for for the last days of the hinds .

I was a very lucky man to have a good friend that was a head stalker on rannoch moor. When he retired as a stalker he had the stalking on an estate as a perk of the job. I used to come up stalking with him every year and as you can imagine he had tons of contacts and through him I met lots of people and I call them good friends.

 

[Selous]

Ooooh..... Any pics?

Like this?

 

[yellow belly]

Hi Tim

Depends on the ground being dragged over somewhat (relatively flat..), however if beasts are tied in well and the barrel pulled slowly it works well.

With a ramp on my tailgate the barrel slides up and into the pickup (sometimes using a rope/pulley set up to assist).

R

I use the half barrel method on shitty clearfells on reds and it works well. Tie it in well and pick the best route out and it'll work a treat! If you use just one half of one whole barrel, it will fit between the wheel arch of a tuck and tie it up to the bulk head and keep it stored there without taking up your all load bed space!

 

[bogtrotter]

Half my life ago I was stalking professionally (as a job) on an estate where they now hold gamefairs. Mainly Fallow, generally in woodland where mighty oaks had been cut down and hauled out. You couldn't get in with a vehicle,even a quad as Olympic swimming events could have been held in the ruts left after extraction.
Most hauls would be at least half a mile uphill to a road but one wood was three miles long with a road at each end. I got hold of a Fallow sack made by a chap from Aberdeenshire and although it was a struggle to get on your back when full, it was easier than dragging. Several time after shooting six or seven animals I would get half of them out, hang the rest and go back the next morning. I found the sack with a breastplate strap much easier than carrying on my shoulders, which I did at first. Oh to be as fit now as I was at forty.

I will second that last bit.

 

[Adyb]

Great thread covering a genuinely universal stalkers problem - I like "dont shoot if extraction will be a ballache", unfortunately where I hunt it's almost always a ballache. My Alpine extraction methods as follows (for what they are worth):
1) Carry, I will lug the gralloched animal on my back if not too big. Chamois/roe/small boar etc. I've experimented with special frame rucksacks but now come to the conclusion they only add weight. Trusty osprey rucksack has the best support once you figured out how to strap and or balance the load. (Accross the top most of the time for a whole animal)
2) drill winch (mine is warne type with dewalt 18v power drill, replaced the steel cord with dyneena from Kanirope so got a good 30m on drum). Will pull a 200kg red stag out of a ravine but only for shortish distances (a battery will do about 3 30m steps - I got 5).
3) long ropes and spit pulleys - decent rope rigs and a bit of practice can get you 200m from the 4x4
4) manual drag with/without rope(s) - ground always too rocky to bother with sledges. Making a pulling handle from a sapling helps a lot. - as all know backbreaking work, helping hands make the difference if you have some.
5) butcher in place - do this more and more now, hang the quaters/strips in cooler as soon as back home. Gets you fresh clean meat and doesn't take long once you done it a few times.

 

[Heym SR20]

Great thread covering a genuinely universal stalkers problem - I like "dont shoot if extraction will be a ballache", unfortunately where I hunt it's almost always a ballache. My Alpine extraction methods as follows (for what they are worth):
1) Carry, I will lug the gralloched animal on my back if not too big. Chamois/roe/small boar etc. I've experimented with special frame rucksacks but now come to the conclusion they only add weight. Trusty osprey rucksack has the best support once you figured out how to strap and or balance the load. (Accross the top most of the time for a whole animal)
2) drill winch (mine is warne type with dewalt 18v power drill, replaced the steel cord with dyneena from Kanirope so got a good 30m on drum). Will pull a 200kg red stag out of a ravine but only for shortish distances (a battery will do about 3 30m steps - I got 5).
3) long ropes and spit pulleys - decent rope rigs and a bit of practice can get you 200m from the 4x4
4) manual drag with/without rope(s) - ground always too rocky to bother with sledges. Making a pulling handle from a sapling helps a lot. - as all know backbreaking work, helping hands make the difference if you have some.
5) butcher in place - do this more and more now, hang the quaters/strips in cooler as soon as back home. Gets you fresh clean meat and doesn't take long once you done it a few times.

There is a lot of whinging about butchering in place, generally from the bunny hugging echo warriors. However when you think about a lot of hunting is done in areas of very marginal soil fertility, and the nutrients from the remains of a dead deer are naturally being returned to enable the regrowth of the vegetation from which it came. It’s all part of the rich circle of life.

By contrast lugging out a whole carcass and then using lots of energy to transport to larder, cool the whole carcass, then transport it further only for 50% - the skin and bones ti then be disposed off - probably in landfill really seems rather a waste. Quite why our system cannot cope with chopping up in the field, taking of the usable parts and leaving the rest does seem rather at odds - especially in the more remote parts of the country.

Take of haunches, backstraps and shoulders, straight into meat bags - definitely not polythene bags - they sweat and onto a frame pack where it cools then down to the larder to hang results in just as good meat than taking the whole carcass.

 

[Sol]

Yeah I've always wondered why butchering in the field isn't common here, I understand a lot of people sell to the game dealer so the carcass has to stay whole but there's also plenty of folk that dont.

Dry-aging bags, while I've never used them seem like they would do the job to get that aged flavour into the haunches and backstraps, Or instead of a chiller you could buy a dry ageing fridge?

 

[John Gryphon]

40 odd years ago in my 30`s i picked up fallow bucks big and small. Trophy/non trophy. Sometimes with a hand from a mate to get them up and balanced and the trick is once you have them across your shoulders you do not put them down. If you need a rest lean on a tree or sit on a fallen log. I see no problem for younger fellas dealing with those little roe and any fit rugger type bloke can carry fallow and red hinds out the same way. These days i`m smarter (?) and shoot within a cable length of ute access.
Sambar any further out are as a necessity broken down into 1/4s for a pack frame carry...i do love the big strong young ****s that come out for a hunt with me..they are dumb like i used to be ha ha.

 

[Freeforester]

I’ve suggested electric wheelbarrow type machines before, variations in the theme are possible, from tracked to wheeled, capacity, etc (Said the now older and possibly wiser man from Aberdeenshire responsible for the roe/sika/fallow sacks of yore, with as yet a sound back!)

Google Search

sometimes keeping it simple is better

 

[JH83]

40 odd years ago in my 30`s i picked up fallow bucks big and small. Trophy/non trophy. Sometimes with a hand from a mate to get them up and balanced and the trick is once you have them across your shoulders you do not put them down. If you need a rest lean on a tree or sit on a fallen log. I see no problem for younger fellas dealing with those little roe and any fit rugger type bloke can carry fallow and red hinds out the same way. These days i`m smarter (?) and shoot within a cable length of ute access.
Sambar any further out are as a necessity broken down into 1/4s for a pack frame carry...i do love the big strong young ****s that come out for a hunt with me..they are dumb like i used to be ha ha.

Trouble is most of our deer are full of ticks (certainly where I’m at anyway) and I really, really don’t fancy Lyme disease. pulling keds out of my hair doesn’t endear me to the mrs either

I keep them at arms length and drag. I have a wee quad for big stuff and a winch in the truck bed. Roe just get dragged…I am a big dumb rugger type though I guess, so I’ll still shoot them in awful areas

Butchering in the field isn’t an option, the only deer I’d really need to do this with are always destined for the dealer, reds.

 

[Too Deer]

So, the advice seems to be that in the UK, dragging (on foot, with a winch, or towing with a car/quad) is just the way it's done.

I find that interesting considering the popularity of "packing out" deer, particularly in the US. I get the fact that our terrain lends itself better to dragging but I am surprised that so few SD members carry their deer nonetheless.

I thought that something like this might be more common but alas it looks like I'll just have to invest in some blue barrels...... And a Jimny; thanks @SussexSteve

 

[John Gryphon]

Trouble is most of our deer are full of ticks

Ah those we dont have here in Victoria thank eff.

 

[Bavarianbrit]

Hornschlitten.
These makes sense, been used for hundreds of years in the alps to transport logs. Note the reduced ground contact area that should make dragging/pushing easier, you sit on it to control it downhill grabbing the two uprights and braking with your feet. Gives on you tube showing it working.

 

[kenbro]

Think I have tried most things for Fallow but now using a game cart. Folds down and wheels can come off if needed. Works better than dragging. Some have portable winches that are another option but expensive.

Muddy Outdoors MGC400 The Mule Game Cart​

+1 for a small winch and knowing how to use it properly.
K.

 

[Pard 007]

Yep pulling the trigger is the easy bit. Don't shoot hundreds but have a double think about the extraction.beforehand

 

[John Gryphon]

@alberta boy May have seen or remember the Canucks using what looks like a painters plank with one motorised wheel in use in the back country,if you do mate can you enlighten us?