Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Can you pack out 1/2 of an elk yourself?

My buddy says the weight of our packs was 174 lbs of meat from the four quarters he dropped off at the processor. This means my pack was roughly 87 lbs without the weight of the pack and any additional items, i.e. Knives, water, etc.

My phone said our round trip distance was 9.78 miles.

really,

Every Sunday papers loaded front and back.
I was just contemplating this very option. was trying to figure out where I could find an old fashioned paper bag. had no idea they were already marketed

Only about ten times a season. 👍

Lets be serious here...at my age .the real question is can she make coffee?

Well, I was giving you credit for not toting ugly women around in the mountains...

The last elk I had custom processed was a big cow. Bone in, on the hook, she weighed 330. There's no possible way that I could carry 165lb.

If you were packing it on your back, you'd leave the bones in?

That's how I did my first one - unzipped him right down the middle of the spine with a hand saw. Took the ribs and neck. Could only do a quarter at a time, though. I was a lot younger and dumb as a brick when it came to elk hunting. (Sometimes I think the only thing that has changed is my age.) It was a nasty, uphill job. Learned the benefits of hunting uphill that trip.

Have never done another one that way and never will again. These days it is not even an option.

Even I'm not that much of a fool.

Left yes, right no!

Then I don't understand your comment about not being able to carry out half of a bone-in elk carcass.

I could pack half a boned out cow on my back at the tender age of 60. Picture shows me with 114 lbs. of meat on my back after climbing out of the canyon. It was 128 lbs. total with pack and gear. Last year at the age of 65, 80 or 90 lbs. about crippled me in a short and fairly level pack of about 1/4 mile. So no, I won't be packing half an elk any more! Usually its three trips per elk anyway.

You fellas are tougher than I am.

I do know a girl who has packed out a bull or 2 whole, including the head and horns, and she preferred a system similar to the OP.

She liked to split the weight left and right.



Another whole bull.



She has done it more than a few times but at 1300 Lbs she is sort of strong.

It figures that a guy who's too lazy to sneak in close would take the easy way out....

That's how I would pack one out!

I did it last year taking 1/2 my 4x5 in my exo pack, 4 + miles back to the truck, I don't think I'll do it again, at 49 I'm starting to learn.

Not any more!!!
Don't even try...

I hauled 1 1/4 elk out in 3 trips/days this year. We shot 3 bulls with our day packs and each hauled 1/4 out that day. The next day I hauled half of my buddies 5x5 on my pack frame. That was easier than hauling a 1/4 on my day pack. The next day I packed out half of my 6x4 bull. The trips were over 7 miles a day. My cow was much easier. I drove the 4 wheeler right up to her. The most I've pack out of a single elk was 3/4 of a spike bull. My dad carried a hind quarter and I carried the rest out. The heaviest load I've ever semi weighed is my moose head with cape and most of a hind quarter. Without the frame it was 147lbs. So it was over 150lbs with the frame and wet from being snowed on.

To consistently kill elk on public ground you have to be in good shape and be willing to pack them out or have horses. I bet I've packed out part or all of 30+ elk on my back and I've shot most of those 30+. It does get harder and slower as you get older though. Now that I'm in the back half of my 40's I have to think a bit more about where I shoot stuff. In my 20's I didn't care where it was.

I have been known to make it even easier.

Last year I packed out each half of an average-sized cow, with hide on and bones in (but lower legs off) in two trips out of a deep but not super-steep draw. But I had it on a Neet Kart with my wife Eileen steering the front end. There's a reason humans invented the wheel a long, long time ago.