Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Winching out Elk setup...

Fred is fickle...He wants a bidet 💦 😎

Any luck? I’ve searched high and low and haven’t found them.

Neighbor is from Oregon. He kept a spare rim with no tire and a hole cut in it he could put a line through and tie a bolt or something on to keep it from pulling out. Then he’d jack up the rear of his 1975 Scout and bolt that puppy on and have a gas powered winch. I never saw it work in person but he had an old VHS home video that made it look pretty skookum.

We usually measure the distance to the road in miles from our elk kills but I got lucky this year. Walked 12 miles hunting from daylight to nearly dark and I get 200yds from my wheeler and a bull runs across the trail in front of me. I rolled him up as he ran through an opening in the oakbrush and he fell about 250 yards from the trail. Of course since CO changed the rules a few years ago I still had to quarter him and pack it all to the wheeler but it was flat and easy going.

Yes, I’ve owned this Capstan Winch for a few seasons..Works fine. Easy to pack down a mountain, but it’s a slow pull. 😎





Here are the two main ways of pulling out an animal...Attach the securing cable for the Winch around a tree or stump, then maintaining a slight and consistent pulling with your hand on the free rope that is wrapped 3 times around the drum, this is necessary to make the line attached to the animal pull towards you. As the animal moves up towards you, you have a pile of retrieved rope laying at your feet that has unwrapped off the drum. This way is best performed with 2 people. One to run the winch, the other to tie off the rope on the animal, clear a path and remove snags that will halt the pull.

The other way is tie off your rope around a tree, stump, ATV, trailer hitch or whatever is heavy and unmoving...Then you can take the winch and rope line down to the animal. Cut slits in the rear legs to run the securing cable through the openings and bolt the cable to the winch...Now you are working the winch at the same time as the animal is coming up with you.

This last way is the only way I’ve been able to retrieve deer and elk solo and whole. I can see my winch path, remove obstacles before me and run the winch by pulling the rope through the winch drum...Yes, I have winched out several elk and deer with the Capstan alone.

Youtube “Capstan winch hunting” and you’ll see how powerful these Honda motors are. Happy hunting! 😎

No, the 110cc ATC winch is a beast that takes up a few feet in the bed of truck. Huge compared to a Simpson winch. I've used those little capstans before.

Sounds like a wheel winch. People have made them at home. Bushwinch sells one commercially.


Bushwinch link

Sorry man, I checked iFish but the search function only seems to go back a few years. I might have a pic or email stashed someplace but haven't found it.

The beauty of that 110cc engine/tranny was the high and low range, all ready to go. I don't recall what was done for final gear reduction with the big heavy spool of wire rope though.

Gotcha...I think you’re speaking my language. 😎

That's not what I meant. I think the Japanese toilet designers said the Japanese equivalent of "Holy **** we're gonna need a bigger hole."