Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting A 'just in case' pays off

Most of these ideas using winches use electric winches of some kind. If you won't be needing it for something else during the off season, here are a few ideas for other tools that might be cheaper and easier.

First, there's a hand boat winch for $30 or $40. It'll do the job just as well as an electric but just not as convenient. It'll also last for your lifetime. An 800 hand winch will load any deer. If you hunt elk, get a bigger winch or add a snatch block to double the pulling power. Also, you don't need to mess with running power to it. At today's prices for heavy wire, powering an electric winch can get expensive. Ebay has better prices on hand winches than Amazon.

Those stiff steel winch cables can be troublesome at times. Both Ebay and Amazon carry 50' of 1/4" Dyneema winch rope for under $20. It's much stronger than the steel cable on most hand winches. It might take a bit of head scratching to get it to adapt to a hand winch but it's doable.

A come-a-long will work for loading, too, but it's slower and the length of pull is too short for many uses. However, in the off season, you'll probably find more uses for it than you will a hand winch.
A variation of the come-a-long is a rope puller. It's a come-a-long but it feeds a continuous heavy rope instead of winding a cable on a spindle. They're more expensive but one with a 20' rope will give you 18' or more of pull. You can get them with up to 200' of rope but those get pricey and wrestling 200' of rope is a real pain. Probably the ultimate with these things is the Wyeth-Scott More-Power Puller. They're great but will cost about $400.

If you opt for an electric winch, check Ebay for the wire. They have some good prices on 10 to 6ga cables in various lengths, MUCH better than Amazon prices. Some of the sellers sell by the foot so you can buy exactly what you need.

A lot of good suggestions here.

Yes, lifting the critters into the trucks is tough for old guys. And i think the more modern pick boxes are a little higher off the ground.

Back in the day before i started to get old :-], my 'deer loading' education was advanced when i was hunting alone and took a large buck. Weighed bout the same as myself.

Necessity prompts creativity. Got the buck near the pickup. Lowered the tailgate by disconnecting the tailgate chains. and used a come-along attached to a rope around the antler bases. Kept the come-along mechanism by the buck, and hooked onto the stake pocket up by the truck cab. Worked ok. I could work the lever and guide the buck along. yeah, it took me a while, but it was kinda easy once i got the deer moving.

used the same come-along to hang the deer in my garage.

Some years later i used the same rig to load a bigger buck into a pickup so the 3 old guys there didnt get a hernia. Told the other 2 guys that i expected compensation for my marvelous mechanical skills. they rewarded me later with libations of Christian Brothers mixed with the usual hunting crew verbal abuse.

Can't pick up heavy critters by hand anymore, my bumper basket and winch works very well. Rio7

Love the humor. All too true!