Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Is your tractor your off road vehicle?

This is a Longshot question, don't own an atv.
I do have a couple of tractors, front wheel assist, and both have front-end loaders
Usually I am horseback on these hunts but have been known to do a bit of Elk / moose recovery with old blue. This is about the only time I have ever these animals out in one piece. Anyone else? Cheers.

I never use my tractors for game recovery. The are we hunt is thick second or third growth eastern Ontario bush. We drag out and yes it is getting harder as the years pile on but there are no clear trails through there. At our second location in the Ottawa uplands near Renfrew, we drag out to the logging roads then load the deer onto the truck.

A tractor would work well on flat ground, they are unstable on hillsides.

Nick

No, a friend used to drive his Deere 25/10 with cab and a New Idea spreader to the bar.

Before 4 wheelers my cousin used a Cub Cadet 212 as his off road vehicle.
Ag type tires, chains made with truck cross links, deck off, it crawled around better than one would think. Much better than the "Gotta have 4wd in a 4wheeler" crowd would believe. Getting it done, just not pretty.

His son and i rode too many miles in a trailer behind that thing.
Putting up stands, turkey feeders.....

Scrap lumber, cable reels......

Today you need a $20k SxS, buy or build a shooting condo.....

comerade;
Top of the morning to you my cyber friend, I hope that the day 5 valleys east is looking to be one that behaves and you're all well.

We've only got one tractor and it's not set up with a front end loader.

It's interesting that Nick has mentioned that they're unstable on hillsides.......

A couple springs back I was doing some fire suppression cleanup work in the yard above the house.

Here's a shot of the driveway, which according to the GPS app is 105 yards long and drops about 100' from the main road down to the garage. The house is 85' drop I want to say.



There I was up and to the right of the photo, not paying sufficient attention to life - with a trailer behind the tractor - which is a 4x4 and always chained up all around - when I realized if I didn't turn downhill it was not going to stay upright....

It wasn't winter of course, but I did leave some "interesting" skid marks coming down the bank and I hit the road just on the other side of that stump on the right side of the photo.

A few days later my wife is in the yard, looks up the bank and asks, "Did you bring the tractor down there?!!!"

Well, actually dear....

We either backpack or use a modified plastic toboggan to get stuff out comerade, I don't own a quad either and honestly we try to hunt where you can't get to with one.

All the best.

Dwayne

Dwayne,

We used A/C WD-45s, a D-17, and a Farmall 300 to gather maple sap.
Almost always chained because it's always snowy or muddy.

It's not exactly flat around here, sudden shots of adrenaline did occur!




One thing to be very aware of is small things that will suddenly change your lean.
There have been a lot of tractors rolled on an otherwise safe slope, when they
ran an uphill wheel on a stump or groundhog mound, or the downhill wheel dropped
in a hole orsoft spot.

When you have her on a lean that you feel is...OK. 1 foot of sudden change
can kill you.

Before I got my ATV I used my Oliver 1850 as my "go down to the pasture as I'm too lazy to walk" ride.

kwg

Grew up running a WD-45. Good ole tractor. Lots of low end torque.

DF

Still have an Allis WD45, with the Freeman loader. I use it mostly to lift logs onto the sawmill. Crude but effective, no power steering. Also have the Allis Chalmers plow.

Nick

Renfrew? Isn't that where the Rideau Street Queen came from?

My father's late Uncle Jiggs was a well-known character back in the day. Most of what was known about him had to do with excessive alcohol use.There was a period of time when he was without a driver's license do to overindulgence. In those times, he would take a tractor down off the hill farm to the Central Hotel bar. One night, so the story goes, he and buddy, Buster, were on the way back up the hill, Jiggs operating the tractor and Buster riding the sway bars. At some point, Buster was overcome by the effects of alcohol and fell off, sliding down the bank at the side of the road. Jiggs unwrapped the log chain off the sway bars, climbed down the bank, looped the chain under Buster's arms and around his chest and proceeded to tow him the rest of the way home. Fortunately there were a couple of inches of snow on the ground. I heard this story from an old boy who'd come along shortly after it happened, saw the signs in the snow and figured out what happened. Later investigation confirmed it.

My brother has always been one for abusing tractors. He's always thought they were heavy duty pieces of equipment that you could just point and shoot. This, over the years, has probably been the issue closest to generating harsh words toward him. More than a couple of times it's been necessary to enlist the aid of the Amish neighbors and a team to rescue a tractor. I'm really surprised he hasn't killed himself on a tractor....yet.

I lost a good friend who tried using a tractor as a log skidder.

Most of my deer hunting these days is done in places where it's pretty easy to get a small tractor in and use it to haul a deer back to the house. I see no reason whatsoever for not utilizing something that makes life easier.

Thanks for the responses
For whatever reason, I thought a few others would have used theirs like I have mine. I have shot a few bull Elk, Deer etc on my land, usually in the morning at daylight as I go to open the shop.
Several years ago I tipped over a 6 point bull, then picked him up, removed the internal organs and then put him on the deck of my truck... and headed to a heating call( I do hvac work)
and then dropped the whole thing off at the local butcher for hanging.
People are accustomed to seeing dead Bull Elk around here but seldom on the deck of a service truck, while stopped at a customer's in town.
Count me in, yes I have( also) tipped over a tractor....none to much fun in that.Cheers

A fellow has to be careful what they ask though.
They are small and light for some applications.

The most excitement I ever had on a tractor was a WD, as a 14 or 15 year old kid.

Kickbaler wagon stacked full by hand.
I was shuttling wagons to the farm, instead of going to the far end where the field was road level, we went down the field road. And it's hill.
Just got started and the wagon was pushing, tried the brakes and the wheels started
turning backwards, just steered and prayed. A bale fell off the front of the wagon, ran it over. The road angled onto the pavement at an angle away from my intended direction, didn't consider turning. Ended up turning on the other end of the field.

Looking back on that. Most of our tractors shouldn't have tried that,and I was on the
smallest.

Two of the 60 kids in my high school class died when they turned tractors over on themselves, while cutting hay on steep hills. My nephew almost did the same, but luckily, the fender keep the tractor (Ford 7000) from tipping all the way over and crushing him. He still got pretty messed up over the deal. There were/are several places on Dad's farm he would not mow, because the hill was just too steep. Go two miles in any direction, and the ground flattened out and you could go anywhere you wanted.

Yes, we did use tractors or 4 wheelers to haul out deer, but often enough, in farm country, you could just drive your 2WD pickup (remember those?) right up to the deer and load them into the bed without any headaches. Nowadays, though, everyone has 4WD and/or tractors or 4 wheelers to get their deer out.
I do have a cousin who uses a horse and a little trailer he made just for that purpose, with a very low bed. He just drags the deer onto his little trailer and has the horse pull it out. He's the odd one out, though.

Would I use one, I suppose so. We have a Kubota, and I've used the bucket to move all manor of things, and to push up permanent stands etc. That said, I also put it over on it's side once due to a unique combination of angle, combined with an unseen patch of ice. Fortunately the roll bar was up but still. My crew also once airbagged a small tractor off of a fella who was much less fortunate than I was when his tractor went over on him. He did not make it and the tractor did some unsightly damage to his skull. I thought I was being as safe as I could on our tractor after attending that incident some years back, but one wrong move combined with ice and angle and boom on the side we went. I try to use the tractor on flat ground as much as possible, sidehilling can kill ya! I tend to use an ATV as it's not much work to toss a deer on the back rack. Anyway, whatever you do, be careful on any sort of angle and in rough terrain. It doesn't take much to put one over!

Hi Dwayne, well , I agree about not using a quad. I don't even own one. When it is my turn to harrow the roping arena, I will pay someone to do my shift.
I will drive a tractor, a backhoe, My pride stops me from getting on a quad or riding lawnmower.
Being prideful is a sin , however.
If I need to move something I have several horses and 2 tractors ( non Green)
I remember the first ad I saw in Outdoor Life( 1982 ish) for a 3 wheeled unit. I was convinced it just wouldn't catch on.
Predictably, well I couldn't predict much. Cheers