Oh hey, if we shoot a whitetail where a farmer offers to retrieve it with his front end loader, we'll take it! Besides getting stuck, soy bean stubble is hell on tires (tyres?). Farmer's fork lift is handy for processing too, easy up and down. But that's when we process HIS deer.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh
I hunt farmlands where ther are no trees. many times it's warm so skinning immediately is important.I got sick of trying to skin on the ground so I built this about 6-7 years ago. I was actually going to try to patent it but discovered some already being offered. Anyways, I don't leave home without it. Hope it helps. I bought the chain hoist at a pawn shop for $5.00.
Too cheap and too easy to buy versus building one. I pitched the winch and went with a 500 lb Harrington Mini Chain Fall. If you order the deluxe model you'll get an adjustable stabilizer foot which has worked well on my four wheeler.
By the way, in case you missed it, Jeremiah was a bullfrog.
The only thing I don't like with the majority of these hoists is that for skinning, when the carcass is hung via a gambrel, it has a tendecy to spin or twist as you work on it..
I much prefer hanging the carcass via two "S" hooks in the hocks, along the lines of coyote hunters set up..I also prefer that method of hanging when I come to butcher the carcass as well..
I used a cheap receiver hitch without the ball.2 3/8 oilfield tubing and two pulleys I had laying about the shop. The boat wench cost about 20 bucks it's a hand crank job.It has a slot in the top for a light for late jobs. It has held up over the years,the heaviest load was 2 boar hogs that weighed about 600 lbs total. Be sure to make it high enough to keep the deer or whatever from hitting the ground. OH,If you have ever barked your shins on a receiver hitch,with it sticking out to clear the tailgate you will hurt parts of your leg you never thought about before.
Just my opinion, but I have pretty much thought this one to death. I hunt in Pennsylvania and I drive a big four wheel drive. I often times go in and out of trails with my truck and it is hard to get a truck in and out of the woods without a hoist - let alone with something sticking out of the hitch 3 feet, or carrying it in the bed for a couple of weeks while I hunt.
There is a lot of aspects to look at when designing a Jib Crane for a truck. If you mount it to one bed side - it puts a lot of stress on that sides quarter panel and braces under the bed and causes lots of issues. You see these barrel hoists from time to time in the Harbor Freight paper.
The hitch mount ones is ok - if you can get it big enough to hoist the deer / elk etc high enough to get it in the bed, but in the end, you need a second winch for large animals to pull it into the bed. Even using round tube pipe - it is hard to get it to spin in the bore of a smaller pipe when there is a lot of weight on the hoist.
Third - have you checked the price of new steel lately? By the time you buy the box steel to go in the receiver and buy the box steel or pipe and plate to make the gusset's and wire or rod to weld and paint - plus a hand winch - you are looking at spending several hundred dollars. It's a lot of money for something you might use once or twice a year.
One or two of the pictures I saw posted didn't look bad, but a bunch of them looked pretty crude - like as if someone was afraid of getting blood on their shop floor or on their driveway.
a 50 lbs deer - you can hang from a branch of your apple tree in your yard, you don't need some fancy skinning post - to do that.
a 1000 lbs elk - the mast style jib crane is going to weigh almost as much as the Elk!
Just food for thought. These hoists are basically for skinning when trees are not nearby. There is absolutely no need for a second winch to get the animal from the hitch into the truck. You just rest the front of the deer on the tailgate and lower the hoist, pull animal in a little further and lower etc etc, Cost of steel for mine...... under $80.00. To weld it up. 30 minutes and a few venison steaks. The thing will last forever and mine has skinned at least 20 deer, 4 bears, 11 antelope. Right out in the field so the meat cools quickly which is especially important with lopes.I know that a lot of easterners do things different which is fine but out west we like to get the hide off right now.
Not trying to be arguementative but in your situation it may not be needed at all. Where I hunt deer I absolutely need it because skinning on the ground is dirty and slow. And who wants to drive all the way home to the apple tree and miss out on the whole weekend with friends/family? Not me.
On my Antelope trip this year we skinned and quarterd the animals as soon as we shot them and got them cooled right away. this makes for excellent steaks.
I tell you what, you have one of these things built and you'll love it. I guarantee it.
Just an fyi, mine seperates in the middle for transport. As far as carrying it around all season. Well, it doesn't take up an room so I cant see why that'd be an issue.
Note the lack of trees. LOL
On the deer picture above I quartered the deer on the hoist and boned out the backstraps and trim as I went. Takes about 30 minutes and saves a bunch on butcher fees. Then the deer is taken care of and I can continue on with my weekend with my family rather than quit and go home.