Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Recovery of a whole elk?

I have at least a quarter mile of "mule tape" on a reel. You send the end with a couple of antler guides and throw a hitch around pin. Drive forward, back up, reel in and repeat. Getting it in the back is why I have a winch on the headache rack.
My boys and I have come home with 3 bulls in the back. Whole.

I'm not sure why any one would want to deal with a whole elk any place, even in sight of the road?

So easy to break it down to manageable chunks.

There are better ways than mule tape...

I've used a backhoe, tractor, bobcat and manually lifted one in the back of a pickup with my brother once. very few times I've had to cut them up to get them out. all depends on tactics and where you hunt.

Several years ago, we saw a trailer at a trailhead with 2 ATVs, both with whole cows tied on. The problem was that the entire area was closed to motorized vehicles. I guess that rules don't apply to everyone.

out of state plates?

I like to let the whole skinned/cleaned carcass hang for a few days before I butcher it. Just a personal preference. Every time I have boned meat out or broken it down into quarters it has seemed a lot tougher in texture to me.

But then I'm mostly a meat hunter not a horn guy.

I've used the gutless method many times over the years. Every one of the tough ones has been done that way while the most tender ones were skinned and left whole for at least 6 to 8 hrs to give the muscles time to go into rigor mortise. My favorite technique that seems to produce the most tender meat is to gut and skin, then leave the carcase whole while I go for the llamas or back pack. I bone or quarter after it stiffens up. Of course it's not always possible to do it that way but it produces the best results.

The Norwegians use a machine known as an "Iron Horse" to get their Moose out.



From what I understand they are proper to the logging industry and come in several configurations. I think the idea is that you walk in front of the machine, steering and controlling it via the long handle..

I've not seen them used here in the UK, but I have heard of guys using builders tracked power barrows in much the same way..

Like many here, I have a soft spot for hunting related gadgets, and I've looked long and hard at those hoists, to the point of almost ordering one, but then I think "Why?"

If you want to skin in the field, I can see the point, especially for somebody who hunts where trees are not so common. But purely from loading a vehicle perspective, I think a ramps and winch set up is a better idea.

Additionally, if you select your ramps carefully, they can be used as "sand/mud ladders" should your vehicle get stuck or need to cross a ditch ect..

My main gripe with many of the hoist designs is that they sit right in front of the tailgate area and are therefore in the way; some are so close to the truck they even stop the tailgate from being dropped..

There are designs that position the hoist off to the side, while there are others that use an A frame arrangement to keep the loading area clear, but again from purely a loading perspective, I would still tend to lean towards a winch and ramp set up...

Regards

Peter

I've skinned so many deer and elk on the ground in preparation for boning that I can do it just about as fast that way as hanging.

It's all about timing the shot just right.

... and angle to miss the truck...

My elk this year was 4 miles from the road.

Some will say that a 270 will NEVER pass through. Don't bet your truck on that.

The only elk I've gotten out whole (that is to say, field-dressed) have been taken on private land. One was a 6x7 that rolled down the hill after being dropped, ending up close enough to a road it could be winched into the back of a 3/4-ton pickup.

One was a spike my wife shot on a rancher friend's land 25 years ago on December 1st, the last day of the Montana rifle season. It dropped 150 yards from a logging road. The snow that fell on the road during the previous few weeks had melted, then frozen into two ice-slick ruts. There were five of us there, and after gutting the spike we dragged it across a narrow willow draw to the road. When I started to drag it down the ice-rut the elk overran me, and I had to jump out of the way as it slid down the road.

The pickup was parked maybe 400 yards down the road. If had been facing the other way, with tailgate down, the elk might have zoomed right into the bed. Instead we had to lift it in.

The 2 cows I mentioned earlier that we were able to get the truck to were a piece of cake. I skinned mine and we were bringing the truck across the flat to load it. I have a stock rack with a ramp on it for my llamas. 2 young guys watched us drive through the sage brush then came over to offer a hand. They grabbed both elk and dragged them up the ramp for us. We're both 65+ and I guess they felt sorry for us old farts.

Thats one of the ways they load Elk sized Plainsgame in RSA.

I've also seen them dig two tapering trenches (for the rear wheels) and back the Pick-up into the trenches so that the tail gate/bed ends up lower/closer to the ground to make loading easier.

Obviously this is only practical in sandy or similar light soil but where there is a will, and enough man power, there is a way!

This is how we prefer to do it in Saskatchewan. We shoot them where they are accessable. Of course not all good elk country is created equal and we are very very fortunate to own some.

Pete,

Of course, one of the differences between RSA (and other African countries) and most of the rest of the world is labor's very cheap. Consequently, there are usually a bunch of people to help load!

But my first Cape buffalo was loaded whole (including innards) in the back of Land Cruiser with a combination of shoveling holes for the rear tires, a custom long tailgate, and an electric winch. The high rack in the back of the Cruiser had a bar above the cab, with a roller for the winch cable. They ran the cable over the roller, attached it to the buffalo's head, and winched the whole carcass into the back, then drove it back to camp for dissection.

Have used winches to load a couple of gutted bull elk into pickups, but even the bigger elk was considerably lighter than an entire buffalo, perhaps as little as 1/3 as much.

Have also been in places where a front-end loader could be used to load bison and moose, but not elk!

On several occasions, I've been fortunate enough to shoot an elk close enough to a road (like 50 yards) so that 4 or 5 guys could load the whole carcass into a truck bed. The problem is getting the thing back out! Better, I think, to just quarter it up and load the pieces.