I'm 74 with a bad shoulder. My partner is 77 with bad hips. Yesterday we did a 1 day deer hunt and as we were loading up his Dodge Ram, I had an afterthought. I tossed in 1 section of an ATV ramp. I said it was a just-in-case because if we got one, there was no way that us 2 old farts were going to get anything bigger than a fawn up on his high tailgate. I can hardly get up on it myself.
Well, last night I got a good sized buck. Not huge, but big enough to make us grunt dragging him off the hill. Before it was over, I swore that I'd NEVER go out without that ramp again. it saved our butts getting him loaded.

Well quit dickin around and show us that buck!!

Good point RC. Just a piece of plywood or even a couple of 2x4's cut to fit would help. I'm reminded of my trying to load an 8 point onto the back of dad's Plymouth sedan back in my youth and the back end would fall down when I got the front end up and vice-versa. A rope through the back windows helped. Even my deer cart is pretty useless once I get one to the truck, so that has morphed into a stiff sled and often a utility trailer with a lower deck.

Hardly a wall hanger. Just a good eating sized deer. 100 yd easy heart shot, 30-06 with a reloaded 165gr. AB.

Get you one of these and you can skin him out when you get home.



But seriously, I keep these in the truck during deer season.




And I keep this small ramp in the SxS.




Work smarter, not harder!

Well done, Rock Chuck!

Very nice, and good planning .

RC! Good looking buck if you ask me!

I've found if I can get the head to stay up on the tailgate I can get the buck, most of the time. About 7-8 years ago I shot a 200# buck when I was hunting alone. The road had steep ditches but flat on the bottom. I kept the deer up on the hill of the ditch and backed the truck up to it. That worked pretty well.

Good job rockchuck, I use a 2 wheel deer cart. Move the truck to get the top of the tailgate lower. If it's dry road ditch works. Sometimes just a plank and a. rope and pulley can work wonders....mb

Good job RC!

Much respect for refusing to slow down too much and getting out! Hope I'm in half that good of shape at your age.

If we hadn't had the ramp, we'd have probably skinned and quartered him by flashlight. We backed up to the hill but the tailgate was still waist high.
There's no limit to the ways to load a deer. The last 2 years I've used the same ramps to load whole elk. The difference there was that I have a Razor with a winch so I could winch them up the ramps. My ramps have expanded aluminum grating. If you want to save the hide, you really need some plywood over them as the grating will peel all the hair off.

different subject - in the photo you might have noticed that I use a Safari sling. I love that thing. It's much easier than a shoulder sling, especially when wearing a pack. You don't have to take it off to shoot. The sling lets you just bring up the rifle to shooting position with lots of extra room to adjust for tree limbs, rests, etc.
It's only fault is muzzle control. When you're hunting with someone, you need to be extra careful of where it's pointing.

Nice! Horn soup is highly overrated.
Not all of the wisdom we old facts have picked up is wasted.
Congrats
Bfly

Being a member of the old pharts hunt club, we use ramps in all the pickups, gators, side by sides, etc... BUT, we also have a 2500 lb winch on each vehicle to provide the muscle to get them in the bed. Then the meat pole has winches, walk in cooler, etc.... Could we do it without if we had to. Probably but why risk pulling a muscle, throwing your back out, etc.. when you do not have to. Should add the club takes around 80 deer per year so are loading one quite often.

Do tailgates still come off? On my old pickup I'd use that as a ramp in a pinch if needed. Of course it wasn't jacked up sky high.

Congrats on the deer and managing the effort. Great you still can and do go!

Grab yourself a chain hoist and your grandkids can load it solo for you!

I can still get around pretty good if I don't have to carry much of a load. it was pretty steep where I got this one. Notice in the photo that I'm on my left knee and my right leg is pretty much extended. Luckily the truck was all downhill.

Now, our cow elk season opens in about 3 weeks. It'll be flatter than this place. The last 2 years I got cows and both times I was able to drive my RZR right to them.

Well done and nice buck.

Good use of your ramp.
That sling does look pretty handy.

One of my hunting buddies carried a couple of 2"x8" wooden planks in his pickup, but he also mounted a large, stout pulley to the forward wall of the pickup bed. He'd put a dead deer, elk, etc. on the planks, tie the rope to the animal and pull the rope through the pulley until the animal was up in the bed. No problem and off he'd go to either camp or home.

Nice buck, Rock Chuck. As you said, "Good eats."

L.W.

Ratchet strap run between the two tie downs in the front of the truck bed with a pulley on it. Run a rope through the pulley. Easy way to pull one up a ramp or board in to the truck bed. I drive a one ton dually and can barely get a deer in the bed without it. Wrestled with a huge NY Muzzleloader doe one year and came up with the idea to save me from learning new swear words while covered with fat guy sweat and deer blood.

Congrads on a Nice Buck!

Good call, and congrats on the buck!

Congrats on that buck and we learned some tips in a very short time.

Very nice buck!

A come along works well too. A little slow but who cares.

I'd be thrilled with that buck rockchuck!
Here's something I found recently. I'm hoping I get to try it this year.

Good one. Nicely done.

Deer come apart fairly quickly.

Nice buck and a great hunt!
I used my quad ramps to load my buck into the quad trailer this year.

I'll be 70 in a few months and have a nasty right knee - and because I hunt on private land, I'm pretty much forced to hunt solo all the time.

I killed an elk last week and was lucky to have a neighbor come up with his skid steer and load her whole in the trailer - saved me hours of back breaking work.

Congrats on a good buck. Glad to see you are still out there getting it done. I guess I'm lucky where I hunt. I can drive the Honda Pioneer side x side pretty close to where my stands are. I am usually by myself. I have Synthetic Winch Rope on my winch. I run the winch rope over the top of the roll cage and it comes down behind the bed of the side x side. Put the tailgate down, Hook em up, push the button and it lifts them right into the bed. Then its off to camp and to the skinning shack.

Nice job. I miss hunting mule deer in Idaho

I use a portable winch and a piece of plywood.

Congrats on getting your buck, RockChuck. And thank you for posting.

Congrats on the deer!

4.5'-5' length of chain w/hooks that'll hook into the box-corner anchor points. Come-Along clipped onto the chain and crank away. Certainly not the only way to get things done, but, it's a fairly inexpensive way and lots of folks already have most of the necessary components, just gotta toss them into the vehicle.

Grandpa had a Ford Explorer as his last vehicle. He had a ~3' length of 2x4 with an eye-bolt long enough to poke between the gap in the 60/40 split upright section of the rear seats. He'd hook a come-along to the eye-bolt, put the 2x4 on the front of the upright section of the rear seats, position the eye-bolt into the gap between the 60/40 split, and crank the deer into the back up into his early 80's.

A few years back I killed a couple cow elk I could drive to and load whole. Got it done with my son and some atv ramps but swore I would have a winch system next time.





I put a flatbed on my truck with a receiver on the headache rack so I can move my big winch between the front, rear and headache rack. Haven't killed an elk I can drive to since! I blame it on the winch.

Loading up an elk with a 2500 pound recovery winch and a set of eye bolts in a channel strut for mounting plumbing to walls, bolted to the front of the bed. Atv ramps and it is a one man job. Inexpensive and easy to put in the back of the truck, it takes up no room and saves backs and time...

I've done the same thing a couple times with 1 difference. Next to the passenger door you can just see the top of my Razor. I have a winch rope coming over the corner of the bed, sliding behind a bull ring in the stake pocket.
You don't want to do it quite this way, though, if you want to save the hide. Those expanded metal ramps really peel the hair off.

Congratulations and good thinking

Since I hunt alone these days @ 78 years old and all my old partners are gone.... These pics are super learning tools. Thanks for posting the pictures and not just a typed description.
Ron

This is a great thread! Congrat's Rock Chuck!!!

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!