Dragging game out....

[tigger]

Quick question about getting your game out of the bush. I've heard and seen pictures of people dragging their kills out with their quad or manually dragging it back to the road/camp. Doesn't this "bruise" the meat:???:? Haven't had the pleasure of finding out for myself yet.

[3kills]

once it is dead the meat cant bruise

[Jagermeister]

once it is dead the meat cant bruise
And these words of wisdom are from a qualified butcher. Howya donin Darcy?

[3kills]

doing good gettin pumped to got moose hunting oct 1...seen my uncle don a few weeks back he was in town for my aunties wedding...

[happygilmore]

My goat fell 300yrds, (wasn't dead yet), had cuts through to the bone on his face, a black eye, knocked horn off, and I couldn't find any bruises after finishing him off and falling another 50yrds.

My little brother shot a moose and only had a suzuki sammie, they drug it a few K's wearing through a few logs (skids) and most of the hide... meat still good.:roll:

[huntwriter]

times 2 on what 3kills said.

If the animal is an awkward spot where I can get to it with the truck or if I have to haul the sucker for a long way to the road, I even will cut it to manageable spices. There is no way that I will drag a whole dead animal for any stretch uphill or over rocks and logs to the road. Been doing that for years and never noticed any quality damage on the meat. Like 3kills, I am trained in the meat trade (was born into it)

OK, time to have a shower, a nap and then get ready for this evenings hunt.

[Wildman]

once it is dead the meat cant bruise

x3....make sure it's dead, if not it will bruise.

[358win]

A dead animal is much easier to drag believe me I know.

[happygilmore]

are you the buck roper?... does anyone have a link to that thread... I need a good laugh:biggrin:

[Wild one]

As my dad told me once it is dead all you are doing is tenderizing when dragging.

[whitetailsheds]

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer,
put it in a stall, feed it up on grain for a couple of weeks, then kill
it and eat it.

The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that
since they congregated at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much
fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up
and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not
4 feet away) that it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it
and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and
transport it home.

I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The
cattle, which had seen the roping thing before, stayed well back.They
were not having any of it.

After about 20 minutes my deer showed up, 3 of them. I picked out a
likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my
rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope
around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold. The
deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly
concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it. It
took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and received an
education.

The first thing that I learned is that while a deer may just stand there
looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when
you start pulling on that rope. That deer EXPLODED.

The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT
stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I
could fight down with a rope with some dignity. A deer....no chance.

That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no
controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off
my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me
that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as; good an idea as I
originally imagined. The only up side is that they do not have as much
stamina as
many animals. A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as
quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It
took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the
blood flowing out of the big gash in my head.

At that point I had lost my taste for grain fed venison. I just wanted to
get that devil creature off the end of that rope. I figured if I just
let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die
a slow
and painfully somewhere.

At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that
moment, I hated the thing and I would venture a guess that the feeling
was mutual.

Despite the gash in my head and the
several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by
bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the
ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a
small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the
situation we were in, so I didn't want the deer to have to suffer a slow
death.

I managed to get it lined up to back in between my truck and the feeder,
a little trap I had set beforehand. Kind of like a squeeze chute. I got
it to back in there and started moving up so I could get my
rope back.

Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would
have thought that a deer would bite somebody so I was very surprised
when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of
my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a
horse where they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and
shakes its head, almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.

The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and
draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was
ineffective. It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several
minutes, but it was likely only several seconds. I, being smarter than a
deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now) tricked it.
While I kept it busy tearing the hound out of my right arm, I reached up
with my left hand and pulled that rope loose.

That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day. Deer
will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their
back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their
hooves are surprisingly sharp. I learned a long time ago that when an
animal like a horse strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get
away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make
an
aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back
down a bit so you can escape. This was not a horse. This was a deer, so
obviously such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond I
devised a different strategy. I screamed like woman and tried to turn
and run. The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run
from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it
will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from
horses after all, besides being twice as strong and three times as evil,
because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the
head and knocked me down.

Now when a deer paws at you and knocks you down it doesn't immediately
leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed.

What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while
you
are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head. I
finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.

Now for the local legend. I was pretty beat up. My scalp was split open,
I had several large goose eggs, my wrist was bleeding pretty good and
felt broken (it turned out to be just badly bruised) and my back was
bleeding in a few places, though my insulated canvas jacket had
protected
me from most of the worst of it.

I drove to the nearest place, which was
the co-op. I got out of the truck, covered in blood and dust and looking
like I'd just come from a bar-room brawl. The guy who ran the place saw
me through the window and came running out yelling "what happened"

I have never seen any law in the province of Saskatchewan that would prohibit an
individual from roping a deer. I suspect that this is an area that they
have overlooked entirely. Knowing, as I do, the lengths to which law
enforcement personnel will go to exercise their power, I was concerned
that they may find a way to twist the existing laws to paint my actions
as criminal. I swear, not wanting to admit that I had done something
monumentally stupid played no part in my response.

I told him "I was attacked by a deer." I did not mention that at the
time I had a rope on it. The evidence was all over my body. Deer prints
on the back of my jacket where it had stomped all over me and a large
deer print on my face where it had struck me there. I asked him to call
somebody to come get me. I didn't think I could make it home on my own.
Later that afternoon, a game warden showed up at my house and wanted to
know about the deer attack. Surprisingly, deer attacks are a rare thing
and fish and wildlife was interested in the event. I tried to describe
the attack as completely and accurately as I could. I was filling the
grain hopper and this deer came out of nowhere and just started kicking
the hell out of me and BIT me . It was obviously rabid or insane or
something.

EVERYBODY for miles around knows about the deer attack (the guy at the
co-op has a big mouth). For several weeks people dragged their kids in
the house when they saw deer around and the local ranchers carried
rifles when they
filled their feeders.

I have told several people the story, but NEVER anybody around here. I
have to see these people every day,,. I have enough trouble fitting in without them
snickering behind my back and whispering "there is the dumb-ass that
tried to rope the deer. I just thought I should perhaps pass this along
in case any one else thought this was an intelligent thing to do...

[happygilmore]

I needed that.... gets me everytime:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

[sparkes3]

wanna try a moose

[dutchie]

That is probably the best story i have ever herd!

Cost to take CORE - $40
Cost of a gun - $1300
Cost of Ammo - $65

Roping a deer...... Pricless!

[Wild one]

When you do get it on vid I would love to see it better yet I will video tape it for you:biggrin:

[Casagrande]

A dead animal is much easier to drag believe me I know.
Full story please!!!:-D

[kennyj]

Dragging an animal is the most backbreaking work there is.I de-bone everything I shoot right on the spot and pack it out.Also saves money at the butcher.
kenny

[huntwriter]

Dragging an animal is the most backbreaking work there is.I de-bone everything I shoot right on the spot and pack it out.Also saves money at the butcher.
kenny

That is how I do it. My thinking is, why drag the stuff you don’t need home and then drive it back into the bush the next day.:wink: