How do you retrieve your deer when you shoot it? If you can not drive your pickup or ATV down to the deer to load it up? Do you

[rfleer87]

How do you retrieve your deer when you shoot it? If you can not drive your pickup or ATV down to the deer to load it up? Do you just drag it or do you have a wagon or something to carry or drag it on out?

[tneal1987]

I usually am able to drive to it but if that is not an option I drag it out or quarter it and make 2 trips.

[Del in KS]

I have a Cabelas game hauler cart. It will handle 2 whitetails at a time. Unlike a 4 wheeler crossing fences is not a problem and the cart only costs about 100 bucks. It folds up and stays in my truck during deer season.

[Montana]

I typically just drag the deer out, if the country is rough or its just too far to drag then I will quarter it out and make the extra trips. If the road is closed to driving, as are a good portion of our forest service roads here are during hunting season, we have a homemade 3 wheel cart that works pretty excellent for getting deer and elk out.

[Walter39]

Drag it out with a harness

[FirstBubba]

Due to some old injuries, (hip, foot and leg) I can't just haul or drag one out anymore.
I had another old cripple teach me how to load (drag?) a deer up on my ATV.
It's been several years since I've let one get across a fence. Shoot straight! Take out both shoulders! There ain't THAT much meat on the shoulders!

[99explorer]

If you have to drag it, get help and/or take plenty of rest breaks. A lot of hunters suffer heart attacks dragging deer to their vehicles.

[mike0714]

A good knife, big pack, plastic bags, and a ice filled cooler still work the best and are the easiest for me. No cart would make it into where I hunt let alone out with a full deer. If you make 2 trips you make 2 but if you do a rib roll and remove the meat off most of the bones you can leave with pack around 100lbs. which is not to bad for a little bit.

[DEER30]

I usually just drag by hand. But sometimes if I am too far from the truck or have an uphill/mountain hike, I will quarter it up and pack it out.

On rare occasions, I can get my truck to it or my buddy's polaris 500 and I feel spoiled.

[Ontario Honker Hunter]

Drag it usually. And leave the guts in as long as possible. If there's two guys usually not a problem to leave the guts in till it's dragged to where the vehicle can get to it. That way it stays clean.

I have on a few occasions made a deer into a pack, climbed inside, rolled over, and carried it out. I could tell you how to do it rather easily but I won't because 1) it can be dangerous [you might get shot!]; 2) good way for someone who is not in real good shape to hurt themselves; and 3) just a horribly painful way of doing it [not to mention making a bloody mess of yourself head to toe!]. But it can be done. For those of you who know how to do this, please keep it to yourself!

[Ontario Honker Hunter]

What the ...? No one should purposely shoot a deer through both shoulders! That's an unnecessary waste!!!! Shoot behind the shoulder through the ribs and take out the lungs that way. No need to mess up the shoulders! Certainly not on purpose anyway. There's plenty of good meat in the shoulders. And no deer is going to be jumping a fence if it's shot through both lungs and/or heart. If somehow one shot through the boiler room does manage to jump a fence, it's not going but a few more feet. Certainly within towing distance for an ATV.

[Ontario Honker Hunter]

No one should purposely shoot a deer through both shoulders. That's a waste. No deer shot through the boiler room (i.e. behind the ribs through the lungs) is going to go far across a fence if it could manage to jump it.

Quartering a deer in the field is also liable to be unnecessarily dirty and wasteful unless it can be pulled up off the ground before cutting it up. I MIGHT cut one in half (front quarters or back quarters together) and pack it out that way. If I can handle a whole deer - hide, head, feet and all - on my back without a packboard, putting half on with a packboard should be a piece of cake. I'm no Hulk Hogan and I routinely packed elk quarters that were up to 130 lbs. A half of a deer certainly is going to be nowhere near that weight.

[country road]

If I have to move one more than 50 yards, or uphill, I go get help. On a couple of occasions when no one was available, I've made a drag a little bit at a time with plenty of rest breaks. No sense in me and the deer being dead on the ground at the same time.

[Pray- hunt-work]

Tug lean step step tug lean step step tug lean step step, you get the picture..

[Ontario Honker Hunter]

Sorry about the seeming duplication in the posts. My first one appeared to disappear and then reappeared later.