How to get him out?

[cwoods]

You've done all your homework, put in the time, and finally killed that slob you've been chasing. Your out of state and your on a solo hunt. How do you get him out when your deep in no man's land? Who's been their before? I would love to hear some stories and ideas (that are proven.) We all have talked about hunting deep and away from others but rarely do we discuss the labors of the drag. Besides after the kill and recovery a whole another level of work begins and it isn't for the faint of heart.

[Stanley]

The most laborious drag I ever had was 1979 in Missouri. I killed a buck way back in the boonies. I was hunting with a friend from Iowa. I met up with my friend after the morning hunt. We drug the buck out it took us 3 hrs. The terrain was rough and slightly hilly. I am not sure exactly how far it was, close to a mile I think.

We got the buck to the road and both just collapsed from exhaustion. Never will forget that drag. I never worry about the drag until after the buck is down. No reason to become distracted until the bridge needs to be crossed. I always get some help. You can always find guys that are willing to help somewhere. I also use a 4 wheeler if I can. I hear a lot guys say what if. I say when if. Good topic.

[Brad]

The most laborious drag I ever had was 1979 in Missouri. I killed a buck way back in the boonies. I was hunting with a friend from Iowa. I met up with my friend after the morning hunt. We drug the buck out it took us 3 hrs. The terrain was rough and slightly hilly. I am not sure exactly how far it was, close to a mile I think.

We got the buck to the road and both just collapsed from exhaustion. Never will forget that drag. I never worry about the drag until after the buck is down. No reason to become distracted until the bridge needs to be crossed. I always get some help. You can always find guys that are willing to help somewhere. I also use a 4 wheeler if I can. I hear a lot guys say what if. I say when if. Good topic.

Great Post, Another thing I like to add is killing the deer is the hard part, getting it out is easy in comparison. I think most hunters (myself included) try to go too fast and make a bigger chore out of it because they are in a hurry, Go a little at a time, and take breaks as needed.

As for the tools I use, I have a otter sled (medium sized), and a folding deer cart. This year I am adding a small come along and 100 feet of parachute chord so i can winch them up hills if they are steep. No point making a harder job then need be.

[Bowhunting Brian]

in WI we can quarter them up. we just have to leave certain parts together. quarter them up and make few trips. just like if you were in the Alaskan bush or mountains.

[Southern Man]

Don't sweat it until the time comes. You'll figure out a way

[Stanley]

I have a blue sled to drag out by hand. Buck pictured was left overnight and the Yotes found him first. The other 2 pictures are examples of using a mechanical advantage to get them out. Not always possible but if I can save my back some, I sure will. I'm just too old to drag them without some kind of help, extra people or mechanical.

[MOBIGBUCKS]

Here's a story from a big buck I shot a few years ago. Hardest drag I've ever endured. I was up 30 hours straight for this one. That deer cart from this story has been sitting in my garage since that night


This story begins way back in July around the time of my birthday. The state of Kansas had some leftover tags still available and I decided to buy myself a B-day present for once in my life. At the time, I was back and forth about whether I should buy a Muzzleloader tag or an Archery tag; both tags had their strengths and weaknesses. I PM’d ZAP from here on the beast and asked him his opinion. Marty told me to stay with the archery gear and that was also what my gut instinct was telling me as well. I bought the tag and networked with some friends and family and found some places to concentrate my effort on South Central Kansas. I drove up in early August to scout several separate pieces of ground. All of the places I looked at had potential, but one in particular just had that feeling. It’s a piece of ground fairly isolated from main gravel roads. This piece of ground is one of those places people won’t be poaching if it is any kind of wet. Side roads between the main gravel roads up there turn to clay muck when moisture is applied. You cannot drive on it much less walk on it!! I knew big deer would use this property to escape any kind of pressure in the area. Unfortunately, when I made my trip up there the skies opened up and it rained, and rained and rained. I was forced to look at the property from a far distance, but never got to walk and scout like we do here on the beast.

I never made it back up there to scout/hunt again until the middle of October because I am poor and had major truck issues….LOL Of course that weekend the temperatures were in the 90’s and a south wind would have completely ruined me for that spot. I chose to hunt one of the farmer’s other pieces of land instead; I saw deer but nothing big enough for me to burn a $400 dollar tag on. I returned home and continued hunting Missouri until I shot my buck “Massey” from my previous entry. I only had 9 days of vacation this year and I burned up all of them chasing after my Missouri whitetails. That left me the remainder of November and December to hunt out in Kansas on weekends. I was psyched mentally for the many weekends of travel I was about to endure.

On November 12, I got off work at my usual time of 4:30 and headed home excited for the upcoming weekend of bowhunting in Kansas. The rut was in full swing and I was prepared for another dawn to dusk sit for both weekend days. All week I had planned on going up and setting out my tent and campsite on Friday night, but a strong cold front with rain changed my mind. I decided around 10 p.m. that night, I would head out at 1a.m. to make the long drive to Kansas. 1 a.m. came too fast and I was up and on the road before I was even awake. I reached my hunting area around 4:45 that morning and was in awe of all the rain they had received up there. The roads were more mud than gravel but the side roads were much more treacherous. I parked a mile away from my hunting area, and decided to walk in. I gathered my bow, Lone Wolf Alpha/Sticks, pack with food, and headed down the mud road in the pitch black mud road. My first few steps on the road really woke me up!! I sunk like 6 inches into the mud on the road!! I got off the road and walked on the grass and that made the walk much better. On a side note, let me reiterate that I had never actually stepped foot on this farm until this point. All I was going by was my aerial and topo overlays. I finally reached the area in which I was going to set my first stand of the day; it was a hub of fingers that came together with field on one side and 4-6 feet of switchgrass on the other side of the ditch. You could see a lot from this vantage point, and I thought that was important for my preliminary hunt on the property. As soon as the sun started coming up, I could truly see the beauty and potential this piece of property held. I sat in this tree until noon and did not see a single deer. As soon as I got up in the tree I knew I didn’t like the set. You probably know the feeling I am describing because the setup just didn’t feel right so I wasn’t real confident. When noon came, I took my treestand and sticks down and headed about 200 yards to another tree I had been eyeing from my stand all morning. This tree was located in a finger that jutted about 150 yards out into a big cornfield. From this position, I could see EVERYTHING!!! I positioned myself to the downwind side of the finger where I could shoot out into the field or into the fingered ditch if need be. The first deer I seen that day was a buck scent checking through the middle of the cornfield; he was small and was some distance away. About an hour until dark, I seen two more little bucks but nothing sizeable. To my West was a stand of switchgrass, and I knew if there was a giant on the property he would come from that bedding area. Sure enough at 20 minutes before shooting light ended, a giant bodied deer appeared out of the switchgrass 250 yards away. I didn’t even need my binoculars to see he was a shooter; I instantly pulled out my grunt tube and grunted toward his direction. (Side note-it was so “still” out there I was scared to breathe.) The buck instantly stopped and looked my direction for 15-20 seconds and then actually started heading my direction!!!!!! He kept coming and kept coming; finally, I was like, “damn I better get ready this might happen.” He was coming in directly towards me, so I did not know if he was going to come into the finger or veer off to my left side in the corn. He stayed to the left and I had to stand up to shoot at him. He kept coming and I ranged him at 32 yards as he approached me. I let him walk past some branches in my way, and I drew my 2008 Bowtech General back. I stopped the big old buck with a grunt and aimed low in the shoulder. When the shot went off, he took off in a dead run for the center of the field. He stopped in this white grass in the middle of the field that was like 2-3 feet high; I was just about to pull my binoculars up when I see him fall!!!!! I seriously sat in my stand for like 20 minutes trying to make myself believe that actually just happened. I looked at my quiver and I was one arrow short, etc. It all happened so fast I just could not believe it! I got down out of stand with my bow and made my way over to that patch of grass. It took me several minutes to find him because they blend in so well with the grass! When I found him, I was in awe of what I had killed. My deer was true Kansas slob in every way imaginable.

The next part of my story is just hard to explain to someone who was not there. I will do my best because this is as much a part of the story as the setup and kill was. After recovering my giant, I still had to take my stand/sticks down and pack all that a mile back to my truck. As I began to head back to the truck, the coyotes were packed up and howling about 4-500 yards away from my position. Those howls had me scared and ran shivers down my spine; I was not scared of the coyotes, I was scared they would find my trophy buck before I got back. I read somewhere that you can put a coat or clothes over your animal to keep the coyotes away for a while; I did this before I left for the truck. I knew I could not drag him down that road I previously described, so I had to find an alternate route. After getting back to the truck, I grabbed all of my essentials and raced another mile back into get my deer (that’s mile number 3 for the day). The fourth mile was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life…

When I reached my deer with the deer cart, it was well after 7 p.m. that evening. Luckily, the coyotes left my deer alone while I was gone. I really didn’t realize the size of deer I had killed until I tried to put him on this crappy deer cart I have. I have a four wheeler, but left it at home because I had so much camping stuff for the weekend. I felt really stupid not having my four- wheeler because, “I probably wouldn’t need it this weekend anyways.” The first leg of the journey was up a hill in a cornfield against the stubble rows. This was and pretty much wore me out before getting to the top of the small hill. The cart I had is just poorly designed and you have to bend at the back to keep the end of the cart off of the ground. This was very tiresome and taxing on my back as I slowly drug him 10 yards at a time between stops. This went on and on and on until I reached a strip of thick woods between the stubblefield and switchgrass patch. I could not get this deer over some of the trees and logs in this brush strip, so I had to roll him parallel with the field until I found a place to cross into the switchgrass.

The switchgrass patch was also up hill and it continued for another ¼ mile. This is not typical grass; the grass was 7-10 feet tall in places and you could not tell your bearing when you were in there. The coyotes came back and were following my trail inside the switchgrass. I thought for a while I was gonna have an encounter with them up close and personal. Luckily, they kept their distance and I kept dragging my buck 15-20 feet at a time before stopping for a break. When I broke through the switchgrass, I was absolutely scary exhausted. I was all by myself out in the dark with no one to help me and completely worn out by the monster buck I had killed. A quick check of the clock confirmed my exhaustion; it was 11:00 p.m. at night. It had taken me over four hours to pull him the first ½ mile. However, a portion of the upcoming journey was downhill but even that was harder than I had expected. I had to drag him parallel to the grass patch back to the mud road that was in line with my truck. The whole time I was dragging him, I was sinking in the muddy field with my rubber boots. It was miserable, but I had finally made it to the road again. In the distance, you could see a blue barnyard light that was near my truck. The whole time I was dragging, I kept my eye on where I needed to be. I had to pull the deer on the side of the road because of the road conditions but I could see several obstacles in the distance. There were sharp drop-offs on the side of the road and I had to pull the deer through that mud to get him around the drop-offs. I had to do this twice and each time required me to pull off pounds of mud stuck to my deer cart wheels. The wheels simply would not roll with the excess mud and corn leafs stuck on the wheels.

Finally, I found myself on the last leg of the journey. However, it was all up a big hill that was tiresome just looking at. I hit the ground to rest and I was so tired it was scary. I looked at my buck and myself and noticed we were both covered in a heavy frost that had descended upon us during our adventure. I was out of energy and every muscle in my body ached with pain. However, my drive to succeed had brought me this far on that lonely night. I was startled with my cell phone’s alarm going off; it is pretty bad when your alarm clock goes off again indicating you have been up 24 hours straight!!!!!! It was 1 a.m. again on the next morning. At this point, I was still a good ¼ mile from my truck.

At 2:15 a.m. I finally reached my truck with the buck. It had taken me over 7 hours to get that buck out of there!!!! I took the time to sit him down and take some appropriate field photos of him. After the pictures, I had to put him in the truck. It literally took all of my remaining strength to horse that buck into my truck bed. I did it and was on my way home by 3 a.m. I got home around six o’clock that morning, which completed my cycle of being up 30 straight hours. The next day, I took some photos and admired the animal that took me so long to pull out of the woods. As a mainframe 10 pointer, this buck grosses in the lower 160’s and tipped the scales at 210 field dressed!

Overall, this seemed to be some kind of test from high above. Looking back, I honestly don’t know how I did it. The patience, energy, perseverance, and dedication were unmatched to anything else I have ever done in my life. I can’t quite explain the sense of accomplishment from what I did all by myself without another human soul to help me. Some may call it stupid, but this is just one example of how dedicated I am to chasing down big mature whitetails. I truly love them and enjoy the chess matches we play against one another.

[Stanley]

Here's a story from a big buck I shot a few years ago. Hardest drag I've ever endured. I was up 30 hours straight for this one. That deer cart from this story has been sitting in my garage since that night


This story begins way back in July around the time of my birthday. The state of Kansas had some leftover tags still available and I decided to buy myself a B-day present for once in my life. At the time, I was back and forth about whether I should buy a Muzzleloader tag or an Archery tag; both tags had their strengths and weaknesses. I PM’d ZAP from here on the beast and asked him his opinion. Marty told me to stay with the archery gear and that was also what my gut instinct was telling me as well. I bought the tag and networked with some friends and family and found some places to concentrate my effort on South Central Kansas. I drove up in early August to scout several separate pieces of ground. All of the places I looked at had potential, but one in particular just had that feeling. It’s a piece of ground fairly isolated from main gravel roads. This piece of ground is one of those places people won’t be poaching if it is any kind of wet. Side roads between the main gravel roads up there turn to clay muck when moisture is applied. You cannot drive on it much less walk on it!! I knew big deer would use this property to escape any kind of pressure in the area. Unfortunately, when I made my trip up there the skies opened up and it rained, and rained and rained. I was forced to look at the property from a far distance, but never got to walk and scout like we do here on the beast.

I never made it back up there to scout/hunt again until the middle of October because I am poor and had major truck issues….LOL Of course that weekend the temperatures were in the 90’s and a south wind would have completely ruined me for that spot. I chose to hunt one of the farmer’s other pieces of land instead; I saw deer but nothing big enough for me to burn a $400 dollar tag on. I returned home and continued hunting Missouri until I shot my buck “Massey” from my previous entry. I only had 9 days of vacation this year and I burned up all of them chasing after my Missouri whitetails. That left me the remainder of November and December to hunt out in Kansas on weekends. I was psyched mentally for the many weekends of travel I was about to endure.

On November 12, I got off work at my usual time of 4:30 and headed home excited for the upcoming weekend of bowhunting in Kansas. The rut was in full swing and I was prepared for another dawn to dusk sit for both weekend days. All week I had planned on going up and setting out my tent and campsite on Friday night, but a strong cold front with rain changed my mind. I decided around 10 p.m. that night, I would head out at 1a.m. to make the long drive to Northern Kansas. 1 a.m. came too fast and I was up and on the road before I was even awake. I reached my hunting area around 4:45 that morning and was in awe of all the rain they had received up there. The roads were more mud than gravel but the side roads were much more treacherous. I parked a mile away from my hunting area, and decided to walk in. I gathered my bow, Lone Wolf Alpha/Sticks, pack with food, and headed down the mud road in the pitch black mud road. My first few steps on the road really woke me up!! I sunk like 6 inches into the mud on the road!! I got off the road and walked on the grass and that made the walk much better. On a side note, let me reiterate that I had never actually stepped foot on this farm until this point. All I was going by was my aerial and topo overlays. I finally reached the area in which I was going to set my first stand of the day; it was a hub of fingers that came together with field on one side and 4-6 feet of switchgrass on the other side of the ditch. You could see a lot from this vantage point, and I thought that was important for my preliminary hunt on the property. As soon as the sun started coming up, I could truly see the beauty and potential this piece of property held. I sat in this tree until noon and did not see a single deer. As soon as I got up in the tree I knew I didn’t like the set. You probably know the feeling I am describing because the setup just didn’t feel right so I wasn’t real confident. When noon came, I took my treestand and sticks down and headed about 200 yards to another tree I had been eyeing from my stand all morning. This tree was located in a finger that jutted about 150 yards out into a big cornfield. From this position, I could see EVERYTHING!!! I positioned myself to the downwind side of the finger where I could shoot out into the field or into the fingered ditch if need be. The first deer I seen that day was a buck scent checking through the middle of the cornfield; he was small and was some distance away. About an hour until dark, I seen two more little bucks but nothing sizeable. To my West was a stand of switchgrass, and I knew if there was a giant on the property he would come from that bedding area. Sure enough at 20 minutes before shooting light ended, a giant bodied deer appeared out of the switchgrass 250 yards away. I didn’t even need my binoculars to see he was a shooter; I instantly pulled out my grunt tube and grunted toward his direction. (Side note-it was so “still” out there I was scared to breathe.) The buck instantly stopped and looked my direction for 15-20 seconds and then actually started heading my direction!!!!!! He kept coming and kept coming; finally, I was like, “damn I better get ready this might happen.” He was coming in directly towards me, so I did not know if he was going to come into the finger or veer off to my left side in the corn. He stayed to the left and I had to stand up to shoot at him. He kept coming and I ranged him at 32 yards as he approached me. I let him walk past some branches in my way, and I drew my 2008 Bowtech General back. I stopped the big old buck with a grunt and aimed low in the shoulder. When the shot went off, he took off in a dead run for the center of the field. He stopped in this white grass in the middle of the field that was like 2-3 feet high; I was just about to pull my binoculars up when I see him fall!!!!! I seriously sat in my stand for like 20 minutes trying to make myself believe that actually just happened. I looked at my quiver and I was one arrow short, etc. It all happened so fast I just could not believe it! I got down out of stand with my bow and made my way over to that patch of grass. It took me several minutes to find him because they blend in so well with the grass! When I found him, I was in awe of what I had killed. My deer was true Kansas slob in every way imaginable.

The next part of my story is just hard to explain to someone who was not there. I will do my best because this is as much a part of the story as the setup and kill was. After recovering my giant, I still had to take my stand/sticks down and pack all that a mile back to my truck. As I began to head back to the truck, the coyotes were packed up and howling about 4-500 yards away from my position. Those howls had me scared and ran shivers down my spine; I was not scared of the coyotes, I was scared they would find my trophy buck before I got back. I read somewhere that you can put a coat or clothes over your animal to keep the coyotes away for a while; I did this before I left for the truck. I knew I could not drag him down that road I previously described, so I had to find an alternate route. After getting back to the truck, I grabbed all of my essentials and raced another mile back into get my deer (that’s mile number 3 for the day). The fourth mile was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life…

When I reached my deer with the deer cart, it was well after 7 p.m. that evening. Luckily, the coyotes left my deer alone while I was gone. I really didn’t realize the size of deer I had killed until I tried to put him on this crappy deer cart I have. I have a four wheeler, but left it at home because I had so much camping stuff for the weekend. I felt really stupid not having my four- wheeler because, “I probably wouldn’t need it this weekend anyways.” The first leg of the journey was up a hill in a cornfield against the stubble rows. This was and pretty much wore me out before getting to the top of the small hill. The cart I had is just poorly designed and you have to bend at the back to keep the end of the cart off of the ground. This was very tiresome and taxing on my back as I slowly drug him 10 yards at a time between stops. This went on and on and on until I reached a strip of thick woods between the stubblefield and switchgrass patch. I could not get this deer over some of the trees and logs in this brush strip, so I had to roll him parallel with the field until I found a place to cross into the switchgrass.

The switchgrass patch was also up hill and it continued for another ¼ mile. This is not typical grass; the grass was 7-10 feet tall in places and you could not tell your bearing when you were in there. The coyotes came back and were following my trail inside the switchgrass. I thought for a while I was gonna have an encounter with them up close and personal. Luckily, they kept their distance and I kept dragging my buck 15-20 feet at a time before stopping for a break. When I broke through the switchgrass, I was absolutely scary exhausted. I was all by myself out in the dark with no one to help me and completely worn out by the monster buck I had killed. A quick check of the clock confirmed my exhaustion; it was 11:00 p.m. at night. It had taken me over four hours to pull him the first ½ mile. However, a portion of the upcoming journey was downhill but even that was harder than I had expected. I had to drag him parallel to the grass patch back to the mud road that was in line with my truck. The whole time I was dragging him, I was sinking in the muddy field with my rubber boots. It was miserable, but I had finally made it to the road again. In the distance, you could see a blue barnyard light that was near my truck. The whole time I was dragging, I kept my eye on where I needed to be. I had to pull the deer on the side of the road because of the road conditions but I could see several obstacles in the distance. There were sharp drop-offs on the side of the road and I had to pull the deer through that mud to get him around the drop-offs. I had to do this twice and each time required me to pull off pounds of mud stuck to my deer cart wheels. The wheels simply would not roll with the excess mud and corn leafs stuck on the wheels.

Finally, I found myself on the last leg of the journey. However, it was all up a big hill that was tiresome just looking at. I hit the ground to rest and I was so tired it was scary. I looked at my buck and myself and noticed we were both covered in a heavy frost that had descended upon us during our adventure. I was out of energy and every muscle in my body ached with pain. However, my drive to succeed had brought me this far on that lonely night. I was startled with my cell phone’s alarm going off; it is pretty bad when your alarm clock goes off again indicating you have been up 24 hours straight!!!!!! It was 1 a.m. again on the next morning. At this point, I was still a good ¼ mile from my truck.

At 2:15 a.m. I finally reached my truck with the buck. It had taken me over 7 hours to get that buck out of there!!!! I took the time to sit him down and take some appropriate field photos of him. After the pictures, I had to put him in the truck. It literally took all of my remaining strength to horse that buck into my truck bed. I did it and was on my way home by 3 a.m. I got home around six o’clock that morning, which completed my cycle of being up 30 straight hours. The next day, I took some photos and admired the animal that took me so long to pull out of the woods. As a mainframe 10 pointer, this buck grosses in the lower 160’s and tipped the scales at 210 field dressed!

Overall, this seemed to be some kind of test from high above. Looking back, I honestly don’t know how I did it. The patience, energy, perseverance, and dedication were unmatched to anything else I have ever done in my life. I can’t quite explain the sense of accomplishment from what I did all by myself without another human soul to help me. Some may call it stupid, but this is just one example of how dedicated I am to chasing down big mature whitetails. I truly love them and enjoy the chess matches we play against one another.

Great story. I'm telling you straight up I could not of dragged that buck out like you did (not physically capable).

[Dewey]

How I get a deer out really depends on where I am hunting.

In the bigwoods where there are logging roads a deer cart usually works pretty well. http://www.cabelas.com/product/Yukon-Co ... l+Products

If the deer goes down in a thick swamp an Otter sled usually does the job. Another sled I have been using is the Deer Sleigh'r Magnum. The super slick bottom drags very easy on any surface. Used mine to drag my gun buck out last year up north and it worked awesome. http://www.cabelas.com/product/Deer-Sle ... l+Products

Hunting in marshes is easily the most challenging place to get a deer out of. I have found that if you are recovering one from deep in cattails and water it is best to wait until dry land to gut them out because they will float over the deeper water better. Once on dry land I have used a combination of all of the above methods to get back to my vehicle.

Another option I will use now that it has been legal a few years is to quarter the deer up to haul out. Some of my most remote spots will more than likely require this.

[cbigbear]

I quarter & pack out by far this is the easy method when hunting solo. If it's really deep I'd go ahead & bone out the meat. Some places this isn't legal & a cart is handy. However before I drag or cart for 5+ hrs the knife is coming out!!!!

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[bowhunter15]

Hardest drag I've ever been a part of had no antlers involved. My dad and I were hunting public land by our house. This was the opening morning of gun season, but we were set up long before the opportunity to see other trucks begin piling into the parking lot. My dad was setup on the edge of an island within the cattails about a little over half a mile from the truck. I had started from his island, and gone another 1/2 mile through the cattail swamp until I came to the edge of a cedar swamp before setting up in a big tamarack.

That morning, the woods were alive with shooting, but from nobody other than us. I had killed 3 does by 9am, and my dad had put 1 on the ground. All together we saw, I believe, 8 deer. We started gutting around 10am. The cattails between me and my dad had about mid-shin high water level. Walking in, it had been frozen enough for me to walk on ice. Now it had melted enough that we would break through with every step. It took a couple hours to get the deer from my stand location to his. We gutted his deer out. We were both pretty exhausted by this point, so he took the opportunity to leisurely walk back to the truck and grab our deer cart. He only had about a 1/4 mile to go before we got back to hard ground, and the walking trail back to the parking lot. He locked the cart up to a tree on the edge of the marsh and came back to meet me. By this time it was probably 4pm. We started hauling the 4 mature does towards the dry land. This was done single file, one at a time. We'd drag the first one 20-30 yards, then walk back and drag the next, etc.

When we finally got to the cart, we discovered that some %$*&# had stolen the wheels off the cart. I knew whoever it was couldn't have gone too far so I started running back towards the parking lot. It probably took me 5 or 6 minutes to cover the 1/2 mile. There were two guys standing outside their truck. I asked if they had seen anyone walking out of the woods with cart wheels. They denied. They were acting a little suspicious. I was pretty sure I could see something that looked like spokes inside their truck topper so I walked up to look through the window. Immediately the guys start swearing at me and telling me to mind my own business. I said that my stolen wheels were my business. Knowing there was really nothing I could do, I went back to meet up with my dad who was very slowly making progress dragging the four deer and the wheel-less cart.

A couple guys came walking down the trail. These were hunters we knew on a casual basis. They were also bowhunters, and we had often shared stories back at the parking lot after hunts. They congratulated us, and we thanked them and told them our story about why the cart didn't have any wheels. They were of course furious that someone would have the audacity to do such a thing. But, since they were going to stick it out until last light, they handed us the keys to their vehicle and told us to use their cart and just put the keys under one of the wheel wells when we got back. It was good to know that for every crook in the woods there's a guy that you can genuinely trust. Nevertheless, we were pretty beat by the time we got all the deer back to the parking lot. By that time, it was getting close to dusk and some hunters were already returning to go home. We were somewhat of a spectacle in the parking lot as we had managed 4 deer while many others hadn't seen one. One guy even asked to take a picture to prove that there were in fact deer out there to his friends .

I think we had done a majority of the butchering that night when we got home. All I remember is that I slept like a baby that night!

[Edcyclopedia]

I hunted the Canadian border (no man's land) and shot my 2nd lightest deer (This was also the year I bumped into Lane Benoit).
@ 62 pounds and a 2.5 mile drag I swear that little thang weighed 300 pounds after lugging it up and over Two Mountains by myself!!!


The following year three of us where in the same spot just a little farther in and I shot @ a running bucks that eventually made it to my buddy.
He nailed it over 3 miles in - according to the GPS (however, we all know we can't walk in a straight line).
He shot it @ 1:30!
8.5 hours later with a fresh 1 1/2 feet of snow during that day made it miserable while two would drag the deer and the 3rd carried the guns; every couple hundred yards we switched out.
I swear I was going to loose my faculties and crap my pants;
but being a younger Lad means great sphincter control compared to pushing my current age of almost a 1/2 century...

No other choice other than brute man power baby!!!

[MOBIGBUCKS]

Here's a story from a big buck I shot a few years ago. Hardest drag I've ever endured. I was up 30 hours straight for this one. That deer cart from this story has been sitting in my garage since that night


This story begins way back in July around the time of my birthday. The state of Kansas had some leftover tags still available and I decided to buy myself a B-day present for once in my life. At the time, I was back and forth about whether I should buy a Muzzleloader tag or an Archery tag; both tags had their strengths and weaknesses. I PM’d ZAP from here on the beast and asked him his opinion. Marty told me to stay with the archery gear and that was also what my gut instinct was telling me as well. I bought the tag and networked with some friends and family and found some places to concentrate my effort on South Central Kansas. I drove up in early August to scout several separate pieces of ground. All of the places I looked at had potential, but one in particular just had that feeling. It’s a piece of ground fairly isolated from main gravel roads. This piece of ground is one of those places people won’t be poaching if it is any kind of wet. Side roads between the main gravel roads up there turn to clay muck when moisture is applied. You cannot drive on it much less walk on it!! I knew big deer would use this property to escape any kind of pressure in the area. Unfortunately, when I made my trip up there the skies opened up and it rained, and rained and rained. I was forced to look at the property from a far distance, but never got to walk and scout like we do here on the beast.

I never made it back up there to scout/hunt again until the middle of October because I am poor and had major truck issues….LOL Of course that weekend the temperatures were in the 90’s and a south wind would have completely ruined me for that spot. I chose to hunt one of the farmer’s other pieces of land instead; I saw deer but nothing big enough for me to burn a $400 dollar tag on. I returned home and continued hunting Missouri until I shot my buck “Massey” from my previous entry. I only had 9 days of vacation this year and I burned up all of them chasing after my Missouri whitetails. That left me the remainder of November and December to hunt out in Kansas on weekends. I was psyched mentally for the many weekends of travel I was about to endure.

On November 12, I got off work at my usual time of 4:30 and headed home excited for the upcoming weekend of bowhunting in Kansas. The rut was in full swing and I was prepared for another dawn to dusk sit for both weekend days. All week I had planned on going up and setting out my tent and campsite on Friday night, but a strong cold front with rain changed my mind. I decided around 10 p.m. that night, I would head out at 1a.m. to make the long drive to Northern Kansas. 1 a.m. came too fast and I was up and on the road before I was even awake. I reached my hunting area around 4:45 that morning and was in awe of all the rain they had received up there. The roads were more mud than gravel but the side roads were much more treacherous. I parked a mile away from my hunting area, and decided to walk in. I gathered my bow, Lone Wolf Alpha/Sticks, pack with food, and headed down the mud road in the pitch black mud road. My first few steps on the road really woke me up!! I sunk like 6 inches into the mud on the road!! I got off the road and walked on the grass and that made the walk much better. On a side note, let me reiterate that I had never actually stepped foot on this farm until this point. All I was going by was my aerial and topo overlays. I finally reached the area in which I was going to set my first stand of the day; it was a hub of fingers that came together with field on one side and 4-6 feet of switchgrass on the other side of the ditch. You could see a lot from this vantage point, and I thought that was important for my preliminary hunt on the property. As soon as the sun started coming up, I could truly see the beauty and potential this piece of property held. I sat in this tree until noon and did not see a single deer. As soon as I got up in the tree I knew I didn’t like the set. You probably know the feeling I am describing because the setup just didn’t feel right so I wasn’t real confident. When noon came, I took my treestand and sticks down and headed about 200 yards to another tree I had been eyeing from my stand all morning. This tree was located in a finger that jutted about 150 yards out into a big cornfield. From this position, I could see EVERYTHING!!! I positioned myself to the downwind side of the finger where I could shoot out into the field or into the fingered ditch if need be. The first deer I seen that day was a buck scent checking through the middle of the cornfield; he was small and was some distance away. About an hour until dark, I seen two more little bucks but nothing sizeable. To my West was a stand of switchgrass, and I knew if there was a giant on the property he would come from that bedding area. Sure enough at 20 minutes before shooting light ended, a giant bodied deer appeared out of the switchgrass 250 yards away. I didn’t even need my binoculars to see he was a shooter; I instantly pulled out my grunt tube and grunted toward his direction. (Side note-it was so “still” out there I was scared to breathe.) The buck instantly stopped and looked my direction for 15-20 seconds and then actually started heading my direction!!!!!! He kept coming and kept coming; finally, I was like, “damn I better get ready this might happen.” He was coming in directly towards me, so I did not know if he was going to come into the finger or veer off to my left side in the corn. He stayed to the left and I had to stand up to shoot at him. He kept coming and I ranged him at 32 yards as he approached me. I let him walk past some branches in my way, and I drew my 2008 Bowtech General back. I stopped the big old buck with a grunt and aimed low in the shoulder. When the shot went off, he took off in a dead run for the center of the field. He stopped in this white grass in the middle of the field that was like 2-3 feet high; I was just about to pull my binoculars up when I see him fall!!!!! I seriously sat in my stand for like 20 minutes trying to make myself believe that actually just happened. I looked at my quiver and I was one arrow short, etc. It all happened so fast I just could not believe it! I got down out of stand with my bow and made my way over to that patch of grass. It took me several minutes to find him because they blend in so well with the grass! When I found him, I was in awe of what I had killed. My deer was true Kansas slob in every way imaginable.

The next part of my story is just hard to explain to someone who was not there. I will do my best because this is as much a part of the story as the setup and kill was. After recovering my giant, I still had to take my stand/sticks down and pack all that a mile back to my truck. As I began to head back to the truck, the coyotes were packed up and howling about 4-500 yards away from my position. Those howls had me scared and ran shivers down my spine; I was not scared of the coyotes, I was scared they would find my trophy buck before I got back. I read somewhere that you can put a coat or clothes over your animal to keep the coyotes away for a while; I did this before I left for the truck. I knew I could not drag him down that road I previously described, so I had to find an alternate route. After getting back to the truck, I grabbed all of my essentials and raced another mile back into get my deer (that’s mile number 3 for the day). The fourth mile was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life…

When I reached my deer with the deer cart, it was well after 7 p.m. that evening. Luckily, the coyotes left my deer alone while I was gone. I really didn’t realize the size of deer I had killed until I tried to put him on this crappy deer cart I have. I have a four wheeler, but left it at home because I had so much camping stuff for the weekend. I felt really stupid not having my four- wheeler because, “I probably wouldn’t need it this weekend anyways.” The first leg of the journey was up a hill in a cornfield against the stubble rows. This was and pretty much wore me out before getting to the top of the small hill. The cart I had is just poorly designed and you have to bend at the back to keep the end of the cart off of the ground. This was very tiresome and taxing on my back as I slowly drug him 10 yards at a time between stops. This went on and on and on until I reached a strip of thick woods between the stubblefield and switchgrass patch. I could not get this deer over some of the trees and logs in this brush strip, so I had to roll him parallel with the field until I found a place to cross into the switchgrass.

The switchgrass patch was also up hill and it continued for another ¼ mile. This is not typical grass; the grass was 7-10 feet tall in places and you could not tell your bearing when you were in there. The coyotes came back and were following my trail inside the switchgrass. I thought for a while I was gonna have an encounter with them up close and personal. Luckily, they kept their distance and I kept dragging my buck 15-20 feet at a time before stopping for a break. When I broke through the switchgrass, I was absolutely scary exhausted. I was all by myself out in the dark with no one to help me and completely worn out by the monster buck I had killed. A quick check of the clock confirmed my exhaustion; it was 11:00 p.m. at night. It had taken me over four hours to pull him the first ½ mile. However, a portion of the upcoming journey was downhill but even that was harder than I had expected. I had to drag him parallel to the grass patch back to the mud road that was in line with my truck. The whole time I was dragging him, I was sinking in the muddy field with my rubber boots. It was miserable, but I had finally made it to the road again. In the distance, you could see a blue barnyard light that was near my truck. The whole time I was dragging, I kept my eye on where I needed to be. I had to pull the deer on the side of the road because of the road conditions but I could see several obstacles in the distance. There were sharp drop-offs on the side of the road and I had to pull the deer through that mud to get him around the drop-offs. I had to do this twice and each time required me to pull off pounds of mud stuck to my deer cart wheels. The wheels simply would not roll with the excess mud and corn leafs stuck on the wheels.

Finally, I found myself on the last leg of the journey. However, it was all up a big hill that was tiresome just looking at. I hit the ground to rest and I was so tired it was scary. I looked at my buck and myself and noticed we were both covered in a heavy frost that had descended upon us during our adventure. I was out of energy and every muscle in my body ached with pain. However, my drive to succeed had brought me this far on that lonely night. I was startled with my cell phone’s alarm going off; it is pretty bad when your alarm clock goes off again indicating you have been up 24 hours straight!!!!!! It was 1 a.m. again on the next morning. At this point, I was still a good ¼ mile from my truck.

At 2:15 a.m. I finally reached my truck with the buck. It had taken me over 7 hours to get that buck out of there!!!! I took the time to sit him down and take some appropriate field photos of him. After the pictures, I had to put him in the truck. It literally took all of my remaining strength to horse that buck into my truck bed. I did it and was on my way home by 3 a.m. I got home around six o’clock that morning, which completed my cycle of being up 30 straight hours. The next day, I took some photos and admired the animal that took me so long to pull out of the woods. As a mainframe 10 pointer, this buck grosses in the lower 160’s and tipped the scales at 210 field dressed!

Overall, this seemed to be some kind of test from high above. Looking back, I honestly don’t know how I did it. The patience, energy, perseverance, and dedication were unmatched to anything else I have ever done in my life. I can’t quite explain the sense of accomplishment from what I did all by myself without another human soul to help me. Some may call it stupid, but this is just one example of how dedicated I am to chasing down big mature whitetails. I truly love them and enjoy the chess matches we play against one another.

Great story. I'm telling you straight up I could not of dragged that buck out like you did (not physically capable).

It was tough Stan. I was going on pure adrenalin. It would have been nice to have some help that night...I guess us solo bowhunters pay the price at times.

[cwoods]

MOBIGBUCKS, man that is one heck of a story. Pics are a must after that. Heck after reading I now need a beer!

[muddy]

After being stood up or ignored by buddies I bought a cart. Blood sweat and tears get me my bucks, same stuff gets them out.




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