A fellow guide I hunted with in California back in the 60's once told me....?

Question

....he guided a 70+ year old man on a bear hunt with dogs.  Driving up a high mountain road in California's Trinity Alps, one of his hounds in the back of the truck let out a howl.  When they stopped to see why, a NICE black bear ran up a tree right beside them on the steep mountain side.  They pointed it out to the old hunter and he shot it.  It literally rolled down the hillside and ended up within feet of the truck tailgate.  The old man refused to pay them because that wasn't what hunting was suppose to be about.  They couldn't convince him he had been TOTALLY blessed by such an extreme rarity.  On one hunt, I shot a mule deer at 5 minutes to 7 in the morning and it was almost 2 o-clock that afternoon before we got it to where a four wheel drive pickup could get to us.  That was the last time I hunted a place shown on the map as "Chimney Canyon".

So the question is:  What was your worst AND your best pack-out of a big game animal?

Paco · Accepted Answer

My "Best" would probably have to be a nice fat whitetail doe I shot from our bedroom window about 20 or 25 years ago, when we lived in the country... It was not much of a trip to go out, pick it up, and take it to the skinning shed out back.

The "Worst", may not qualify as a "big game animal"... But, I had some traps set down in the bottom of a big, deep canyon 3 or 4 miles off the blacktop one winter in the mid 1970's... The dirt 2- track going in was steep, and there was a deep drop-off into the canyon on the west side of the road which wound along the side of the hill for over a mile. It was rough getting into even in good weather, and I probably should have just passed it up...but beavers were bringing good money back then and that creek down there was full of them............ Things were fine the first couple of days and I was catching quite a bit of fur. Then, the big ice storm hit. EVERYTHING, including the road into the canyon, was covered in a thick sheet of ice, and the temps were below zero (It was the worst ice storm we had had in Oklahoma in decades.) ... My wife told me to let it go until things straightened up, but I told her I would be OK, and left the house that morning... I had to park my truck at the top of the canyon and walk in. I was afraid of trying to make it down there and back out, even in 4-wheel drive... Even walking was a matter of "slip-and-slide", so I left all my equipment, except a .22 handgun buckled around my waist and a couple plastic trash bags in my pocket, in the truck......... To shorten the story, I did have several beavers, a couple of them extra-large, 2 or 3 coons, a couple of possums, and a nice big, blue-backed bobcat. Money-wise it was an excellent day.... But, there was no way I was going to be able to make several trips carrying everything out, so I skinned them all down in the canyon and just carried out the furs in the plastic trash bags, and it was still a damn heavy load... I hated to do that as we fed the big beavers to our dogs, and ate the smaller ones ourselves, but there was no help for it.... Even then it took me all day until after dark to get everything skinned and then everything, including myself, out of that canyon, and back to my truck.... I was in my mid 30's then, and in excellent physical shape, but I still thought I was having a heart attack lugging all that fur up out of that canyon.... I had set off all my traps while I was down there so I didn't have to worry about them again, and it was about 2 weeks before I could get back in and pull stakes.

Ret. Sgt. · Answer

Our land is only 40 acres but all of it is valley and cliffs. I shot a large doe once. I was much younger and apparently not too good of a shot at the time and hit it between lung and stomach. It ran and I figured I was in for a long haul. It ran towards our cabin where we park the vehicles. It had fallen twice from the blood sign and on the last fall, actually eviscerated most of the entrails on a small but sharp stump. It ended up 50 feet from the trucks and cabin.

My brother-in-law said I should have taken a deer that was more rambunctious and it may have quartered itself and made life a little easier.

Now we make sure we have "the young bloods" to haul or at least do most of the drag for us.

Mr.357 · Answer

I hunt mostly open fields with a few trees around the edges and creeks and sloughs.  Worst  was only dragging a deer about 1/4 mile through an ankle deep muddy field.  Usually, I can drive a pickup (4x4 sometimes require) or an ATV to the animal.

? · Answer

My worst animal wasn't what I was hunting with a military issued shotgun.
He wanted to kill me with a rock.  It never got that far.  The old lifer who
took away my Savage said I should have shot at least once and said less.
My best pack-out came just outside the Fort Hunter Liggett Military Res.
It had been a 7.62x39 iron sight single shot kill of Coast Range boar.  The
day was such I fainted from heat exhaustion with choice cuts on my pack
board.  Suddenly I was in the shade with water on my face and surrounded 
by bloused boots.  You just know every thing will be all right afterward.

John de Witt · Answer

I once thought I was going to die when I got a little over-exuberate and shot five hogs in a herd. By the time I got them all dragged to the truck, I felt like I was having a heart attack.
Not my story, but I'm giving my little brother's, when we were kids: he shot a deer when he'd almost got back to the Jeep one day. Trailed it through thick stuff for over a mile. A big circular mile. It dropped dead in the road, about ten feet from the tailgate. I didn't help him drag.

xscout9094 · Answer

While hunting with my younger brother when I was nineteen, we spent about an hour and a half in the woods after school in archery season and small game season. When we called it a day and walked back to my car I separately. I didn't have an archery license so I walked through a stand of oaks and beech trees while keeping an eye out for squirrels. 

When I got to the clearing opposite my car, there were two big does standing within 20 feet of it (anterless deer are fair game in archery season) and my brother was nowhere in sight. He came out behind the deer about five minutes later with the deer still within 50 feet of my vehicle. I pointed them out to him and watched him draw and aim his bow. He glanced at me like he didn't want to shoot and I gestured for him to take the shot. When he did, both deer bolted and neither one appeared to be hit. 

He had shot at and hit a smaller deer that was in the woods where I couldn't see it. He told me later that he didn't want to shoot, because all he could see was its head. He must have been telling the truth because that's where he hit it. The deer he killed was about 70 pounds and dropped within 20 yards of the car, at the edge of the clearing. That was an easy drag.

The hardest deer I ever had to recover was the first one I ever killed. My father and I skipped the first day of my first buck season because it was raining too hard to see more than 25 yards. On the second day we hunted a small draw that had a small stream normally. That day the stream was not small, and it was roaring like a dam's spillway. 

After only 15 minutes of hunting, I shot an 8 point standing on the opposite side of the little valley from me. It ran down hill about 50 yards and fell into the stream. The stream swept the deer downstream into the roots of a large blowdown. The deer's head, neck, and front legs were tangled in the roots, and it wasn't quite dead. 

I finished it off after carefully positioning myself for a head shot from about 5 yards away. The deer was thrashing around and bobbing in the current; so I took a few minutes to make sure I had a shot that wouldn't ruin its rack. I was probably a little bit over-cautious and too excited to hold the rifle steady.

When we pulled the deer free of the tree roots, the stream pulled it away and almost pulled the two of us in. Just a few yards down stream the deer was stopped by two large rocks, and wedged in pretty tightly. My father, my uncle, and a friend of theirs managed to pull it out with some effort. 

On the trip back we had to drag and carry the deer while slithering and sometimes nearly crawling through thick mountain laurel the quarter mile trip to the road took about 40 minutes, but wasn't as difficult as getting it out of the stream. Of course, I just carried the rifles.

A fellow guide I hunted with in California back in the 60's once told me....?

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