First / Worst Packout Learnings

[Cheesehead]

As silly as it sounds, my first packout was a couple weeks ago of N America’s largest land mammal. I ended up doing one bison front quarter and one hind quarter in 2 separate loads. It was…heavy. Yikes.

Previously the deer / antelope I’ve dealt with have been within dragging distance of vehicles, and the elk and moose have remained damned elusive.

I learned quite a bit on that pack out. I used an Exo K2 frame. I was disappointed in the constant slipping of the belt, which put much / most of the load on my shoulders. I had previously practiced with 90 pound loads on this pack but it performed way worse with the extra weight of a bison hindquarter (120+ I would guess). I also realized that the pack didn’t have straps long enough to to wrap around a bison head, and that having only two frame-specific straps was woefully inadequate when I tried to pack a 100+ bag of burger meat (slippage). My friends who had an SG and Barney’s pack and I all unanimously agreed that my frame sucked for the task relative to theirs.

I strongly feel that nothing compares to reality of in field experiences. So what first/worst experiences have you had with meat pack outs that changed your view? What helped change your gear choices?

 

[ccc23454]

As silly as it sounds, my first packout was a couple weeks ago of N America’s largest land mammal. I ended up doing one bison front quarter and one hind quarter in 2 separate loads. It was…heavy. Yikes.

I used a jetsled packing my bison out a few weeks ago, i dont know how any one person can carry hide/skull in one trip. With that sled just load chunks and go, repeat! I also had a handtruck with a tote attached at the ready but sled worked so good. The sled is dam near destroyed but worth it!

 

[Hem]

I packed an elk front quarter, rear quarter, and the entire hide of a bull elk about 4 miles down about 2000 ft of vertical when I was thirty years old. Think I weighed about 160 at the time.
What did I learn? That stunt got added to top ten dumbest things I have ever done.

 

[mtmuley]

I packed an elk front quarter, rear quarter, and the entire hide of a bull elk about 4 miles down about 2000 ft of vertical when I was thirty years old. Think I weighed about 160 at the time.
What did I learn? That stunt got added to top ten dumbest things I have ever done.

Yep. I two tripped a bull out of the Breaks a couple years ago. Just under 5 miles in. I was 53. Good gear helps. mtmuley

 

[marksjeep]

Packed a little 3 point buck out a few weeks ago from a high country muzzy hunt. After 4 nights on the high line, mules were cranky. After 5, they were pissed. My pack mule bucked the heck out of the pack saddle after rigging him up to head out, had to reset the thing 3 times before leaving camp. Riding mule said FU too, and took me for a ride. Held on for dear life and somehow rode it out. 8 miles later we were at the truck and all's well that ends well. A little different tune, but lots of learnings from the trip...

And 550 cord can fix almost anything.

 

[diamond hitch]

They can get a little cranky early in the season.At least no blood or serious injuries.

 

[SFC B]

My first year elk hunting (will be 9 years ago this OCT) I was lucky/ stupid enough to shoot a cow and a bull with 30 seconds of each other. Pack back to camp was only 2 miles but that went from 8800 ft up to 10k then back to 9600 at camp. CPO and I did four trips apiece between 1000 and about 1530......then we sat in our chairs, drank schnapps and Busch light until bedtime. Slept until about 0900 the next day. I could never do that these days. Lesson......shooting 2 elk together SOUNDS awesome but will cost you a portion of your hide in return.

 

[diamond hitch]

In the middle 70s, one of the guys killed a rag horn in a nasty hole. As we pursued the herd I ran into nice whitetail buck and shot him. That gave us two chunks of meat to pack out. I took half the buck as did my partner. The guy who shot the bull took a front quarter.

The packout was 5 miles down an uncut cedar creek bottom. Hence over one tree then under the next. We got our loads out and started back. My partner hurt his knee which left two of us to pack out the last 2/3s of the bull and our gear. We split the gear and the front quarter and each took a hind quarter to boot. I'm guessing the packs were 130 to 150 lbs. Enough so that straps on the pack left bruises on our shoulders. The waist belts cut off circulation and you lost feeling in your legs.

When we loaded the last of it in the truck I swore I would never pack meat out on my back again. That winter I started buying horses and tack as I could afford it and I haven't immitated a mule since.

 

[MTLabrador]

Two trips on a bull elk sucks, but it’s a tool I can pull out of the tool box if necessary. One of the benefits to being born a large Scandinavian the size of a bear.

 

[Sagebrush1]

One thing I’ve learned is that youth can hide deficiencies in equipment, so as the years go by you need better stuff. Ha.

 

[BearFoot]

I've packed two moose long ago using Barney's pack frame. Not terrible in my younger days, but learned quickly to appreciate mechanical assist. There are some places I just won't shoot one.

 

[TheGrayRider]

Not a worst-type story but nothing says love like getting your game meat packed and hauled to a canoe or raft. Life is easy thereafter. Happy times sitting in the boat with a paddle or small motor.

 

[EYJONAS!]

Shooting elk in the "willows" and having to pack them outta that shit. That's a top 3er IMO. Nasty tangled mess getting outta the stuff.

 

[BRI]

Before I ever thought about quartering or boning an elk, I lashed an entire calf elk to a pack frame once. It was all I could do to stand up. I attribute those dumb moments to why I need knee replacements.

 

[Straight Arrow]

'Don't know how much meat you two-trip packers left behind, but it took me six trips with my plastic sled to pack my moose out. Each sled full was more than I would want to pack on my back. (But I'm kinda small and wimpy.)

Two trips to pack out a bull elk is very impressive ... and evidently painful!

 

[MarvB]

Shooting an elk in an area that was a cross between down dead timber (old burn scar) and fairly fresh down green timber from a recent microburst. Elk were everywhere but I don’t think I’d ever pull the trigger in a mess like that again. Getting up and over that jackstrawed shit on multiple times in and out was NOT worth it.

 

[huntin24/7]

I havent had a lot of brutal packouts since i've mostly hunted eastern MT. When I was 27, my friend and i were bowhunting the breaks and I was dumb enough to arrow a cow(my first elk) the morning of my last day to hunt 4 miles from the truck. That was the 5th straight day of highs around 100 degrees. We had packed our camp in 4 days earlier and brought a gamecart in. We took the all of the elk meat quartered not deboned and our camp out between the crappy game cart and our packs in one trip. It was 101 degrees on the drive back to Malta. We somehow didn't waste any meat. My hands were cramped so bad on the ride home between pulling that heavy cart and being so dehydrated that i would have to pry my fingers off the steering wheel from time to time since they wouldn't open on their own. Won't ever do that again.

 

[Trial153]

Some lessions can only be learned after the fact, and looking back you wonder how you missed something so obvious. 120 plus is a heavy load, pretty much is going to suck no matter what. That said seems like a major fault if your frame cant even secure the load

 

[gouch]

We were really young and even dumber. My friend Paul and I went on a day hunt one Sunday near the outskirts of the Kalmiopsis wilderness area. We didn't see much that morning so I told Paul there was a spot not too far down the Silver Peak trail that had one of the best views a person could ever hope to see and that we should take a break from hunting and walk in there. All we took was our rifles and some water. No Packs or pack frames, nothin. Turned out that spot was a little farther in than I remembered, about five miles or so, mostly down hill. We got there, the view was as I remembered it, and it was one of those perfect October days where the air was cool and the sun just felt great. We laid down to soak up some sun for awhile but fell asleep. I woke up to a small buck sniffing my face. I nudged Paul and he just kinda exploded as he grabbed his gun while jumping to his feet, all in one motion. That stupid deer, a little spike /fork horn, just ran about 15 yards down the trail then stopped. Probably had never before seen a human it it's short little life. So Paul blasted him right there, as I lay on the ground with my fingers in my ears. It was his very first deer and he was so excited about it. Then the realization hit that we were five miles from the truck with no way of packing a deer and it was getting late. Dragging it that far on the rocky trail would have torn it to pieces and we both had to be at work early the next morning so there was no hiking out and coming back the next day. Neither of us had ever even heard of a headlamp and there may or may not have been a flashlight in the truck which would have had a questionable battery anyway. That trail was sketchy in daylight so no way were we going to hike in and out in the dark. Then we remembered that in all the old westerns, every Indian camp had two fellows walking with a pole on their shoulders and a buck dangling from that pole. Let me tell you, that is a terrible way to pack even a tiny deer like that one. We both hurt all over for a week and to this day Paul still blames me for taking him down that trail. We would have been better off building a fire, cooking the deer and eating it right there.

 

[4ohSick]

Got my first elk (a cow) last year - solo hunt after work so I finished quartering in the dark. I was only a half mile from the truck and all downhill, so I figured I could make it in two trips. Loaded one rear and the backstraps, tenderloins, and neck meat in my pack and left the hide on the other rear, ran some paracord through the tendon, and dragged it. Don't do that. In the dark with snow covering deadfall, it kept getting hung up and the paracord was brutal on my hands. Even though the empty climb back up was a few hundred vertical, it would've absolutely been worth doing a 3rd trip, especially since it wasn't far. Second trip was both front quarters and it was a walk in the park.