Your Toughest or Longest Drag-Out

[Wifeshusband]

Nov. 1997. Killed my biggest buck, weight-wise, a very wide racked 6 pointer down in a huge bottom. It field dressed nearly 160 lbs.. I was in my early 40's and in good shape and had someone with me who was in his 20's. It took us well over half an hour to haul him up a steep hill. ATV or game cart would have been useless, even if we had them. It was up a steep rocky outcrop. We had a couple of "take-fives" before we reached the top and level land. We then had another 15 minute drag to the truck. Thank goodness it was a morning drag in COLD weather. Sill we were sweating like it was summer.

It would be heart attack city for me to try something like that now, which is why I tell you guys going in deep on WMAs you'd better have plan on how to get one out, especially if you're by yourself. I don't hunt big bottoms anymore, which is a shame, somewhat, as that are where some big bucks roam. These days, I play it easy, sitting in or on the edge of a field where I can drive the truck pretty close to where they drop.

 

[KevChap]

When i was younger I use to drag stuff out from everywhere mostly by myself.. in my opinion looking back they was all bad. I watch more deer now just because I don't feel like dragging them out..

 

[glynr329]

Cousin and I was just talking about this. Back in the day and poor as dirt. Road was to bad to drive on. I killed one deep in the clear cut. We drug the hair off the deer side of that deer. Boy are they some stories we could tell. Most of these young boys today no way would they do it. I am surprised we kept hunting.

 

[KKrueger]

I refuse. I quartered one on the spot last year and took him out in two trips on my back. I would still be dragging.

 

[Sixes]

175 pound dressed 10 point that ran close to a mile after the ballistic tip blew up on impact.

$150 dollars for a dog found the buck in about 10 minutes. Another shot from about 5 feet finished off the buck , which had ran off a ridge and across a branch and down another hill.

Luckily, the dog's owner's grandson (about 20) was with him and helped me drag the buck out. He kidded me about taking too many breaks until we started up the hill from hades. It didn't tale long until he wanted a break to rest for a few minutes.

WHen we got out, I looked in my wallet and had 47 dollars after paying the grandfather, I gave it to the young guy and apologized for not having more.

2nd worse one was a 160 pound dressed buck that I bow killed about a half mile from where I could get my truck. I was ll by myself and it took me about 2 hours to get it up a hill and out of the woods.

Here is the one that I paid the young man for help. I couldn't find a pic of the bow kill. I was MUCH younger then!

 

[Wifeshusband]

175 pound dressed 10 point that ran close to a mile after the ballistic tip blew up on impact.

$150 dollars for a dog found the buck in about 10 minutes. Another shot from about 5 feet finished off the buck , which had ran off a ridge and across a branch and down another hill.

Luckily, the dog's owner's grandson (about 20) was with him and helped me drag the buck out. He kidded me about taking too many breaks until we started up the hill from hades. It didn't tale long until he wanted a break to rest for a few minutes.

WHen we got out, I looked in my wallet and had 47 dollars after paying the grandfather, I gave it to the young guy and apologized for not having more.

2nd worse one was a 160 pound dressed buck that I bow killed about a half mile from where I could get my truck. I was ll by myself and it took me about 2 hours to get it up a hill and out of the woods.

You could very well be the winner, my friend. Wow.

 

[BowArrow]

As I age (83) the drags get a little harder. I us a two wheel aluminum cart which helps. My hardest are the uphill across planted pines.

 

[Dupree]

One morning around 2003 my cousin and I killed a total of 4 mature does about 3/4 of mile from the truck and fourwheeler. We had completely crossed a mountain. We flipped the fourwheeler multiple times trying to get them out and ended up dragging them a good part of the way. Took 4 of us around 4 hours to have everything loaded and ready.

My longest confirmed drag was 1.25 miles on fdr state park. I used a sled and it wasn’t horrible.
In 2006 I shot a good buck and a spike one morning on a check in wma hunt .9 miles on gps from the truck. That was a long day getting them out.
Luckily all of those “worst” drags took place in December during cold fronts.
pic of the buck I killed .9 miles from the truck.

 

[buckpasser]

I’ve been spoiled. I normally don’t have to drag more than a couple hundred yards and always on pretty flat ground. Sometimes even through shallow water which is pretty nice.

That said, me and my Dad went to FDR state park for a hunt years ago. We went in pretty deep through a few ridges and bottoms down the land line. When daylight came my Dad bang flopped a buck and doe. Shortly afterwards two does tried to escape by me. I piled one up but hesitated on the second and it got on by me. Thank God I didn’t kill it!!! We both shot right at daylight and got the deer checked in around 1. Also, I had my climber to deal with which was stupid in those hills. If I remember correctly I was around a mile in and Daddy was probably 3/4. It felt like 5...

 

[buckpasser]

Also, it might have been hours longer if @GAMHUNTER35 hadn’t come along and loaned us his wheeled cart. We didn’t even know him until then. What a nice guy!

 

[snooker1]

About half a mile in I gave up walked back to my truck and pulled out an old paint tarp and a rope, walked back put the deer on the tarp, tied the rope to the tarp and pulled him out the last quarter mile. Much easier pulling him on a tarp, I also carry 10 x 10 tarp in my tool box since that day 20 plus years ago.

 

[Blackston]

Not deer but ...... In my Hog doggin days we guided hunters on Broughton Island at the mouth of Altamaha, 200 lb boar hog is tough drag in fluff mud and needle grass , we loved bayin em in the edges , but if they ever broke bay it was TOUGH

 

[NickDeer]

Paulding Forest. Don't know the weight, the pictures are floating around somewhere on this forum and my profile from October 2019... Dragged a mile out of the woods and then a mile and a half down the railroad track. For yall who know, PF has some nasty hills! I bought a cart before the next hunt!

 

[treemanjohn]

My uncle called my father and me about a bear he shot in Cohutta. He said he needed help. We met up and my dad kept telling him he had to be going in the wrong direction through the woods. It took us almost 2 hours of twisting and turning straight downhill through one thicket after another..... Before GPS probably 2 miles

We skinned and deboned the boar. It took us an entire day to get out. Miserable. Luckily it was cold. Meat, head, and hide weighed 378lbs. Just terrible

Easiest I shot a 6x Elk in Colorado. Rolled him 200 yards straight downhill into the bed of my truck

 

[Gbr5pb]

1979 220 pounds of hog off cohutta wilderness area! Young and dum

 

[Buford_Dawg]

Don't know the year, but I was a young man, guessing 20 or so, 58 now, so lets say 38 years ago, my uncle shot a mule of a 8 point buck exactly 1.5 miles from nearest road. It was so far back, that I stopped about 1/2 way in that AM before daylight and just sit down at edge of a pine thicket and hardwood edge. Not long after daylight a young buck ran a doe by me and I killed him, small 6 point. We didnt have cell phones back in those days, so we had already agreed to meet back at truck at 11. knowing I had a long drag out myself, I gutted the buck and worked my way back to truck getting the deer loaded up by about 9:30. I had heard a gun shot way back in towards my uncle, but there was lots of shooting all around, so didnt pay alot of attention while I was dragging my deer. My uncle shows up at truck at 10 or so. He says he has killed a good one and it will take more than me and him to get it out, so we run back to our camp and get my dad and grandfather who were hunting a different property that AM. The 4 of us head back after a quick lunch and we park truck at 11:15. When I see the buck and where he shot it, I knew we were in for a heck of a drag. Turns out, it took us right at 4 hours to get that buck back to the truck, it was thanksgiving week, but it had turned hot on us, so all 4 of us were slap sweating bullets during the drag. Got the buck back to camp, on the skinning pole and the sun was going down as we put the last parts of the deer in the cooler. That buck was so stocky, it was a brute of a GA deer weight wise. Out of my 45 years of hunting GA deer, that day will always stand out to me.

 

[rattlesnake1]

2 Does about a mile from the truck through the swamp at Horse Creek.

 

[Hillbilly stalker]

Ahhhhhhh.....getting them on the ground is the hard part, everything else is downhill I've drug the hair off of several. I came off the hill one day with a 217 lb. 8 point in one hand, rifle slung around my neck, 25lb. climber on my back and my bow in my other hand. It seamed too far to make several trips. Preacher was waiting on me at the truck, he made a big deal out of it at church that Sunday.

 

[Timberman]

No real killer drags with deer but I’ve been involved with some doozies dogging bears in SC. The bears had to be brought out whole for the biologist to weigh, pull a tooth, etc. We had a strap made with 6 loops for 6 men to pull. One drag was straight up thru impenetrable laurel, so thick a man was ahead of us cutting a hole with a hand saw, and several guys were making trips back and to with back packs full of beverages. When we got to the bear you could still see a little and it was after midnight reaching the truck.

 

[Day in the woods]

It was in 2017, in total about a half mile drag. I began at 10:30AM, finished about 1:30PM. Was exhausted before the drag began as I had skipped breakfast. Began with dragging through thick privet and tangles. Toughest part was a stream crossing with steep bank walls about 8ft high. Once in the stream, as much as a tugged and pulled, I could not get the buck up other side of the stream. After about 30 minutes, I decided to float it downstream to a low spot in the stream wall. After tugging and pulling some more, finally got it over the lower stream bank wall. Then finished with about a quarter mile uphill drag to my vehicle. My 50 year old body was shot for the rest of that day and the next.