Your Toughest or Longest Drag-Out

[gawildlife]

I should've known better as I had learned long before about those ridges while squirrel hunting.
About a half mile south the creek did a ninety degree bend at the base of a rock bluff ridge. Right in that bend was a choice stand of black, pignut, hickories that the squirrels flocked to.
I once had the bright idea of hunting from the top of the bluff to avoid having to shoot straight up. It was nice shooting straight and level into the treetops.
Yeah, you can guess how that played out.

 

[gawildlife]

Then there was that time I very nearly whipped Dad's tail.
This time we were down in south Alabama at the homeplace where the land is much flatter.
Well this day I had decided to stalk my way down the east line, exactly one mile corner to corner. Well this was a nice easy level stalk as we have a road down the entire length. But it's not an active road and we had left a few trees down across it.
Well almost to the very end I almost get run over by two very nice bucks. I took the one that wouldn't get out of the way of the bigger one, lol. A really nice full grown seven.
Well after the drag back to the main road and dad shows up with the truck he looks at me and says now is as good a time as any to open this road back up, grab a saw.

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

By myself hunting on the ground overlooking a creek bottom. Kill buck, gut buck and then have a drag almost straight uphill. Started to drag but decided to head to the truck and grab rope and pully. As I walk downhill, deer goes up. Well , America's Funniest Home Videos would have enjoyed my back flips when my dadgum knot didn't hold and went tumbling, luckily not impaling myself on the antlers. Worth a try but learning experience

 

[Bubba_1122]

My worst was a large bodied deer in the swamp about 8 or 9 years ago (I’m just short of 66 years old so wasn’t a youngster then). Killed him right at end of shooting light. I’ve tried to suppress the details but this thread made it all come back.

Got turned around dragging that buck around the swamp in the dark. Ended up calling a friend to help. I was gassed.

Shot him shortly before 6. Finally got him on the tailgate of my truck at just after 11 that night.

I still hunt in the afternoons but it’d have to be one heckova buck for me to take a shot in the evenings.

 

[dfurdennis]

2019 BF Grant quota hunt...had a climbing stand failure somehow the bottom kicked straight vertical and my feet came off the bottom. Had already dropped the safety line as I was relocating to a different spot that afternoon. Long story short had to drop from about 15 feet landed on a rock covered by leaves broke my ankle. Thought it was sprained, pulled a doe out about half a mile back to the truck. Got back to the truck had to cut my boot off and knew it was pretty bad at that point.....lesson learned on the safety rope. Just take your time and bring it down as you climb!

 

[Clabo22001]

A friend shot a cull deer on Yazoo NWR with a dull broadhead. We chased the deer for a couple of hours through cypress trees, finally caught him in the flooded slough. Had to get in the water to corner him and shoot him again. Field dressed about 1.5 miles from the truck. When we walked out, we had a guy carrying 3 bows in his boxers and hunting boots. I had the hams and the other 2 guys were dragging the front half. The federal game wardens just laughed

 

[CaptKeith]

As a young man I joined the Air Force and was sent to Arizona. I was fit, full of spit and vinegar, and boy did I want to shoot my first deer! Opening day had me hiking up the mountains in the dark to get way back in where I thought I could get a deer--it worked. I shot a nice 6-point, but was two miles back in the mountains. After gutting the buck (first time, I actually had printed instructions with me) I put it over my shoulders, and looking like Atlas holding the weight of the world, packed him out. Over the next three hours I fell three times into cactus, and finished the last hour and a half with no water in the Arizona desert. I was thoroughly whipped, but as proud as I could be! I was still pulling out cactus needles weeks later!

 

[Lukikus2]

My bones still hurt from from mountain dragging. Going downhill they will run over you or impale you. Uphill totally bites. I have had a few 4 hour extractions.

Worse by far is pulling 140 lbs dead weight in sugar sand for a half mile.

 

[FormerGA Boy]

2 quartered elk weighing a total of 450 pounds. 4.5 miles from truck.

 

[ditchdoc24]

I believe it was about 2000. My buddy and I took his 2 sons on an adult-child hunt on Clybel WMA. We get back about a mile in the woods and set up. One of his boys ends up killing 3 deer with a single shot .243 right about sunset. We had to drag 3 deer, 4 stands and 2 whining boys out of the woods. We got out of the woods after 10pm and then got stopped by a Mansfield police officer on the way back to my buddy's house. I didn't get home until after midnight that night.

 

[gawildlife]

I recall one big six that Dad popped on the other side of the line on a cousin's property. Maybe a couple miles from the truck.
Most memorable was him getting to the truck and spitting his teeth out on the ground.

 

[TJay]

I was bowhunting solo on a small farm in Kentucky and arrowed a nice 10. Up and over one not-so-bad hill but the next hill leading up to a corn field we called the airstrip was a killer. Finally got him to the field and had to drag him into the field as they plant corn right up to the edge of the woods up there. Only had about 100 yard drag thru the corn but that was a pain as those rows are pretty narrow. Finally got him to where I could get my truck to him.
On a side note, while trying to find cooler to hang him (it was pretty warm) I wound up in a trailer park. I spied a couple of twenty somethings making out like crazy in broad daylight on the porch of a wore out trailer. When I eased up in my truck they stopped grubbing long enough to look at me and I asked the guy if he knew of a deer cooler nearby. They were still locked up, cheek to cheek staring at me and he said "A whut???" Never mind, sorry to interrupt. Always fun interacting with the locals when you're from out of state.

 

[Athos]

I recall one big six that Dad popped on the other side of the line on a cousin's property. Maybe a couple miles from the truck.
Most memorable was him getting to the truck and spitting his teeth out on the ground.

Do what now?

Enjoying these stories.

 

[gawildlife]

Do what now?

Enjoying these stories.

Store bought teeth.

 

[Etoncathunter]

Longest was about 1/2-3/4mi drag of a hog I shot on Cohutta. She weighed 175#, but luckily was right on a trail (closed logging rd) and drag was relatively simple using my deadsled. My worst was also my shortest shot a small buck on Coosawatte, after he ran back towards the truck it was only a 100yd drag. The bad part was it was about 80ft down a 70° bank with wet slick leaves. I'd pull it up 10ft, it would slide back 9. I think it took me 2 hours to get it to the top.

 

[gawildlife]

Well how about my easiest.

Down on the homeplace we have a short stretch of sunken road where it's washed over the last couple of hundred years. Yes, we've owned it that long.
Well I decided to take a seat just off on side maybe twenty feet where another more recent path had been made for logging trucks to go around.
Not long after I heard a ruckus headed my way and I got ready to see a doe coming trotting right at me. I let her turn to my right and go on but the spike behind her all glassy eyed, lips curled, nose up, grunting every stiff legged step never slacked up. So I turned my rifle on him and tried getting him in my scope but all I saw was brown at two power. The entire time I'm thinking I don't want a stinking spike but when he got the width of the path from me I looked over the top of the scope and repelled boarders, lol. Not only did I dead center him I singed his chest hairs with muzzle flash.
I was sitting on the side of the sunken road twenty feet away when the truck got there.

 

[gawildlife]

Another drag story.

In my occupation as a NWCO I get calls to remove the odd dead animal and some are truly odd. No, I won't regale you with the dead cat under the trailer or the floater in the pool all NWCOs experience.
This one was odd in the funeral director category we get when dealing with pets.

Nice lady calls with some foresight for her pet potbelly pig as its doing poorly and she expects it to pass momentarily. So we arrange an appropriate fee and I prepare to receive her call.

A few days later the call comes and I'm all prepared save one. Note to self, in the future have the client walk the pig uphill to the driveway before the time comes.

But hey blue tarps slide well on lawns.

 

[Wifeshusband]

I'm from and hunt public land mountains, and I've had many, many long days dragging and packing...

I reckon my longest drag was ~6 hours and about 5 miles in Towns County near the NC line. I had toted my climber in there, and didn't have a good way to pack out. It wasn't a great big buck but it was a day I was trigger happy.
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Another honorable mention is this old dawson forest buck, 6.5 yr old. He was only 3 miles in but it was a 1500ft ascent to the truck. Several hour drag.
View attachment 1103180

Here's a 2 mile drag from last year. Thankfully not a huge bear...
View attachment 1103182

At some point as age set in, I wised up and started packing instead of dragging...
View attachment 1103188

I have dozens and dozens - well over 100 - more examples of long drags and packs. If youre from the mountains its what you do. Happy hunting.

And, now Johnny, tell him what else he's won.
That bottom up there looks familiar. I'm a flat lander . . with no shame.

 

[The mtn man]

I shot a buck some years back on the south side of the smokies, took 8 hours to get him out. Was a 4 hour walk in to the area.that deer tought me to pack.out hence forth.