Hunting Forum

Has anybody ever mounted one of those 2 piece, swivel arm, crank hoist onto the back of their ATV ?  I often hunt alone, and have THE WORST time trying to get a deer from the ground up onto my ATV by myself.  All my friends tell me just to drag the animal back to my truck with the ATV, but once I get there, I still have to lift the deer from the ground up onto the tailgate.  It's much easier to pull up along side of the tailgate, and slide the animal off the ATV and into the back of the truck.  Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Hey MO KANE, I use that kind of hoist that fits in the 2" receiver on my pickup.   It works great to get heavy game animals loaded.
I don't use ATV's hunting as majority of hunts on public land, so I use a mag game cart (20" wheels) which works very well to get to the truck. That hoist is the "cats' meow" for shinning and quartering animals also .

I have one of the hoist that wolffj mentions. Works well. My question is: How do you get your atv home? Must be a trailer? Got a winch on the atv? Back the atv on the trailer and winch the beast up on the ramps and onto the trailer.

I take a sled with me on the ATV . Drag the deer onto the sled and pull it behind the ATV .

I do have to trailer my ATV to my hunting spots.  I just saw one of the Kolpin Tilt-N-Tote gadgets advertised.  It looks interesting, but there are no video clips of it in action.  It attaches to the front, or back of an ATV.  Anybody ever try one of these ?  Thanks for all the input, I appreciate it.  Happy Holidays to all !

Looks like a pita to me personally. I'm inferring that you don't have a winch on your rig. For a $200 price tag for the Kolpin thing, I'd put a winch on the rig and be done with it, but that's just me....

I carry a rope with me and also in the 4 wheeler, find a tree and hoist the deer up. I know some brutes are heavy, this is were you use the 4 wheeler to lift and then tie off, back machine under and un-tie and place deer on the rack of the 4 wheeler.
Now, pigs are a different story. I use a skid like shown above or a cargo carrier that attaches into the 2" receiver modified with a swivel wheel on the bottom to help with the weight.

Have a look at the HOOK-A-RACK goes on the front of your atv.

MO, I am disabled and can not lift or drag deer so what I have done is make up a choker strap out of a piece of old tow rope and have put a pully on the winch cable. When I get a deer I'll use the atv to drag it to the nearest tree. I then nose the atv up to the tree so I can stand on the front rack and wrap the choker around the tree, free wheel the winch and hook the pully to the choker with a shackel. Having the deer near the tree I'll then free wheel enough cable to take a wrap around the middle of the deer and then back the atv up enough to allow winching the deer up in the air. Once the deer is up I will pull ahead (keeping the deer lifed above the machine ) untill I can swing the deer around and over the front rack and then let it down with the winch. Then it is just a matter of tying it down. I like loading on the front so that if I need to jump a log or climb a hill on the way out the extra wight is up front holding the machine down. When I put the atv in the truck or on the trailer I just leave the deer on it. Hope this was of some help.

carry a boning knife and 4 pillow cases, qtr it up, take the backstraps, tender loins, rib & neck meat, stuff them all in the pillow cases and ride out of the bushes. Takes about 30 to 45 minutes once you get the hang of it, no field dressing required.

I bought the lift from sportsman guide and use a plastic sled to drag the deer to the truck. Looks a lil too large to be mounted on quad or troublesome . NO lifting required. Throw sled edge side to back of deer, grab feet and roll into sled. Use the lift at truck.

Mo,
I was hunting one time when I had tendonitis in my left arm so I couldn't lift very well.  I managed to drag my kill to the back of the truck and after several unsuccessful attempts to wrestle the beast into the truck bed I realized that I wasn't going to do it by brute force.  I tied a rope around the deer's head and shoulder and ran the rope through the cable that holds the tailgate.  I was able to hoist the deer's front end to the level of the tailgate.  I tied off the rope and was able to then lift the back end into the truck.  It wasn't the most elegant way of doing it, but it was field expedient.  If you have any tie down loops in your truck, running a ratchet strap between the deer and the truck might work.  Good luck to you and be safe.

carry a come-along and some rope, find a stout limb, I've done this with elk, put the handle close to the animal for lifting

When I had my Chevy S-10 pu , I carried a 1/2" thick piece of plywood that was 2' wide and the length of the truck bed . I strapped the deer to the sled and slid the sled up the plywood onto the back of the truck . It wasn't easy as I was 67 at the time but it was the only way I could do it alone .
I have dual exhaust on my Subaru Forester and wouldn't use one of the hitch haulers .

I usually just loop a tow rope around the deer's neck and drag it behind the ATV to the house or the truck. I have a behind the cab toolbox on my truck, with a large "eye" bolt in it. I keep a deer hoist in the toolbox, and when I need to load the deer into the bed of the truck, I hook the rope of the hoist, into the tow rope, and then use the ratchet assembly to hoist the animal up and into the bed of the truck. If I'm deep in the swamp, I get my boy to help load 'em on the back of the ATV, since he's 15 years old, and almost 6 feet tall and 260 lbs., he's a lot of help. ( I usually have him on a stand some where close by, and we carry radios for communication. He can hop his ATV and come to wherever I'm located, or vice versa, if he kills something.

If I could afford one, I'd like to have one of those front mount folding apparatus that use the winch to operate it.

I tracked down one of the Tilt-n-Tote deer loaders at the Kittery Trading Post back in August. I can't wait to try it out in the next week or two.

A good winch, and if you can't get her out of bed to help ya, try the one on your quad over a tree limb. I used to dead lift em up and throw em on the quad, back says no more! Or, just drag em behind? Watch yer state regs though? Yep, keep a cheap come a long in the truck, it's worth it's weight in gold! I'm headed out to track a forward hit doe. Lots of blood, but she's still moving. I'll let ya's know how that went!

Shot a 120 dressed doe with my bow last weekend. The Tilt-N-Tote Loader I bought for the ATV worked great ! If I could figure out how to post a picture on here I would....

To post a pic: 

When in the new post, click on the attachments tab at the bottom, use the browse button and navigate your pc to find the pic, highlight the pick and click upload.  If the pic's not too big (500kb I think is the limit) it will then give you a menu to insert the image or thumbnail.

Here's a 130 pound doe ( dressed ) that I shot with my Glock 10 MM.  The Tilt - N - Tote Deer Loader worked great !