Recovery Kit

[JPH]

ORIGINAL: Woods Walker

The other I lay out on the ground right where I'll be working fro me to set the tools I'll be using on, so that I don't have to spend another 1/2 hour or so shuffling through the leaves to find the knife I can't find!!!! [&:]

Yeah, great idea. I end up doing the ol' lost my knife shuffle all the time.

[shaman]

I hate to say this, but here's my "recovery kit"



Roll the S-10 up, Flop 'em on the rack, take 'em back to the house and do everything there.

Granted, the orange pack is lighter, but I think mine has y'all beat on simplicity and ease of use.

[Woods Walker]

Oh, that's works fine for those Kentucky deer who aren't near as vindictive as Illinois deer.

Illinois deer always get the last laugh by purposely dying in as deep and/or impenetratable a gully as they can, where many times you need an ax, machete, and maybe even a chainsaw to even get close enough to gut them!!!

Twice I've shot deer in an open field where I could drive to them. It felt like I hadn't even been hunting! I was back at camp before 8:00pm, I didn't look like I'd been tied up in a gunny sack with a couple of P.O'ed wildcats, and with the resultant lack of blood loss I didn't pass out once I took a hot shower! So somehow I felt like I didn't earn it! [:D]

[shaman]

I understand what you're saying.   I had one coming along the side of one of my ridges one day.  I hit her with the Whelenizer and knocked her plumb off the side of the hill.  The next time she touched down it was a good 70 yards further down.  After it was all over, I'd had to schlep her up 200 feet of elevation, and probably covered half a mile doing it.  The next time I killed one from that stand, I had made sure the path down to the bottom under the stand was cleared out well aforehand, so I could drive the truck all the way down. 

You know, there's a lot of things we can optimize for in a hunt.  We can optimize for antler. We can optimize for meat.  We can optimize for long shots or short shots.  Me?  As I get older, I am finding that optimizing for ease of retrieval has its merits.  Those last two doe I bagged were about as good as you can get: 170+lbs live weight and dead as rocks out in the middle of a firm, flat pasture. I used the same tracks driving over to both of them, so I didn't disturb the clover.  That makes 3 in the same spot now. 

I gotta go now. It's  starting to get light.  I'm building a new meat pole.  The old one rotted out. 

[Gulfcapt]

That poor youngman you call a RECOVERY KIT!! SHAM SHAM SHAM... No wounder he's so stout looking! lol

Is that the same youngster that is holding the black powder rifle in one of your previous blogs?

ORIGINAL: shaman

I hate to say this, but here's my "recovery kit"



Roll the S-10 up, Flop 'em on the rack, take 'em back to the house and do everything there.

Granted, the orange pack is lighter, but I think mine has y'all beat on simplicity and ease of use.

[Woods Walker]

Based on this.....



http://forum.deeranddeerhunting.com/tm. ... ey=&#81676


I think a 12 gauge pump would also be in order!

[AlleganBowhunter]

I am mostly on public land, was going to add an orange vest or hat, but others beat me too it.  Never had a problem, but don't want one either!

When hunting public land, I carry everything with me in a fanny pack.  Tagging paper (I use TP- dual usage ya know), 2 small knives, drag rope, orange vest/hat,  gallon ziploc to carry the heart (very good when cut right) and a two small flashlights. 

I have only heard of one story of someone getting a deer stolen while they went to get help recovering it... I carry everything so I don't become the 2nd case. 

Cool to see how other do it.

[Cut N Run]

I've told this story here before, but here goes again; A friend and I used to bowhunt together a few ridges apart on public gamelands around Jordan Lake in Chatham County, N.C., where my buddy arrowed a pretty nice buck. That was in the days before we used radios to communicate, so he eased over to my to my stand to allow the buck time to lay up and to get me to help him drag. We picked up the blood trail and leapfrogged each other to the next spot of blood. We got to where the buck had fallen and found a gutpile and his arrow. We haluled out of the woods and went to a few of the game check stations in the area and found this guy's picture with the buck Jimmy had shot. I was able to see the check-in tag and find out who the thief was and where he lived, where we expressed our displeasure with his (sorry @$$) actions.

I don't hunt on gamelands much anymore and I don't leave downed deer unattended unless it is on private land where I can get a vehicle to help get the deer out.

Another friend and I were hunting together and we each took deer pretty far off the road around Jordan Lake. We decided that it would be easier to drive back to my house (closeby) and get my canoe to make getting the deer out easier. We only had to slide the deer downhill to the water and load them into the canoe & paddle out versus a mile-long drag over hilly terrain.

Jim

[shaman]

That's a bummer!  I've heard stories like that. Ah! The joys of hunting public land! I've heard even worse-- buddy of mine went hunting, shot a nice buck, went to get the truck, came back,  buck's gone-- forgot to check it was dead. 

All kidding aside on my idea of a recovery kit, I went through what I usually carry out to the kill site in the back of the truck.   These are all bagged up and ready to go, just in case:

On a normal pickup on top of the ridge:

Camera-- gotta get some good shots, right?



If'n I'm gonna have to gut in-place:
Block and tackle
75 feet of 1/2 inch rope
2  6 foot towing straps
bone saw
Wyoming knife
Rain suit-- (easy to clean off the blood)
game cart (optional-- hardly ever use that anymore)


If'n it's dark out:
Coleman lantern-- good for illuminating the kill site or for trailing blood trails. I've got 4 if needed.



Discussion:

As I said, I use the truck as much as I can and bring the carcass back to the house.  I can radio back to the house and have KYHillChick out there in just a few minutes-- usually in the time it takes to get all my gear packed up and toted to the pickup site. 

However, if it's going to be a bad haul, I gut in place to reduce the weight of the carcass and let it start cooling off faster.  The block and tackle, rope and tow straps are what let me do two things-- hoist the deer up off the ground to gut it, and also help me get a really big deer up a really steep hill, with or without a game cart.  The tow straps go around a tree limb or trunk and the pull on the rope is 1/4 what it would be without the b&t.

Normally, even it a worse-case scenario, I can get the truck within 100 yards of the carcass, but we do have steep ravines, and sometimes it can be a chore.  I had one that only ran 80 yards from the stand, and it was straight downhill.  It took 3 hours to get him up to the truck. 

Clean-up?  I usually strip down to my poly-pro underwear and then put on an old rainsuit to gut.  That saves my hunting clothes from getting messed up.  My hands are going to be messy, but if there is no water close by, I just used dirt.  Dirt rubbed vigorously through the hands will clean quite a bit of blood off.

Illumination?  Back at the house I have the meat pole electrified, so it's bright.  Out in the woods?  A Coleman gas lantern has been my pick when it's necessary.  As I said, I usually don't have far to go from the truck.

Extreme worse case scenario at the farm: 

2008, I was all alone at the farm.  I bagged a buck at sundown and was a good 1/2 mile from the house.  I carry a good knife and a pruning saw in my kit.  Once I found the critter-- he'd gone down into a ravine-- I gutted him where he lay and then went out to get the truck.  I ended up hauling the carcass about 50 yards, using my safety harness for a drag.  The whole thing took me twice as long as if I'd had the option of calling back to the house for a pickup, and gutted at the meatpole, and I missed getting to the processor by 15 minutes.  I went home, used the block and tackle and hoisted the whole carcass into a spare chest freezer and shut the lid until morning.

[JPH]

Good conversation. Lots of solid ideas.

The primary use for my kit is actually to package what I will need to photograph and dress my deer, while I am still in the process of tracking it. I would have also included aerial photos and a cell phone, but I already carry those items in my vest. I know a lot of people carry a compass but I have not found it necessary in familiar farm country. Otherwise I have found my kit to be reasonably complete to track and recover a deer in the area I hunt. With a few exceptions.

Expanding on a coupe of things, just for the heck of it.

Flashlight: My profession has afforded me the chance to put some flashlights through extreme field testing. While the 3C Pelican Super Saber flashlight is not the best "life-or-death" light you can buy, it is one of the brightest and most rugged lights  on the market, and it is by far the best value. The highly focused white light (made to cut through smoke or cloudy water) does a poor job of area lighting but an excellent job of illuminating blood. You will note that I have attached a snap-clip to my light so that I can attach it to my pack or vest and work hands free.

Obviously, once the deer is located this light is not easy to work by. I may pick up an LED headlamp to use during dressing and dragging.

Marking tape: I've probably followed a few miles of sputtering blood trail over the last few seasons (sorry to admit), and I've learned a few things. One things is that an adequate supply of toilet paper, for personal use, is not always adequate for tracking. toilet paper is also too wide and tears too easily. This makes it hard to tie on twigs as you advance down a blood trail. A roll of paper party streamer comes in bright colors, is a perfect width for tying and does not have perforations that will tear. Just like toilet paper, it will wash away after a few rain showers, so you don't need to worry if you don't get it all picked up.

Notebook/pen: I guess I might also want to toss a little notebook in there. It is easy to lose track of details. What time did I shoot the deer? What clues have I found along the way? Do I need to leave a note at the pickup/tree stand/trail head for my hunting partner? Yeah, that would be an easy addition.

So, more thoughts?