Moose Retrieval

We packed many moose over the years, especially before ATV's became available. A top quality frame pack ( without the bag) with good shoulder straps and waist belt was the pack of choice, sometimes with an improvised tumpline on big quarters. After gutting the drill was to skin it on the ground and quarter it on the hide ( flesh side) to keep it clean. No need to pack an extra hundred pounds of useless hide. Bag it in cheesecloth or game bags to keep it clean and tie a quarter securely to your pack keeping it as balanced as possible. Get the load up onto a stump or log to make getting it onto your back easier, help each other with this. Always try to pick a gentle grade when loaded and be very careful with obstacles like fallen logs, loose gravel, slippery mud and side hills. A nosedive with an extra 120-150 pounds on your back can result in serious injury. Sometimes a little judicious trail building can pay big dividends. When you get to your camp your meat is all ready to hang.
Only once we boned out a huge bull, shot 1500 feet down the other side of the mountain. It was very difficult to handle and to hang, never seemed to really set up or cure properly, never tried it again. Try to keep the packing job in mind as you hunt, some places are best avoided. Oh, the pole.... might work ( with lots of padding) on solid level ground, a disaster in soft areas and hilly terrain.
Don't forget at least the liver, absolutely the best. Good luck.
 
Horses are the best way....

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But most of the time it's a pack frame and a steep hike! :)

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Sometimes you get lucky and they die on the side of the road!

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From this :

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To this:

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Takes about an hour.

We almost never gut animals anymore. Just a waste of time and messy.

Gutless method with skinning, cut into sections, debone if going a long way. Remove rib meat (This last pic was done the rib roll method and it's my preferred method now, for sure.

We've packed lots of meat out like this. These are two boned out blacktail deer. You can do the same with moose, just more trips. Whether to bone out or not depends on a few factors, mostly how long and hard the pack out is, and how many guys.

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This is what we did with our last moose. We quartered it just using our knives, cut out the back straps, tenderloin, neck meat. It is much easier to preform this on the kill site than trying to drag it back to the vehicle.
https://imgur.com/a/XERat6I
 
track said:
This is what we did with our last moose. We quartered it just using our knives, cut out the back straps, tenderloin, neck meat. It is much easier to preform this on the kill site than trying to drag it back to the vehicle.
https://imgur.com/a/XERat6I
Click to expand...

Nice, me and the old cellar towed the cow I got out on the dead, cut into primals and then skinned and loaded it into the truck and covered it with tarps
 
UR2X3M4ME said:
Gut it immediately, heat is your enemy. If on foot (no access to wheels of any kind, quarter it. Much easier to carry.

Dedicated chainsaw with vegetable oil is very handy and a tad messy. Your friends will never look at you the same...
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We used to keep a Stihl 08 with a new blade and chain, the oil tank very well cleaned, and used veg. oil in it to quarter our moose to bring them from the garage to the store. We were so bloody fortunate - my father-in-law was a logger, and moved to his winter cuts a few weeks before the season. The moose would move in to eat the poplar buds. We would always get our moose within 20 minutes of the start of the season (it was meat hunting). We used a skidder to bring them out, loaded them onto the 5-ton flatbed, brought them to his machinery garage, hoisted them on his electric hoist. We'd try to let them hang for a week. My mother was the butcher at the local grocery store, so we'd butcher them at night in the store (this is 70's-80's).
 
Clean it and debone it and pack the meat out cause you do not eat the bones and they are extra weight.
 
My friends have had great success with a come along ( he does tree work so its heavy duty ) and 100m of rope. He has stated that he has never had an issue pulling the moose out. They also erect a stand of 3 long poles lashed together to make a tripod of sorts, they then can hoist the beast up up off the ground and are able to butcher it. Then it is put into a freezer that the generator runs. Speaking of generators I am swamped with them! No matter how often I tell people that use premium fuel, run the unit dry at the end of the season and use an alkylate fuel to keep it primed and ready for use they just keep on doing what they do! I am also working on a chainsaw power head powered winch for next year
 
Last year, we used a chainsaw winch to pull out my bull moose, paired with a custom-built sled. We had access to this through a friend. If I was doing it without that sort of equipment, I'd plan on bringing some rope and skinning/gutting/boning it out in place. Why work harder than you have to?
 
The next time I get a deer that I have to pack out, I may try my furniture dolly that has very big tires or a wheelbarrow - you could probably fit a quarter of moose in/on one. Last fall, I damn near died hauling a fairly big doe out of the bush. Almost broke my neck when I tripped on my tongue.
 
For those doing the gutless method, do you just leave the inside tenderloin with the carcass or is that removed as well?
 
hawk-i said:
For those doing the gutless method, do you just leave the inside tenderloin with the carcass or is that removed as well?
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That was my question. I saw several videos where they do that with deer and boars, and it seems like they throw it out!!!!!
 
hawk-i said:
For those doing the gutless method, do you just leave the inside tenderloin with the carcass or is that removed as well?
Click to expand...

You can remove it...if it causes you too much trouble, do all else first and dump the guts to get it.
Gutless quartering is the ticket...I had an small bull elk done and driving away in 15 mins.
 
Find a stone boat that farmers use for hauling big rocks around. I drag the moose onto it with the quad, rachet strap the mooses legs and head close to its body and fastened to the stone boat. It glides on rough rocky terrain, slips across bog as long as the front doesn't dig in first.


If no quad or truck, get quartering her up!
 
Papaclaude said:
The next time I get a deer that I have to pack out, I may try my furniture dolly that has very big tires or a wheelbarrow - you could probably fit a quarter of moose in/on one. Last fall, I damn near died hauling a fairly big doe out of the bush. Almost broke my neck when I tripped on my tongue.
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only time I've ever used one but we lowered this deer down a 50 foot drop on the furniture dolly :)
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then there are the unusually cooperative ones that just climb in to the truck on their own :evil:
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k..... I suck at photoshop.... whatever hahaha
 
hawk-i said:
For those doing the gutless method, do you just leave the inside tenderloin with the carcass or is that removed as well?
Click to expand...
No way, you want that slab of meat, its the best one there is.
Cut in by the back rib, carefully along gut sack to separate it from spine up to the back rib. Do not puncture the gut sack.
You can get a hold of the tenderloin, start cutting it out from the top next to the bone by reaching in and being careful.
Cut the tenderloin out as the last butchering bit that you do, in case you make a little mistake with your knife :p
Biggest problem I see with people hacking away at their animals is that they tend to use too big of a knife.
 
DVXDUDE said:
Find a stone boat that farmers use for hauling big rocks around. I drag the moose onto it with the quad, rachet strap the mooses legs and head close to its body and fastened to the stone boat. It glides on rough rocky terrain, slips across bog as long as the front doesn't dig in first.


If no quad or truck, get quartering her up!
Click to expand...

Why use a stone boat, when you can buy a nice calf hauling sled at the local ag store ? Light, easily stored and designed for hauling weight. :confused:

Grizz
 
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