Help Dragging a buck

getting a buck

Our buddy was hunting in the forest near our house Sunday, the last day of bow season. He managed to get a whitetail buck. He immediately called us to see if we could drag it out with the donkeys, my response was 'heck yeah!'. The donkeys have never hauled big game, so I was excited to see what their reaction was going to be.

​We saddled up the donkeys with their pack saddles, in retrospect I would like to have a lightweight pulling collar for this exact situation. He sent me his location via OnX and we hiked up and met him. The donkeys were very interested in the buck. Daisy got within feet of him.

We initially wanted Rocky to pull him out, but about 50' down the trail he got real worried about what was dragging behind him. Rocky doesn't drive yet, Ive only ground driven him once, so I totally understand why he was freaked out. When I say 'freaked out' he basically walked really fast in spurts, but you could tell he was worried. It was a good try for him.

We hooked Daisy up, Daisy and she had zero issues pulling the buck down the trail. We took a few breaks on the steep part of the trail and to give her a break from the breastcollar. We had a bit of saddle slippage, I was using new pads that were not conformed to their backs yet. The trail was super slick mud and snow.

Very proud of hope well the donkeys were on the trail. We could have easily packed them out in bags, might have to try that next time. A nice start to learning to pack game.