I usually field dress the beast ASAP and then take my gear back to the truck. They are much easier to drag if you don't have a bow or pack. I grab the cell phone and see if anybody is about. If so I happily wait for them. If not I leave everything I don't need in the truck and go back and start dragging.

I always offer to help others drag!! Much easier job with two guys and then they can owe you the same effort.

I have just never figured out how a dead deer can reach out and grab every tree or root while your pulling!! It's like they don't want to leave the woods!

No problem, field dress it. Drag it to my vehicle. Bring it to my garage, hook it to my block and tackle. Raise it to a comfortable position. Skin it, quarter it. Put the quarters in my shop refridgerator and butcher it over the next couple of days. Here is a picture of my Dad from last year skinning at the back of the motorcycle shop.

yup that is what i do . i wish i had a cold storage locker sometimes

Am I missing something...what is the problem?

Gut it and drag it out of there.

Soooo, you did not shoot a doe that you may have otherwise taken? What if that were a decent buck @ 6:30 pm., would you have shot him? Just curious.

Ill anticipate his answer and give one for him[8D]

Hell yes! Time can be taken off of work to track down a good buck, as could a doe obviously, but buck opportunities are much harder to come by than doe encounters. Doe kills, ina way, can be timed out for convenience of cleaning time,etc. Buck kills, you make time for.

If mobow doesnt agree, well then that answer stands for my answer to that situation.

I know what Mobow's saying.

There has been many a doe that had a better evening than she might have.....because I knew Lisa and I had plans, that night. I take my time with her, seriously.

If I'm gonna forego an evening with my wife.....it's gonna be one special deer.

If I am out hunting, I dont anticipate being home untill 11pm anyway. its safer, I go get the deer, I field dress it, I drag it out, then I get it checked in (there is a 24hr gas station here that does it...so great) then off to the butcher.

Last year I shot a nice 6 point 2 days before season ended. It was almost too dark to see which way he went, and had to cross a creek to pick up trail. I waited til morning, and when I found him...nothing left but skin and rack. Ribs were chewed in half and all the meat was torn out and gone. I dont have yotes around, but this year I saw my first bear. Do you think a bear would do that?

Anyway,, back to the post. Im doing the best I can this year to retrieve any kill. I may end up looking all night due to what I witnessed last year!

I do that quite a bit actually. I did it this past weekend as a matter of fact. I was over a mile from the truck in a place with no ATV access so I opted not to shoot a doe. If a good buck would have come buy and given me a shot it would have been a different story. I wouldn't have minded dragging a big one nearly as bad. The processor thing is a non-issue for me because I know both of the ones that I use regularly, pretty well and I just pull up wash them out, hang them, put them in the cooler, and stuff the paper saying "regular cut" in them and I'm done. It doesn't matter what time of night it is. Which I must say is pretty convenient considering the distances I travel many times to hunt.