Put cargo baskets on my ATV
 

On Friday I put front and rear cargo baskets on my ATV. I bought them from Sportsman's Guide. They will do the job but I think they need to change the way they mount. They come with 4 inch bolts and a bunch of steel strips about 1x5 inches long with several holes in them. You are supposed to put the strips on the bottom of the basket and a matching strip on the top and then put the nut on the bold and tighten them. I didn't like it, it was possible to get your hand under the rack on the ATV and the bottom of the baskets. I bought a bunch of U-bolts and got rid of the steel strip on them and used the black strips that came with the kit. Inserted the you bolts from beneath and then the strip and tightened them up. I wish the rear basket didn't extend so far over the back of the ATV. I will use it for this deer season and if I still don't like it, I will replace it with another or alter the one I have now. I took the photos in my garage so they are a little dark but you can get an idea of them. The set only cost 80 bucks so if I have to alter or replace the rear it won't matter much.

Nice looking setup OT. Should enable you to get that deer out of the woods in style. Last year while recovering from my heart bypass surgery I shot a 150 pound 5 point buck near the house. I was on a lifting restriction of no more than 10 pounds so I called my wife who loaded up the wheeler with a garden cart and drove it up onto the ridge to help me load it up. Just another tool to help us out.

Never thought I would want one, however after dragging the last two deer I shot up out of a ravine that runs by my stand where they decided to go to die I realized they don't drag as easily as they did before I hit 70. Any more go into the ravine, I will be going down with the winch cable.:biggrin:

You have me by a year. With age brings wisdom. I never used mine when hunting the big woods. Now that I hunt closer to home I have used it for more than a few retrievals.

I am a few years older then that and also have a Kawasaki, a 650 that I use for deer hunting. I have thought about cargo baskets but never sprang for them. If I did I think I would want only the front one. I have tied deer onto the top of the back rack as is and made sure that nothing hung over enough to cause a problem. I take my ATV to the farm on a 4'X6' trailer and can hitch that on the back of the ATV if I needed to haul several deer at a time. If it was not for an ATV my deer hunting would be very restricted, also they are fun to ride.

just a FYI, if you ever go and hook up a trailer to this atv , watch your head, them darn rear racks that stick out like that make that simple task SO much harder than needed, all the more so the one's that have the drop down in the back as well LOL
at camp, I get the kids to do that now for me, there shorter and bend over easier!

Yeah, I found our how hard it is to get to my owners manual and tools stored in a little box in the back of my atv. I am thinking about buying a back basket that has the drop down part made so you can use it up or down.

I would suggest removing the owners manual from that box, they tend to get some moisture in there and they can get ruined over time
tool? I like to keep mine in a water proof plastic container for same reason, coat with a little light oil first!
it keeps them from getting rusty over time, I also add some more useful tools too, like vice grips, zip ties, and a small LED flashlight! !
I also carry a good winch bag, with a snatch block,D shackle ,tree saver strap, ratchet straps and some other things that tend to come in real handy out in the field on an atv
also a good idea to keep a few bungee cords on racks too, they also come in handy and last a long time there?

over the yrs you tend to find things that help while out and about
a folding hand saw is nice at times too LOl
you can also get a decent sized army ammo can and just attach that to your rack to store things in too, very common ad on on atv racks

Oldtimer, another GREAT thing to ADD to your atv, is a small LED REAR light/s
they can be had very cheap off Ebay these days, and when out hunting at night and you have to back up to things, there priceless, simple to add on too,simple toggle switch on bar or? LED draw very little power and some of them light bars are incredibly bright, many have side angled lights on the ends, so they really make backing up at night simple .
about 30 bucks for one, so not too costly again and really makes life easier on you!

Good ideas, thanks. I have been toying with putting together a small tool box to keep on the machine. I like the idea of some LED lights.

everyone I know went to using led light bars, small 6-8 inch one's and they output the OEM lights to shame, and drawm way les power, most guys I know, don't even use OEM light no more, just have as back ups, if led's ever fail
the back up one,s many tie into there reveres wires, so auto like come on when you go backwards. me I prefer a switch as some times I can use lights when doing things and not wanting to back up or??

EBay again is your best best, man they have some cheap lights these days for stuff like this
seen them as low as 10 bucks with all mounting , hardware and all!

Thanks, I will have to check it out.

It's amazing how handy an ATV can be. We have a couple mini trucks, and I have a Razor side by side (foolish purchase), so all I have left for ATV's is a little 150cc model I bought from my wife's grandma after her grandpa passed. I put a detachable box on the back, and added a bracket which lets me stow target racks down on the side (think about a glass truck). I added a winch in the front with a custom bracket so it's internal to the frame, which really helps hoisting game for dressing too, or getting out of sticky situations - if I had a good anchor, it could winch out my truck, but obviously the little quad isn't heavy enough to manage that much alone.

I haven't added lights yet to our little quad, but this thread is motivation to do so. I've added lights to every vehicle I have owned - not to be some Billy Badass mud warrior, but to help me see to open feed sacks on the flat bed, spot coyotes, pull calves, back my trailer, find tools in the toolbox, etc... LED's are a wonderful invention for the 6V and 12V world, as they pull such little load to generate SO MUCH LIGHT, and they don't have the durability issues you had with bulb lamps. They're cheaper now than they used to be too, so getting kitted up is really easy. As long as a guy balances his resistance, LED's are really easy to DIY too.

So I guess I have a new project for this winter between sitting in the stand... Probably finally get around to putting the light bar on top of my wife's Jeep too.

Best thing I ever did was add two L.E.D. lights to my UTV roof.
Man does it light up the trail or roadway in the morning.
Great tool on the frozen lake to check for tipups.

JW

hmm I have LED headlights on my 4 wheeler and on my golf cart and neither are as bright as the original halogens as far as seeing where you are going...much brighter if shined in your eyes but definitely don't light up where I'm going like the halogens did. Still worth it because they don't burn out and I can leave them on for hours if I want.

led's like all lights come if different power, so not all are as bright as others
lumens are what they rate brightness on them with, the higher the number the brighter the lights are!

In my case I think it has more to do with the color temperature than the lumens. Cooler colored LEDs VS warmer color halogens. The cooler colors don't appear to cast as bright but appear extremely bright when looking at them.

This is extremely important when looking for blood as well.

yeah LED's are not that great, or most I have, for tracking blood at all
but enough lum's and things do be bright no matter the color of them
you also get into if there spot or flood lights too, in them
one is a more tight beam and other is a wider spread of light!

like all lights, they have many versions,
but you can still find cheap powerful lights for an atv these days , pretty easy
and not use as much power as the non led OEM light;s do!

Oh I love them just pointing out that although mine are extremely bright they don't cast quite as well as halogens.

I finally found an LED headlamp that really shows blood well. A lot of them are plum useless for blood tracking.