Sea 
oa 
Se a WOR on 

All set—Ready for transportation. Note how bone of 
foreleg acts as a key, preventing withdrawal of shank 

os YF Oy 
a Oa ® ee sn 
The legs may be tied in the same manner with two bits 
of stout twine-—provided you have the latter commodity 
Packing Out 
Your Buck. 
By HAMILTON M. LAING 
a “long and varied experience” in deer-hunting. It is 
rather the result of some few hours of heart-breaking and 
back-breaking endeavor at different times, but better still, is the 
result of the acquisition of knowledge that has come from fortu- 
nate association with some real hunters of the west coast woods— 
hunters who have few superiors as woodsmen, and who having 
killed and carried scores of deer, are qualified to give a lesson 
in the art. 
Each chechahco learns to his sorrow that when he has come 
up to his fallen quarry and danced his joy dance or gloated sor- 
rowfully over the forest monarch, according to his nature, that 
the battle is by no means won. The antlered king has to be car- 
ried out, perhaps not exactly in state, but carried somehow— 
“packed” out as they always say in the west. If the victim is an 
insignificant spike buck, the problem is easier; if he happens to 
be the eight-point sockdolager that we all dream about, then 
the problem is one to well nigh break the tyro heart. For in 
these days when we are getting the ethics of sportsmanship 
established on firmer basis—or are we?—we cannot do other than 
frown darkly upon the killer who leaves the body of his victim 
to rot while he packs out the head as a “trophy” only. Such a 
course seldom can be condoned. It savors too much of the 
method of the scalping Indian or the head hunter of Borneo. 
The method of packing him out, given here, is doubtless 
most applicable to the west coast woods. Coast blacktail are 
small. Usually hunting is done without snow and the animal 
cannot be left where it falls without danger of losing it—not many 
hunters in unfamiliar woods can return to a given spot. So the 
buck must be packed out to road or trail or skid-road or lake 
shore where better means of transport may be secured. This has 
caused westerners to work out their own best system. But it is 
equally applicable in most cases to the east. While it must be 
admitted that a big mule deer or white-tailed buck of two hundred 
pounds or over is beyond the packing strength of most men, yet 
there are far more small deer killed than large deer, spike bucks 
are commoner than antlered monarchs, and anything up to 150 
or 175 pounds may be carried easily enough. 
6) (ise article is not the product of what the newspapers call 
HILE there are several ways of getting a deer out of the 
woods, this depending somewhat on the kind of country, 
the presence or absence of snow, etc., there is only one easiest 
way of back-packing him. Of the scores of photographs that 
are seen of hunters engaged in this excruciating labor of love, 
it is rare that a picture shows other than rankly chechahco method. 
A small deer, stiffened or frozen may pack across the shoulder 
like a cordwood stick, but to carry him far is no pleasant experi- 
ence, especially if much brush or shrubbery lies in the way. The 
commonest stunt seems to be for two greenhorns to tie the animal’s 
legs, front to front and hind to hind, run a pole through the leg- 
loops and march happily homeward with the burden wagging 
back and forth like a grotesque pendulum, the head dragging 
and catching every obstruction—thought it can be tied up—the 
merry pallbearers getting out of step each moment and stumbling 
hopelessly in all bad going. This method may sometimes be the 
only one where the animal is very large and beyond the strength 
of one man to lift, but this article deals with deer of a size that 
may be so carried by one man alone. 
Briefly the method of preparation for the carry is as follows: 
As soon as the animal has been bled it should be gutted and 
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