Q1mozoo

I was sitting in a tree stand a couple days ago waiting to murder some hogs that had injured someone in the area when a whole mess of deer wandered by and started playing. They looked so delicious and I still had tags left on my license…but I didn’t take the shot. The reason? I own a hatchback, not a pickup truck. I mean, as illustrated in the image above, it’s entirely possible to fit two bucks into the trunk of a standard saloon car (I regularly evaluate trunk space based on the number of bodies it will hold anyway), but I’d hate to be the guy that has to clean it out afterward. Pickup trucks make the trip to the deer processor much easier and cleanup is a snap. And you won’t give the motorists behind you nightmares.

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50 COMMENTS

        • Married and divorced here you do that with a car regardless of whose it is you will be on the couch or worse.

        • Then take down this note:

          Be real sure of who you’re marrying. Better yet, don’t get married. Don’t even live with a woman.

          One word from a psycho woman in a “domestic partnership” with you and your guns are in the hands of law enforcement when they come to enforce any restraining order she might file. If your breakup is messy or possibly involves contested custody of kids, you’d best hire a good lawyer off the bat.

          Since 65% of all divorces are initiated by women, and where the woman has a four year degree or more, over 80% of divorces are initiated by the woman, you want to think very carefully about getting married at all.

          I tell young or aspiring gunsmiths the following: Don’t get married. If you are married, think really hard and long whether she’s the type you’d think would file for divorce one day. One word from her (or more likely, at the direction of her lawyer), even if you’re only shacking up with her, and you’re out of business, your personal guns are gone, and worse, your customers’ guns might be seized as well.

          I’ll now return you to worrying about whether your buck bleeds out in the trunk of some stupid sub-compact or sedan.

        • Unfortunately, Dyspeptic Gunsmith is right on this one.

          I know you can’t really tell young people (because I tell women not to get married too) this grim reality because hormones and feelings make people do stupid things.

          I’m partially guilty myself. I live with my gf. But after going through a divorce, I will never, ever get married again.

          I think people who get married more than once either:

          A. Have kids
          B. Have short memories
          C. Have money problems
          D. Are gluttons for punishment

  5. They make these things now called “plastic tarps.” I would have gone for the venison. What was he going to do with the hog meat? Leave it there?

    • Yep. I just not a nice buck last week on my in-law’s farm. On the way down I stopped at the General Store (no, really, that town still has one) and grabbed a tarp and rope. The roof the Focus ZXW was not only as sufficient as my old Blazer’s, it was easier to reach. And I got 30 mpg. Would a pickup have been handier? Sure. Would I let that stand in my way? In the immortal wisdom of the Robertsons, “Naw.”

      This is my inspiration:
      http://georgiapellegrini.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Old-Hunting-Photos-7.jpg

    • being that hogs are pests, albeit, delicious pests, the answer is: YES. Leaving the hogs to rot is not a waste when they are a nuisance species in need or eradication.

  6. cargo trays

    If you have a receiver for a trailer hitch on the back of your car, you can purchase a cargo tray that slides into the receiver. (The cargo tray has a square metal tube that mates to your trailer hitch receiver.) The trays are about 4 feet x 1.5 feet and are perfect for hauling a deer.

    Note that neither a cargo tray nor your receiver may have enough weight capacity to hold two deer.

    • I know for a fact you can get at least 2 medium size deer and drive at least 30 miles (the weight is not to problem so much as making sure they are secure and that the tail pipe exhaust does not ruin the deer). I also know they hold 5 for at least 300 yards. not a typo, 5. dont ask.

  7. I can just imagine the reaction where I used to live – just north of Monterey, CA.

    It’d probably trigger an Amber Alert. Or would that be a Bamber Alert?

  9. lol. at least get a hitch, carrier, and a tarp. are you sure that wasn’t a gag – i mean the heads hanging out are just too perfectly positioned for effect?

    • I would say cop insurance… I mean if I saw blood on a car near its trunk I’d assume “Murderer” rather than “Deer Hunter” and call 911.

  11. ha ha, I actually did that with my Mustang last year when my truck was broke down, used a tarp and the processor was only five miles down a Texas Farm to Market so no one batted an eye.

  13. I saw a guy last season cruizin down highway 65 here in the Ozarks with a doe bungeed to the luggage rack of his Honda Goldwing. I’d post the picture if I knew how. Pretty funny stuff. Doesn’t raise too many eyebrows in this part of the world.

  14. Those are North Dakota plates on that car, so the most common reaction from other drivers is likely to be, “hey, nice deer”.

    • Except that he’s on I-94 in SE North Dakota (sign is for the Valley City exit, about an hour west of Fargo), which is a major east-west travel route in the north-central U.S. I’ve seen license plates from 40+ states on this section of Interstate, and many of the travelers are city folk who will NOT appreciate the view.

      Me? I just caught myself humming a few bars of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer”…
      *rimshot*

      Still trying to figure out how he got blood on TOP of the trunk lid?
      Maybe there was a third deer aboard when he started out?

  15. umm,
    you were going to shoot Hogs… but wouldn’t take a deer because you drove the car and not the truck.

    How were you going to get the hog out?

    • Deer are delicious wonders of nature. None of them should ever be wasted

      The local hog population knocked my friend’s mom over and broke her ribs. Worms gotta eat . . .

    • Pigs taste good, but they should all be shot on sight even if you don’t plan on eating them. They are delicious vermin.

  17. I’m laughing. Because next summer, when the blood thaws, and the bacteria start growing, and he pops that trunk to put some groceries in…
    The smell will knock a buzzard off a gut wagon.
    Seriously, he will NOT get that smell out.

  18. Along the Gulf Coast those pickups will usually have 178 qt. Marine Coolers, (ice chests to fellow Southerners), in the back. When the afternoon temps top 75 F a deer has to be skinned and put on ice quickly if you want to preserve the meat.

    I would no more consider going deer hunting without a marine size ice chest than I would go hunting with buckshot that I had not pattern tested!

  19. When my dad first started hunting, he once brought a buck out of the woods strapped onto the cargo rack of a Honda Trail 90.

  20. When my daughter and I went to Firearms / Hunter Safety (I didn’t have to go, but I figured I might as well go with to brush up on some basics, some changes to laws, and show my daughter you’re never too old to learn, anyways…), they said that there’s 10% of the population that hunts, 10% of the population that is dead-set against it, and 80% that is generally ambivalent – but when you start “open carrying” bloody massacres on the hood of your car and drive through town, it tends to sour public hunting opinion. They suggested you truck it and / or tarp the harvest in a way that seems to be respectful of your quarry – and the general public.

  21. (Upstate New York) When I was a kid the buck was tied on the front fender. Your rifle was carried on rack in the cab of the truck. No more.

  22. things like battery powered sawsall tools make quartering a skinned deer an easy task these days. I recall dressing skinning and quartering my first deer wit my dad to make it easy to pack out (back then done with pack saw and hatchet ) when we got to the car the head and skin went in a cooler of the ole aluminum coleman type and the quarters were wrapped up in grease paper then in an oilcloth tarp then in the back of the ford station wagon when we got home dad showed me how to butcher the quarters into proper cuts a choice roast for sunday dinner went into the fridge and the rest into the big chest freezer in the basement the head went to the taxidermist as it was my first. and the skin to a native american friend who also got the brains and one of the quarters.
    t shot it with my grandfathers 30-30 winchester at about 70 yards in mixed moorland and heavy brush cover after an upwind stalk… my dad considered shooting deer from a stand or at a pile of apples etc unsporting and taught me it should only be done that way in a survival situation… this was of course back in the days of duck an cover and a family fallout shelter.

  23. I used to work at a U-Haul. They rent out pickup trucks for $19.99 a day and 79-99c a mile depending on the day of the week.

    As long as you have a U-haul within not-too-far of where you slay Bambi, that’s one solution.

    Personally though, I just prefer to have friends/relatives with trucks until I get my own someday.

    • has one ever been returned with blood stains? How is that treated insofar as damage – is there a cleaning fee? I hesitate to ask, has it happened outside of hunting season?

  24. Note that the animals in the other pictures were not bleeding all over the vehicles. Whoever this is seems to have forgotten to field dress, or at least bleed out, the deer.

  25. Wow! Where there’s a redneck, there’s a way…

    Side note: stop wasting your money on processors, it’s super easy once you do it a few times and get the hang of it. Cavemen cut up their catch with sharp rocks, it’s not rocket science.

    Butcher sheets, some good knives, hacksaw, vacuum sealer/bags, and some Google-fu then you’re in business.

  26. Field dress, skin and quarter them out in camp and then put them in an ice chest. That’s how I manage in my wagon. Oh, and that’s legal in Texas by the way.

  27. I call this an “Adam”. If you guys knew that specific friend of mine you’d understand. He’s the only person I let hunt my property and last week I helped him stuff a deer in the trunk of his WIFES(!!!!!) 2010 Ford Focus.

    No tarp, No rack, HUGE BALLS!…lol.

  29. Easy solution. 223 and a lung shot. Never lost a deer. Never had to perform the Coup de grâce shot on retrieval. So little bleeding that I haul them to the processor on a tarp in my SUV.

  30. I can’t say for sure about North Dakota, but in Wisconsin the regulations say that if you’re transporting a deer that hasn’t been registered yet, it has to be at least partially visible outside the vehicle. We usually just left a single hoof sticking up out of the truck bed, and tarped the rest.

  31. Blue tarps. Wrap the [deer] body before transport. It is hard to believe any hunter would not have at least one blue tarp somewhere in his vehicle.

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