I was able to help build my first meat pole when I harvested a moose out on some stretch of the Stony River Valley. And the need materialized. Basically spruce pole frame.
The second one is a little more unique. I was having coffee with the beautiful wife. Nothing like coffee perked in a perk pot on the stove. I finished up a cup n stepped out on the porch to toss some coffee grounds out of my cup. Do my usual look around n there is a black bear sniffing around the back corner of the cabin 20' away. I step back in n ask beautiful wife if she wanted to harvest it. After I harvested the bear, she said she had to finish her first cup of coffee first. Was time to build the meat pole I envisioned for a while. There are a couple huge birch tree stumps, now stumps as high up as I could reach while standing on the cargo box on the back of the wheeler with a chainsaw. And nailing together 3- 16' 2x12s and using ratchet straps to hold it up. So then I could hang the bear n process it. Meat pole in a few hours. I've improved it a bit, kinda. Put a roof on it. The snow has broken half the roof joists. Hopefully it's still up. I've got a lumber n 4 wheeler under there. Cabin life.
Got to hang our son's first bull there. Huge moose. 58"er and had half of one palm broken in half down the middle n regrown. Would have probably broken 60. But the size was huge. Got near 500 pounds of boned out cleaned meat. I'd guess around 1400 plus pounds live. He stepped out of some black spruce. I instantly knew he was legal. I was doing cow in heat calls. He was cautious but most probable he had never seen a human before.
Sure is cool to remember that memory. I was ready this time n had a pully on the pole. We use our coleman canoe for freight in the summer. Works great. I could pull under the pole with the canoe n unhook. N winch the pieces up. Skin n game bag. Soked with citrus. Under a tarp with soot fires to keep the blow flies off. I've got the generator shed ready now to use as a meat cooler. I put a small air conditioner in it and can hang the meat in there. Kinda spoiled now because I freighted out a little refrigerator freezer combo and don't have to worry about flying a moose out. This one took 2 trips for the meat n Dave went back n got the antlers. They would not fit into the 185 so had to be strapped to the floats.
The pole serves several purposes now. And it all started with morning coffee thinking about how nice n easy the day was. Do some moose, bear, wolf hunting. Yeah meat poles are cool
The second one is a little more unique. I was having coffee with the beautiful wife. Nothing like coffee perked in a perk pot on the stove. I finished up a cup n stepped out on the porch to toss some coffee grounds out of my cup. Do my usual look around n there is a black bear sniffing around the back corner of the cabin 20' away. I step back in n ask beautiful wife if she wanted to harvest it. After I harvested the bear, she said she had to finish her first cup of coffee first. Was time to build the meat pole I envisioned for a while. There are a couple huge birch tree stumps, now stumps as high up as I could reach while standing on the cargo box on the back of the wheeler with a chainsaw. And nailing together 3- 16' 2x12s and using ratchet straps to hold it up. So then I could hang the bear n process it. Meat pole in a few hours. I've improved it a bit, kinda. Put a roof on it. The snow has broken half the roof joists. Hopefully it's still up. I've got a lumber n 4 wheeler under there. Cabin life.
Got to hang our son's first bull there. Huge moose. 58"er and had half of one palm broken in half down the middle n regrown. Would have probably broken 60. But the size was huge. Got near 500 pounds of boned out cleaned meat. I'd guess around 1400 plus pounds live. He stepped out of some black spruce. I instantly knew he was legal. I was doing cow in heat calls. He was cautious but most probable he had never seen a human before.
Sure is cool to remember that memory. I was ready this time n had a pully on the pole. We use our coleman canoe for freight in the summer. Works great. I could pull under the pole with the canoe n unhook. N winch the pieces up. Skin n game bag. Soked with citrus. Under a tarp with soot fires to keep the blow flies off. I've got the generator shed ready now to use as a meat cooler. I put a small air conditioner in it and can hang the meat in there. Kinda spoiled now because I freighted out a little refrigerator freezer combo and don't have to worry about flying a moose out. This one took 2 trips for the meat n Dave went back n got the antlers. They would not fit into the 185 so had to be strapped to the floats.
The pole serves several purposes now. And it all started with morning coffee thinking about how nice n easy the day was. Do some moose, bear, wolf hunting. Yeah meat poles are cool
