A couple of weekends ago, I went out to one of the walk-in areas near my house to do a little antelope hunting.
The night before this most recent antelope hunt, I made a checklist of all the things I thought I’d need. I checked that I had everything on the list, then I checked it again. And I still almost forgot something. But as I was stuffing everything into the vehicle, I realized I had left my Deer Sleigh’r off the list.
You might have seen this thing in the hunting catalogs. It’s basically just a thin sheet of plastic that rolls up for transport, and when you get an animal, you can lay it out, put the critter on it, and drag the whole mess out of the hills, slick as a whistle.
I almost left it behind, even though I remembered it at the last minute, because, first and foremost, I figured I’d probably come home empty-handed again. Also, antelope are little, so you don’t really need a sled to get one out of the field.
But I tossed it in anyway, and later on, I was glad I did.
I hiked about a mile into one of those walk-in areas, and I somehow managed to knock down a goat. I thought I might just carry him out, but I decided to give that Deer Sleigh’r a try. And wow, it was awesome.
It has eyelets along its length so you can tie it up around the animal, and another bigger eyelet at the front to tie a tug rope to it. With the slick bottom surface, it slides like butter on a hot skillet over even brushy terrain. And it made getting that antelope out of the field the easiest game retrieval I’ve ever done.
And best of all, the way I hunt, there’s probably no chance I’ll ever wear that thing out. It should last me the rest of my hunting life.
