I’m a firm believer in sticking to a vehicle’s stated carrying and towing capacities, as I’ve seen what happens when you don’t firsthand. It is, in fact, not a good idea as you’ll likely end up breaking something in such a way, the only word to describe the inevitable situation is “catastrophe.”
However, when you’re out in the middle of nowhere. When cell reception is nonexistent. When a pickup truck has no hope to find its way to your location to haul something large out, you do what you have to and work with what you’ve got.
Case in point, Dan Staton—the man behind the YouTube channel ElkShape—was recently hunting black bear in Alberta, Canada, when he arrowed a 400-pound monster of a boar deep in the Canadian wilderness. Trees abound, and small, tight trails are the only way to access the area. So, how do you get out a black bear of this size and stature?
Easy, you overload a CFMoto ATV. How overloaded, you ask? Try somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 pounds over the manufacturer-stated limit. But you gotta do what you gotta do.
The official weight of the full-grown black bear boar (male) was a whopping 391.4 pounds, according to the video after the bear. And the folks at Prairie North Outfitters did an amazing job getting through the thick brush with the CFMoto ATV to get to where Dan killed the bear, as they basically bushwhacked their way through the woods in order to haul the bear out.
What’s wild is that while, yes, the payload capacity for the CFMoto CForce ATV is around 100 pounds, the cool portion of the video isn’t just overloading the rear rack. In fact, it’s how they got the massive bear onto the rack itself.
In some of the most ingenious backwoods engineering I’ve ever seen, the Prairie North Outfitters folks used the ATV’s winch to hook onto a portion of a tree directly in front of the ATV itself. Then, using the winch, they picked up the front end of the ATV, thereby making the rear rack angle itself so as to easier load the 400-pound bear onto the rack. Then, after they struggled to get it onto the rack, they dropped the winch and returned the front wheels to Earth.
That’s brilliant use of the machine’s capabilities, as well as physics.
For those interested, as I am, predator hunting—like all hunting—is used around the world to manage and keep animal populations healthy, as well as providing non-farmed meat to those willing to put themselves out into the field. Despite what you may have heard online, you’re required to take home the meat in nearly every state—though Canadian laws are different than ours—and you can indeed eat bear, so long as you treat it correctly to prevent things like trichinosis.
I’ve had it a few times, and it’s solid, though I’m more of a fan of deer, elk, and caribou.
But, boy howdy, is that a cool use of an ATV’s capacities and capabilities. It’s also very Canadian, as where else outside of Red Green are you going to find this type of engineering?
