How To: Block-and-Tackle Solutions for Transporting Large Game

MA=FB/FA=N

That’s the mathematical formula for block and tackle advantage, or you can learn it how I did at a very early age.

For every sheave in the block I would gain one purchase. To lift a crate of lobsters weighing 150 pounds on a four-sheave block-and-tackle, I would need to put 37.5 pounds of muscle into the effort.

I learned this value system on big, old-fashioned oak block-and-tackles; they were heavy, the 5⁄8-inch lobster pot wrap was stained from years of tuna blood. I also learned that two teenagers could put a bluefin onboard, that outweighed them both, like three times more.

Today we don’t have to use those old museum pieces. The block-and-tackles today are light and high tech. If you so desire, you can buy one made out of carbon fiber that weighs ounces rigged with Spectra like on those America Cup rigs. I went a much cheaper route but still used sailboat blocks (made out of materials that last in a saltwater environment) to make up a block-and-tackle for my wife Maggie.

Maggie hunts solo a lot and wants to be able load anything she harvests into the truck. Without some sort of a mechanical advantage, she just isn’t able to load up a buck or a big doe; thus Maggie’s loading tree.

A big ol’ southern live oak with a stout branch about 15 feet off the ground was selected on our hunting property; Maggie could back right up to the tree. Three Harken sailboat blocks large enough to accept ½-inch line make up a three-purchase block-and-tackle. Maggie would need to apply 50 pounds of force to lift 150 pounds.

The 100 feet of ½-inch three-strand polypropylene has a large enough diameter so she can get a good firm grip for hoisting the deer off her game cart, high enough to slide the deer onto her tailgate, and long enough that she has ample line to tie off and slip the block when lowering the deer.

Maggie harvested a huge doe, and after I spent a bunch of time setting up her tree, I wanted to see if she needed another sheave, or two. The three-block setup was just too small, it was all she could do to hoist her deer off the cart and high enough to lower the doe into her truck.

A big ol’ farm buck? Nope, I’ll be upgrading her tree with another couple of sheaves. The height of the branch seemed really good, and the 100 feet of line was perfect for the three blocks; adding two more passes though the sheaves will require more line, thus the three-strand line. After years of commercial fishing I am very good at splicing anything from wire trawl cables to Samson braid cast nests. Three strand is fast, easy and you don’t need to go to the Bering Sea to learn it. I spliced another 50 feet into her line, and now I think she is set. A boat cleat is ideal to tie off the hoist end and that also makes it easy to slip the line when lowering.

One very good tip on cleats: Always make at least three passes around the cleat, before putting your hitch in. This is an old rule of thumb from the Old Down Easter’s of my youth. (If the boat surges and the line tightens up hard on the cleat, you can undo it if you have enough wraps—three!)

---

• This article was featured in the November 2024 issue of Florida Sportsman magazine. Click to subscribe.

---