I was tooling across my local pond on my 550 xp tour. when I spotted a atv stuck at the edge of the pond. I went over this guy had buried his 850 can am in the slush near the shore. He wanted to winch out but the ice was slippery on the bottom I was able to tug him out with a couple trys with my tow strap. My question is would the winch have been a better idea?

 

I think both are equal in effectiveness. If the pulling quad is able to get traction without getting stuck. (make sure you are pulling in low range) If getting stuck is a possibility, then use the second quad as an anchor and use the winch.(which is usually a slower process) If you got him out without any trouble...then your idea was the best!!! He was the one stuck.

 

I ride by myself a lot so naturally i rely on my winch but have always used my tow strap when coming up on a stuck quad.

Winch is effective but slooooow.

 

I agree, a winch of any kind is a must when riding alone. I have a 14k lb. ratching strap I have used a few times as a winch.

 

Either would work fine. I'd just be careful pulling/yanking with a strap excessively hard/fast. That's how things get broken or bent sometimes. And yes a winch could do the same but it's much slower and your more likely to catch a problem before damage is done.

 

On another forum I was on a guy was complaining about synthetic rope on his winch being a joke as it broke the first time out. Come to figure out he was buried so bad it just wanted to pull his buddies quad in the ditch so his buddy was tugging on it and it broke. Moral of the story is if you winch absolutly no jerking or tugging the like just a nice steady pull other wise a tug or anything of that sort stay with the tow strap

 

i've tugged a few times with my winch, but i've got cable in it, and i trusted it enough, wasn't tugging hard, my buddies bigbear was stuck, and i got him out with my yamah warrior

 

winch is way more versitile then just a strap-

some atv's get so remotely stuck that you need to be a good 30+ feet away, and you have to lift one side at a time (cable over the top of the atv to a low spot on the opposite side, which will pull one side up at a time)
The strap comes in handy when you have to secure the back of your atv to a tree, and then winch someone out of a hole, this makes it so you dont have to apply the brakes or damage your clutch, not only that, using just a strap means your pull is only as good as your tire grip, which in mud, sand or dirt isn't that great. You also use the strap as a "tree saver" to avoid cutting into the tree with the winch cable- and that also avoids creating kinks in the steel cable (weak spots) by hooking the clevis hook back onto the cable-
I'm amazed how many people I come across stuck on a trail don't know the proper way to winch or use leverage to their advantage.

Last guy I had to rescue from a mud hole took the power of 2 atv winches- and I had my atv strapped to a tree- using all the 3000lbs of pull from my winch and the other atv's 2500lbs.