I'm starting to think hydraulic winch is a no-go.
I got a quote for bloom winch... 3k before taxes and shipping...no line or anything else too. At that price, you might as well man up and get a front or rear attachment for a little more.
I'm leaning on trying 'portable winch.' The concept seems sound... 2k force and then 4k with pulley. I could anchor it to tractor bucket chain hooks or a big tree nearby. For ~1.5k, you can have all you need. It's truly portable, meaning you can take it with you on hitch deep in woods and position it accurately, but with a tractor winch, you're kinda stuck depending on where you can put the tractor, which is mostly 'on the trail' for me. Plus you don't need to let the tractor keep running as you're positioning/ fooling around.
Also thinking that all I need is a ~4k winch and 8k is excessive. 4k is a REALLY large log and what I'm thinking is only 2-3k max.
Wondering if I tried to power an electric 4.5k LB winch with the tractor and pull 2k logs...anyone know if that will kill the battery? That's like drawing 250 amps and the tractor is rated for 40 amps charging. IDK how much the tractor can keep up based on the specs.