A mini is sweet, there's no arguing that. They're so handy owning one makes sense even if you aren't doing trees, they're that handy. However with poles on his big truck, i bet his capacity is wayyyyyyy better, likely over 10k pounds on his deuce. He also already owns the truck and poles, so there's that. He's picking up large tree trunks, and it seems like truck access is available on most jobs. I see no problem with using poles, he should be able to pick up massive logs and gently load his trailer, with the ac blowing in his face listening to music. I was looking into adding them on my tandem axle truck and running it before i got sick, being able to pick up any log i ever wanted to with tens of thousands of pounds capacity, a 20k pound or more winch simply moving the biggest stuff around like twigs. The big trucks have like a 35 ton or higher capacity, it's insane, and at a certain size a mobile pick and carry machine like a pole truck becomes pretty useful on a job. Even a smaller version is a way to do it, different setups and areas can vary a lot from how well they work, you need to be able to get the truck to it or winch the stuff out, but they are probably better than most would probably think in the right settings.
Imagine bucking everything to 20 foot lengths regardless of size and then relaxing in the truck for a bit loading them out. I'm going for a smaller version of that, but my trailer I'm building has the lifting capacity of a full size skid for self loading and total lifting capacity of two full size skids to load another trailer. That's a productive machine, able to back up to a fence, winch the logs to itself and load them, one trip thru the yard empty and one out full. With a bigger log arch i can winch them out to where i can work without harming the grass, and it costs a bunch less than a mini, just a few hours with a welder and some scrap modifying a scrap axle off a truck or trailer. Definitely not a mini, but it's a viable option. It's kinda like a chipper winch on wheels, 15 feet plus in the air, in the truck relaxing on a seat driving stuff around. If i really wanna go nuts i might get a semi trailer axle and make a dedicated heavy lift trailer crane, because the axle capacity and front end weight/leverage determine the lifting capacity, the longer the vehicle the better for capacity. Could probably do around 20k capacity no problem, and that's using a pickup truck driving it around, possibly on a front hitch for visibility on the job. When you can pick up that much and move it around it'll pretty much do whatever it is you're doing, yes you'll beat me with a mini but i could do the job in an air conditioned or heated shaded dry spot sitting in a comfy chair pressing a button a couple times and creeping the truck around while i eat a sandwich. That matters when it's your second job and it's hour 14 of the day as you get older, I'm sorry I'm a wimp anymore
In the oil field winch trucks are used for everything, many too big to even go on the roads. While seemingly nothing but a big flatbed truck they are used as semi trucks for hauling trailers, the trailers usually without jacks are laid on the ground and simply lifted by the winch to hook up for towing, probably because they keep busting the jacks up in the mud. All of the components of a drilling rig are built on simple skids, and the winch trucks load them all over the rolling tailboard with the winch and drive them to the new destination and then reassemble them again, sometimes hanging off the back so much they barely balance on the truck. They are the cranes too, lifting the components on top of each other, unloading semis, standing up water tanks, etc. They are also the rescue machines, a tow truck to rescue machines and trucks that get in trouble and get stuck, and their simple, very structurally strong design allows them to be operated very close to their tipping point, as shown here. Yes these are massive trucks, but they show what these things can do, and you can mentally scale that down to different sizes of vehicles and kind of imagine what these things are capable of for as simple as they are, old school rigging still a viable option for some. And yes a mini is probably better, just so we're clear, but this does work as it has for a long time, as basically the wierd cousin of a yarder.
