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why not run a hydraulic winch using the gear pto to run your pump
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You can, my wrecker winch was set up this way. It was also very slow, and somewhat unreliable. If you don't have good fluid filtration contamination will cause problems. In my case the pressure relief valve would intermittently open and then the winch wouldn't pull squat. Yes you do have excellent line controll with this setup.
For it too work properly you'll need to size the hydrallic motor to match the gearing of the winch, any chain-sprocket ratios and the flow/pressure of the hydrallic pump. Then you'll need a control valve, hoses, filter(suction,pressure or both) and a resevoir with several gallons so the fluid can cool. Then your alignment of the pump better be good our you'll take out the input seal, that being the lowest point and it'll always leak even when not running.
Hydrallics are cool. But if not properly thought out they will be problematic, expensive and not reliable.
I work with industrial hydrallics almost daily at work, on much larger scales. That being said, my rear mounted winches were shaft driven. For the front I would consider hydrallic, but the size/weight penalty of a PTO winch makes an electric or milemarker style hydrallic look much better.
