Unrecovered deer

[genesee_mohican]

Not knowing the real situation and just going by this story, I think the guy that shot it should have put in some more effort. Get some friends to help do a grid search after blood was lost or call in deer search. I'd be happy to find a skull like that and wouldn't be quick to give it away to someone who claimed they killed it.

[First-light]

That is one nice eight point. I know that when I release that arrow or bullet that deer is not mine until I retrieve it. What if the deer was arrowed again by another hunter during the tracking? Sorry its not his deer.

Now if I were the one who found it and heard the story of the unfortunate hunter there might be a glimmer of hope I turn over the antlers. It would all depend on how this hunter presents the story and himself. 

[Doc]

Not knowing the real situation and just going by this story, I think the guy that shot it should have put in some more effort. Get some friends to help do a grid search after blood was lost or call in deer search. I'd be happy to find a skull like that and wouldn't be quick to give it away to someone who claimed they killed it.

Not to be too critical, but when it turned out that the deer was found 80 yards from the last blood, It sure does strike me as a less than adequate job of tracking. It doesn't matter how much effort was put in prior to losing the blood, those final circles that are really part of a tracking job, should have been done and would have yielded the carcass. In most stretches of woods I can almost see a deer at 80 yards. Certainly with any kind of gridwork, it wouldn't take a whole lot of time to find a deer that was only 80 yards away. That whole situation probably never would have happened if the blood-trailing techniques had had that last final search activity. Quite often that loss of blood sign is an indicator of failing blood pressure indicating that the carcass is not really all that far away. In my mind, failing to do a complete job of blood trailing, the issue of possession goes to the guy that stumbled onto it.

[jjb4900]

IMHO, B&C promotes this exact kind of behavior with their "Picked-up" class of trophy listings. Hard to believe any "finder " would have any gratification, not to mention bragging rights from simply locating a dead deer!

not too mention, what gratification and bragging rights would someone get out of having the antlers of a deer that they failed to recover and were found by someone else 3 weeks later.....

[G-Man]

I shot a nice 8pt, hit it low and back,look for 3 days with and with out my neighbor! my neighbor found it 3 weeks later,offered rack to me I didn't accept it,I lost it he found it,he had a great mount done with it and he hangs it in his trophy room , I didn't need a rack to remind me I messed up.

I'm not that attached to any rack and was more upset I killed something slowly and it was wasted.

[2012_taco]

Let's not be too quick to bash another hunter for not recovering a wounded deer. We don't know that he didn't exhaust every effort within his means to find the deer. He tracked it for 1.3 miles? that in itself tells me he gave it a hell of a try. It's a shame he didn't find it and the meat was wasted, but at least now he knows the end of the story. I hate to loose the trail and not knowing for sure if the deer survived. We all have to live with our decisions. I can only hope the guy can sleep at night knowing he tried his absolute best to find that deer. As for finding the dead deer and keeping the rack, that is up to the guy who found it. Possession is 99% of the law, right?

[Merlot]

Id like to share a story with you if I could, it may not be the most unusal story, when it comes to deer hunting, but I thought it was worth sharing.

Anybody who has bowhunted for any amount of time has probably lost a deer or two. On 11/14 a friend of mine arrowed this Oswego county buck on his property in Scriba, NY. Unfortunately, thats not him holding the rack in the first picture. He tracked the deer for 1.3 miles before he lost the blood trail. On 12/08 the picture of the rack started circulating the area via text message, with the story of how and where it was found dead. My friend located the guy who found it, they exchanged their stories, and the man even walked him out to the carcus in the woods where he found the buck, which was 80 yards from where the blood trail abruptly stopped. Unfortunately the man did not want to part with antlers, even when offered money for them. As a hunter myself who has lost deer before, I can understand the sorrow of shooting and tracking a deer, only to come up empty handed, but to shoot a monster like this, and have 3 weeks go by wondering and second guessing, and then stand face to face with man who found it, and not being able to convince him to part ways with his find, can only be described one way, heartbreaking! I can only hope that this story hasn't ended yet and that in the days or weeks to come this man has a change of heart, and gives this story a happy ending!

Now i know there are alot if big bucks out there, and some people have more than a few on thier wall, each having a story to go along with it, and in most cases these expensive mounts will be passed down through out generations and hopefully the storys along with them, and sometimes the storys of the ones we've lost or missed will take on a life of thier own. As of right now my friend will have to come to terms with the fact that, the story of this big eight point, aside from a few trailcam pics and picture on his phone, is just that, a story!

 

[Merlot]

If I found the deer, and you came up and explained the situation as you did, I would give the rack up and sleep better knowing I did the right thing.

[landtracdeerhunter]

I do hope your friend has a better outcome to the next deer harvest they have. Hunters lose deer; true sportsman learn and apply to the next situation that may arise. 

[Doc]

Let's not be too quick to bash another hunter for not recovering a wounded deer. We don't know that he didn't exhaust every effort within his means to find the deer. He tracked it for 1.3 miles? that in itself tells me he gave it a hell of a try. It's a shame he didn't find it and the meat was wasted, but at least now he knows the end of the story. I hate to loose the trail and not knowing for sure if the deer survived. We all have to live with our decisions. I can only hope the guy can sleep at night knowing he tried his absolute best to find that deer. As for finding the dead deer and keeping the rack, that is up to the guy who found it. Possession is 99% of the law, right?

The guy came within 80 yards of the carcass. From that I am very sure that he didn't even do the necessary fundamental circles or grid search that is the necessary end to a long blood-tracking job. So he may have done a terrific job of blood trailing, but did not finish it off with the most important part which would have yielded his deer.

 

As for hunter #2, no one has said anything that indicates any intention of claiming it as his own kill. Like I said above, a lot of us collect sheds, antlers, skulls and other items found while out in the woods. Such a hobby or collection does not mean that anyone is claiming the remnants as something they harvested themselves. There simply is personal value to collecting such things. So hunter # 1 may be the one responsible for it being there, but hunter # 2 was the one responsible for actually turning it into something useful.

 

I say offer the guy the opportunity to take pictures and perhaps score it if that's important to him and then put it back with the rest of your antler collection and enjoy it as much as any other item in your collection.

[Jeremy K]

80 yards is nothing when tracking a deer . I still say the best method is to leave a toilet paper square on each blood spot ,from the last spot you can walk straight line in increments of 10 or 15 degrees of the direction the deer was clearly traveling by seeing the line of toilet paper , really no excuse to lose such a nice deer if he was withing 80 yards. A side note ,what kind of lazy sack of crap just cuts the skull plate off such a monster like that.

[NFA-ADK]

Shooting good is an art and being able to do it under presser is what makes us good hunters.  After a 1 + mile trail I would have kept going like many said on the line of the blood trail but that is a long track job.  Shame he did not recover it. 

 

Some basic lessons learned.  One is follow the track well past last blood mark.  Second is be sure of your shot and placement, this is much easyer said than done.  Anyone who gets an animal they want to shoot gets excited, trying to control our breathing, shot placement and concentrating are all affected and we each have to handle it as best we can. 

 

Learning from our mistakes is what makes us better, if he does than this will only make him a better shot and will become a better tracker.  As for the rack I would not want that reminder, I have had enough blunders in my time and is one of the reasons I try to shoot often and be as proficient with my weapon as possible.  Tell him to keep his head up and learn from his mistakes and he will be a better man for it!  

 

Good luck!

 

[The_Field_Ager]

IMHO, B&C promotes this exact kind of behavior with their "Picked-up" class of trophy listings. Hard to believe any "finder " would have any gratification, not to mention bragging rights from simply locating a dead deer!

 

 

I found a dead 8 point with a nice rack on one of my hunting spots a few seasons back. Flipped him over a couple of times. No blood or wounds. I'm thinking it was a car hit and maybe internal injuries that got him. Anyway, his skull and horns are on my wall and I do enjoy looking at them above my office space. Sure, it would have been nice to have harvest him myself, but I'm glad I found him before the yotes or another hunter.

[Paula]

I don't think anyone is bashing the hunter for not looking hard enough and as Doc has said it was there the whole time.

I find it funny that the hunters friend is on here whining for the one who lost it. His first post at that.

[Doc]

The most important lesson to be learned is that there are right and wrong ways to conduct a blood-trailing session, but even when done expertly, there are no guarantees.

 

Lesson number two is that nobody knows everything about deer hunting, and each day afield only serves as another lesson and even the failures serve to educate for the next time. So no time should be wasted with self-pity, or excessive frustration, or destructive negative feelings. Simply accept that you have been taught a lesson from the school of hard knocks and commit what has been learned toward doing a better job next time.

 

Lesson number three is that no matter how convincing detractors may sound, no one has all the answers. And if they are trying to tell you that they do, it's time to start listening to someone else.

 

And the final lesson, is to take any criticism in the vein that it is given. Hopefully there is nothing personal, but if someone has noted a mistake that you have made and pointed it out, weigh the info and if it sounds like constructive advice, use it. It serves no one to recognize a mistake and not say anything about it.

 

These are all points that should be forwarded to the shooter.

[LetEmGrow]

Did the guy who found it tag it?  I believe he has to tag it.

[nyantler]

Not to be too harsh, but if you could describe where the buck was last seen in enough detail to prove that the buck was yours... you should have been able to recover that buck. I don't understand the motivation for wanting the rack anyway... the only story you'd have to tell every time someone asked about the rack would not be a hunting success story... If you want the rack to make knife handles, maybe I could understand... but for what other reason could you want the rack? I can't see collecting a rack to celebrate the "one that got away".

[chrisw]

Did the guy who found it tag it? I believe he has to tag it.

So if you found a dead buck and took the antlers you'd put your tag on it? Come on man.... Its not even relevant to the story. Do you think the original person that wounded it would've tagged it a month later? Doubtful.

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk

[LetEmGrow]

The original person who wounded it would have had to tag it.  No question.  The law is that you have to tag it,  And if he wanted to put it in Pope & Young he would have to tag it.

If I found it would I have tagged it?  I am not sure what I would do because, with something that large, it's hard to possess it and not tell someone about it.  I would try and find who wounded it.   It would be worthless to me and I would want the original hunter to have closure.  If I could not find who it was then I would probably go the ECO route.  Maybe he would let me keep it.  I wouldn't want someone to find out I had it and then say I shot it and did not tag it.

 

If it means that much to the guy who found it that he will not give it back then he should have to tag it like the law says.  The original hunter would have to tag it as well if he is trying to retrieve it - any part of it - regardless of how long after.

Edited December 14, 2015 by LetEmGrow

[The_Field_Ager]

You can get  found carcass tags for the head and rack, right? 

[LetEmGrow]

I think so Papist (from an ECO).  Maybe the guy did - who knows.  But I am pretty sure you cannot walk out of the woods in season - any season - with a rack that does not have a tag on it or a tag on a carcass nearby.  

[The_Field_Ager]

I found this from an old thread:

 

 

 

Back in October I found a large 8-pt while out scouting one afternoon. I contacted the Region 8 office several days later and talked to an ECO for 10 minutes on the phone. He told me thad their job is to regulate the "deer on the hoof" (what's in the freezer), not the antlers. He said this subject has a lot of gray areas but it's best to call them in a situation like this. In a nutshell, he said that it would be up to the investigating officer's disgretion. At the end of the conversation he went on to say that this deer sounded like a car kill so it would be OK to go ahead and remove the antlers. I told him that I already had and he responded by saying to contact them first in the future. Honestly, after talking to him I was more confused about this matter than I was before???

I emailed another Region 8 ECO and here is the reponse that I got : "Hello Jason, there are no regulations that prohibit the removal of antlers from a dead deer provided the deer was not illegally killed." 

 

http://huntingny.com/forums/topic/13198-found-a-dead-deer/?p=169240

Edited December 14, 2015 by Papist

[LetEmGrow]

Its not like the guy who found it needs to get in trouble or anything.  But I can't understand why he kept it.  I mean - he must hunt if he kept it?  Maybe he doesn't believe him.  Or maybe he finished it off and just said he found it dead  

Edited December 14, 2015 by LetEmGrow

[Four Season Whitetail's]

Its not like the guy who found it needs to get in trouble or anything.  But I can't understand why he kept it.  I mean - he must hunt if he kept it?  Maybe he doesn't believe him.  Or maybe he finished it off and just said he found it dead  

Ahhhh No!  If he found that buck and finished it off he would have had that thing in the back of his truck and the to the P&Y scoring sheet. I cant see him finishing off a buck and then just cut his head off.

 

You do not need to tag a rack found in the woods. Good thing as we would be low on tags from the 3 we pulled out of Letchworth this year.

[Trial153]

Lots of false bravado on here . The difference between just finding the buck laying in the woods vs what happened here is that the dots got connected as to how the deer died and ended up where you found it.

If it was me I would give the hunter the rack. he has more connection to it then I do, I just finding it in the woods vs him killing it and doing his due diligence to find it.

And if your sure the story of the other hunter is true and you can give closure to him then it's worthwhile gesture Further more if your a hunter of any experience you should be somewhat empathetic to another hunters misfortune after all the some maybe on the other foot some day.