Who gets the deer?

[CodyDawg]

Havent seen this one in a while and wonder what people think...

What is your rule of thumb on who gets a deer? First blood? First killing shot? Whoever finds it? Flip of a coin? Personally, I feel like the first killing shot should get it and if that is impossible to determine, then first blood should be the one. If that too is impossible then you go to the coin flip.

[lawdog]

We have pretty much followed first blood, unless it was obvious the shot wasn't going to be fatal and the animal would have gotten away. My group once lost an animal to a guy acrosss a road from us who finished off a very hard hit big ten point buck. The thing was falling down and stumbling on its dying last few steps when he shot it and he claimed it as his and wouldn't give it up. Always wondered how proud a guy could be of that rack when all he did was shoot another guy's deer...

[Gissert]

I go with first blood. If someody is inclined to be a jerk about it, I would just let them have the deer.

[protiller]

The law says it's the first killing shot.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Quote:

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The law says it's the first killing shot.

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This is true.. ole buddie( I know protiller quite well) However, it can be argued if the animal was still alive, was the first shot a killing shot? As long as that animal is still alive, IE breathing, its still alive!

In my opinion, this law has too much gray area. If we all were sportsmen this would not be a problem. I know if I shot an animal and then found out it had already been shot, and the shot may or may not have been fatal, I would surrender the animal to the person who made that first shot. However, if an animal was shot in the lower jaw... that animal would eventually die of starvation, but was the shot fatal?

I am interested in what the FM members have to say about this!

[riverrat56]

If the deer is hit in the leg and obviously would have survived the wound, then who ever shot it second and put a killing shot on it would get the deer in a perfect world. For me and the group I hunt with it doesn't matter because we all split the meat, now if it was a big buck then we have decided to go with first killing shot, if 2 people shoot and both hit the vitals, first shot gets the deer, second shot gets a pat on the back and a "remeber back when you were younger and always shot quicker than me" If it would cross the land line and a neighbor would shoot it Im not really sure what we would do, we have pretty good neighbor hunters though, we meet for lunch and talk and collaborate on drives sometimes so we would work something out.

Basically I feel that who ever delivered the shot that dropped the deer should get it.

[Mark Christianson]

Who gets the deer?

No easy answer. Period.

Way too many scenarios to play out.

Was the deer shot lethally on the first shot?

Was the deer shot marginally and trailed a long ways only to expire soon?

I think it all comes down to who you hunt with or who you hunt around.

Personally I happen to hunt adjacent to some guys during firearms season that I would consider nothing more than "hack" hunters. These are guys that go 363 days a year and dont even hold a gun. I kid you not. They show up and poke holes in the skies or worse yet, holes in the deer.

3 years in a row now, I have finished off deer they have wounded.

2002 season:

I hear shots over on their side. I get ready and here comes a doe running through the woods and within 50 yds of me. I scoped it, but I thought maybe a buck was trailing. About 30 seconds later another doe comes running through on the same path and guts are hanging out. She stopped right by me and I finished the deal. The guys that shot her came over and inquired if I saw a deer that was shot. I told them I sure did, and I took care of her. They came over saying something about their deer and I told them good luck if they wanted to tag it. In my eyes, a gut shot deer can go miles and miles before expiring. Sorry, poor shooting doesnt mean you get the deer.

2003 season:

I hear shots from the same guys. I am poised and ready if something comes through. Nothing for several minutes. Then I hear a barrage of shots within a VERY short distance. I was scared at first. Here comes a buck that is worthy of shooting. Then I see his back left leg is trailing and flopping. But this deer is going mach 3. I took him in the neck on a very lucky shot honestly and dropped him dead in his tracks. If any of you think a deer on 3 legs is an easy target, you need to see it to believe it. The guys came following behind again, and didn't have a lot to say. And I wasn't going to turn over this deer. His head is on my wall, and I am not ashamed. He would have gone 2 counties over before stopping.

2004 season:

I finished off yet another doe that was "winged" by our quality hunting neighbors.

The guys next to me shoot early opening morning again. I get ready yet again. Several minutes pass and I hear the distinctive crashing of a deer. Holy smokes. Its a giant as far as I was concerned. I shot him at 80 yds and dropped him. A 147 0/8 inch buck. The goof next to us that shot comes through the woods asking if I got "him". I hollered, "how big was he?"

He replies, "A 6 pointer".

I holler back, "Well if he has 6 on one side I got him."

Goomba comes through the woods and looks at the deer and says, "Well, I don't think thats him."

Bottom line, they didn't hit this deer, but they lost another smaller buck.

Anyway, if you are looking for an easy answer, there isnt one as to who owns a deer on the ground.

[BLACKJACK]

biglakebass, sounds like you DO have some good neigbors!! Besides the lack of practice, part of the problem is the mentally that 'I have a gun that shoots 200 yards and if I see brown, I'm going to shoot at it'. Thats where you get the shot off legs and gut shots, rather than that killing shot thru the bread basket.

[jerkin'm]

BLB you are fortunate to be there at the right time to save some vennison. My neighbors trespass where they hunt(the owners are "summer only"). The last two years in a row I have found his deer....two days too late...Both young basket rack bucks...One expired laying within a foot of my cabin....It is an old man that should not be hunting...The frustrating part is I don't hunt the property adjoining my cabin anymore but some jerk always finds a way to kill the deer around it...Shoot off the road, wander in from the neighbors, etc...If only I could be there all the time, especially the second weekend of firearm season.. I did ponder the thought of giving him "his" deer though, on his front porch, hindquarters chewed out and entrails hanging...

[chucker34]

jerkin'm. We had a similar situation. We built our house on some wooded property that we bought from my wife's parents. They had let it sit pretty much untouched for 20 years. Well one day while I was stopping by to check on the construction progress, a new neighbor stops by to tell me how many deer he has killed on our land over the years and was nice enought to point out all of the trails. Told me he had just removed his stand last week. I guess I wouldn't have minded it so much as the land was just recnetly ours. But the neightor directly next to us - who also hunts - told me how many times this guy would screw him up by sitting 30-40 yards away from him during shotgun season. Must have been frustrating for someone on their own land with someone who didn't have permission to be hunting right next to him on ours. I guess he should have spoken up to my father in law, though. Anyway, the bright yellow trespassing signs went up for all of last fall but I've taken them down now because I think the point was made and I don't want to seem like a jerk. I've saved them just in case though.

[fishin58]

How about this, My hunting party hunts in farmer country so there is just a few groves hear and there. We are lucky to have access to these few groves. Anyways our stand is setup on the south side of the grove on the edge of a corn field also. A buck came out of the corn and my dad made a easy broadside shot on the buck(shotgun) The buck went into the grove and my dad decided to wait until our party walked the grove to him, before he got down. We went looking for the buck we found a blood trail that went out the grove on the north side and just across the road to nice sized GUTPILE. How nice because not a single shot was fired besides my dads.

[luckey]

A couple years ago my brother in law heard shots from the neighbors. shortly a obviously wounded doe comes from that direction. He dropped it on the spot. I arrived at the seen in a few minutes. I followed the blood trail (shoulder hit) back about a quarter mile to an empty stand. Later in the season I met the neighbor and ask him about it. He said his friend shot at one that day but could not find any blood so he assumed he missed. Thank goodness it came by and we got it or it surly would have been wasted.

[lunker651]

I would say first shot but depending on where the deer is hit. If the first shot didn't hit the vital and some where else on the body where the deer is not going to expire soon, then the first shot can not claim the deer. But if the first shot hit the vital and the second shot hit it or not, the first shot still gets the deer because the deer was going to expire soon. Usually a good vital shot, the deer don't go any farther then 100yrds. It would suck if I shot a deer and it was a good vital shot and someone else shot it too and then claims it. I think the second person that shot the deer should take a good look at the blood trail where it was shot first and then determind if he should claim it or not.

Last year my brother shot a 8 point buck that we were hunting all season. When my brother shot the deer it was a good shot to the vital and it ran about 70 yrds and my brother heard another shot where the deer ran to. SO my brother went to check on his deer and the other hunter said it was his to claim. Then my brother told him to check out his blood trail and the trail has blood out on both side of the trail but he insist that the deer was his because he was the one that drop the deer on his track. So my brother told him not to tag the deer yet and that he was going to get a DNR RANGER to determind who gets the deer. when the DNR ranger got there, he went to check on where the deer was shot first and trailed it to where the deer was shot second. Then he said that the deer was going to expire soon and it should be my brother's deer, but since the other hunter shot it too the other hunter should know better to see how the deer was shot first and take a look at the blood trail that it was shot before his shot. So my brother just told the other guy to tag it, if he want another guys deer. The DNR Officer was pretty pist at the other guy, he said some people just doesn't show good sportsmanship toward other hunters anymore. Yep, the other guy tag the buck, and I wonder how he tells his story when his friends ask how he got the buck.

[FOOT]

I've been on both sides of this issue. My responce is first blood IF the deer/blood trail is being tracked by the

person(s).

I finished off a deer in 79' that had been hit but could have gone a lot further. Soon 2 men and a young boy came up the trail obviously tracking the deer. I waved to them and called them over and gave them the deer. They were surprised that someone would do this but like one of the posts said, who wants to brag about someone else's deer.

I also had my wife shoot a nice buck that ran onto another section of land and had someone jump from their car shoot the deer and then gut and tag it before we could trail it.

They claimed they were hutning the area and had made a 150 yard shot but from the layout you could tell it was shot from the road. She also hit a buck and had it run onto someone else's land only to have the owner tell us "don't come on my land" as his friend knelt and started gutting.

[fishin58]

Time and time again, some people can not control themself and simply let the real #$%hole out for a while whether its a hunter or not the worsed in someone always comes out as hunters i guess we just have to grin and bear it sometimes because it will probably only get worse.

[Eric Wettschreck]

No matter how big or huge racked it is, I'm just not going to argue over a deer. If someone really wants the darn thing that badly they can have it and I'll go shoot another, hopefully.

I've finished off other peoples deer for them. Even helped them gut em out. Why not? If someone finishes off a deer for me I'm giving them a big "Thanks bud."

[CodyDawg]

Some other ideas....you get the meat, I get the rack...we split the meat...everyone gets a picture....anter reproductions.

Good discussion.

[tealitup]

I was out duck hunting last year near zimmerman. Two young boys - maybe 13-14 and their dad were out hunting. Two geese came into their decoys and both were hit. The geese did a glide die - (about 35 yards out). Two grown men started their motor up (on a lake that does not allow motorized boats) and took the geese. They then went to their trucks and packed up.

I got back to the landing at the same time as these boys and threir father. Gave them two mallards and said "now you get to learn the pleasure of plucking and cleaning."

People just do not get how special a kill is - a clean kill of game which you put time and effort into. These are not hunters - rather people with no respect for the game they pursue or the act of hunting in general.

[Smitty]

I've got one.. On 2 pieces of grond we hunt there is a section of field/timber in between. Normally we have permission to hunt this piece as well, but on this specific day the owner had some relatives coming down to hunt so we stayed out but when we pushed the first piece we had a couple people posted at the edge of the other section (across the road from where the other party was hunting).

We had a decent buck break out of our push and head thru the "middle section" and my Dad was sitting in the far section. He heard someone unload their gun and about 20 seconds later the buck runs under the bridge crossing the road where Dad dropped him. As he's field dressing the deer the guy from the other party comes walking up and says "that's my deer, I shot him 3 or 4 times".. Dad proceeded to show him that there was clearly only 1 hole in the deer, but since we didn't want to upset the land owner who's nice enough to let us hunt his ground normally he tells him he's free to take it if he feels it's his. By that time others from his party have walked up and I think he was feeling a bit embarrassed, so he did say we should keep the deer.

I agree with those who say a deer isn't worth fighting someone for, and my general rule of thumb is it belongs to the guy who makes the first lethal shot. Within our group we split the deer, so it's only an issue for us if it involves another hunting party.

[bigbucks]

Like a lot of you, I've had this play out several ways. I've shot deer that other hunters in our party have hit, both lightly & fataly. I've also had others in our party finish deer that I hit fataly or just wounded. Like many have said, we share the meat, so we don't care about that, but we call it the deer of whoever disabled it. If I hit one that's hit bad enough that someone else walks up on it & finishes it or jumps it & can follow it down & shoot, it's my deer, unless of course I never even took after it, which personally would never happen, but has happened with people I've known & some I've hunted with.

I've shot deer once or twice that have been wounded by other parties, not too severely, but the same deal you hear shooting close by, hear comes a deer & you drill it. In those cases I've not cared who took the deer & offered it to the other hunters. Each time they said, no go ahead & take it, we just knew we hit it & wanted to follow up on it. I feel like this is the way it should be.

Our party lost an okay buck 20+ years ago, when you didn't get many deer. It was lung hit, just one, & layed down in a cornfield. Our guys jumped it & it made it past some other hunters who shot it & kept it. We figured it must not have been hit as well as we thought, but it was, either way the other party took it & quite obviously had no intention of giving it up. I also wounded a buck once & trailed it several hundred yards, jumped it couldn't get a shot & then watched a guy from another party shoot it. He said it was running fine & looked good to him. We trailed quite a bit of blood & felt like it was hit pretty hard, but he really didn't let us look the deer over very good, it was his as far as he was concerned. We didn't feel in that case that that was right, but there wasn't much we could do about it. It was like a 6 pointer & would have been my first buck at the time, it may have been that guy's as well, we were both pretty young.

[Walterwontfalter]

Isn't it funny how many people are "good sportsmen" when it's a doe or a forkhorn that they "finished off" for someone else but then that changes when it's a 8 or 10 pointer?

I saw in a post above that someone asked "I wonder how the guy tells the story of how he got the buck when his friends ask." and it reminded me of a guy I used to work with. This guy, and several of his buddies told me the story of how their neighbors shot a big buck and they saw it run out of the woods into their clearing and fell dead. This guy ran up and shot it through the chest (while it was already dead) and then claimed that he had "finished it off" when the neighbors tracked the buck to where he was gutting it. Though I have since heard this guy and his brother tell the story of the very same buck and that story involved a detailed description of how they rattled and called it in after seeing it cross the road and the only mention of the guy that actually killed the deer is that they tell how it was headed toward his land when they called it to them and they killed it.

How many people have you heard tell a deer story or a big fish story and each time they tell it it grows and gets more detailed and more amazing?

My point being, there are a number of people, like the people above, that don't really care about the truth but just about how they can brag and "one-up" their buddies at work. It's part of what makes them unsportsman like and it's also part of what defines a sportsman in my opinion as in those who do the opposite.

[Guest]

Ive always hunted and first blood was the key to ownership.Now if that deer had ran 300 yards and I shot it,then I would question the first blood theory.I would never take anothers deer if it was shot well be it a doe,little buck or a trophy as I can shoot another.If it was my first that may be more diffucult but after many years,many deers and a few book bucks,There will be no arguing with me or another for a deer,go ahead and take it.To harvest a deer is great but I dont want any bad memories from deer hunting-its to be fun. Some people will do anything to harvest a deer simply because they are not capable of doing it the correct way.These people are not sportsman or hunters and we all know what they may be.

[Eric Wettschreck]

Unless it's 100% truthful, the story will always change every time it's told.