Deer hunters-- ethics question

What is the state law where you are on following wounded deer onto others property? Is your land posted? Did that hunter have permission to follow the wounded deer onto your land?

I don't understand your comment that the deer had some more growing to do? Do you mean that you find something wrong with someone else shooting legal game thats not up to your trophy standards?

I do find something really wrong with the attitude of the first hunter and since there seems to have been bad body language on his part I can understand that your all worked up.

You did the right thing by not confronting him anymore and calling the other landowner.
 
I know if I were to shoot a wounded deer I would claim it as mine weather it was a 100 class deer or a 190 class deer. When I make the decision to shoot I am ready to tag the deer weather it was wounded or not. If I shot a huge deer and only wounded it and another guy finished it off I would not expect that guy to hand the deer over to me.
 
It is ILLEGAL to dispatch a wounded game animal on the highway in MT,not only would you get nailed for poaching they would write you up for shooting on a roadway.Here the hunter could have called the F&G who would make an effort to contact the land owner and get access to retrieve the animal,if the land owner refused access then you risk a wasting game ticket...its a catch 22,you do the right thing and make the call you can still get in trouble.The only way to avoid trouble here is by not hunting anywhere near private ground boundries.
 
Okay, number one the deer being legal was not the "one" I was hunting for. I had passed him up on many occasions, and no I do not think I am better than anyone. A trophy is in the eye of the guy behind the trigger. I try to be selective, and it was a goal to take a deer that was outside its ears. Not being rude, just explaining what my goal was/is for the year.

I tried very hard to get the guy to claim it, even marked the spot and showed it to him. Gave him permission and all to go get the truck and I would help load it up with him. I gave the guy every chance to take the deer that HE shot. After asking a group of fellow Wisconsin hunters this same question they all had similar stories. First blood gets it, if they come tracking it, the deer is theirs. If you finished it off and they dont come and get it, its yours.

I was just trying to help the guy out and keep it to the point where he didnt had to run all over the county and our land to get it.

Also I do agree, if a deer comes by and I shoot it, I know I will be putting a tag on it, this isnt a question in my head, I know that it is next. But trying to help out I see is deiffrent all over I guess.
 
The 'first blood' idea causes the confusion. Now you can go by whatever rules that are legal but 'first blood' makes no sense to me and in particular in the specific expample that you gave here.

How in the heck is someone going to shoot a deer in the leg and get it? It may run for days or even recover.

My take on this is first of all to not get into a fight. So calling the landowner on whatever was going on there was the way to avoid a bigger problem.

After that it's the person who makes the last fatal shot in my view that gets the deer if he goes after it. I have shot deer with nicks on their legs, holes in ears and antlers and even double shot hams that were still climbing an going fast.

Just be prepared. If someone meets me in the woods and I am tagging a deer on legal land that he wounded it's my deer if I blasted it last. And if the other hunter acts nuts then he can have it and I will back off as fast as I can.

First blood makes no sense unless there are far more details to define the discussion. Shot in the leg!, no way, it's my deer.

What I think is that you didn't want to 'waste' your tag on that rack!!
 
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The 'first blood' idea causes the confusion. Now you can go by whatever rules that are legal but 'first blood' makes no sense to me and in particular in the specific expample that you gave here.

How in the heck is someone going to shoot a deer in the leg and get it? It may run for days or even recover.

My take on this is first of all to not get into a fight. So calling the landowner on whatever was going on there was the way to avoid a bigger problem.

After that it's the person who makes the last fatal shot in my view that gets the deer if he goes after it. I have shot deer with nicks on their legs, holes in ears and antlers and even double shot hams that were still climbing an going fast.

Just be prepared. If someone meets me in the woods and I am tagging a deer on legal land that he wounded it's my deer if I blasted it last. And if the other hunter acts nuts then he can have it and I will back off as fast as I can.

First blood makes no sense unless there are far more details to define the discussion. Shot in the leg!, no way, it's my deer.

What I think is that you didn't want to 'waste' your tag on that rack!!


+1
 
Considering that we have unlimited tags it is not a matter of me "wasting" a tag on the rack. I ony had a problem tagging it because the guy downed the deer and left it lay. Just because it crossed the property line. I was more than willing to let him get it and told him so.
 
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I gets about ten-fifteen feet onto your property and you put one thru the heart.




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I ony had a problem tagging it because the guy downed the deer and left it lay

 
There was an interesting discussion of this subject on another board a while back. One person did the legal research to find out and basically first blood means nothing, the deer belongs to the person that killed it. So mike from a legal standpoint if you didn't want that deer, you should not have shoot it. And yes the other guy should have put more effort into recovering the deer, a lot more effort.
 
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And yes the other guy should have put more effort into recovering the deer, a lot more effort.



+1 No doubt about that!
 
A dicey situation for sure...
It is a darn shame if a hunter shoots at an animal that he doesn't have full intentions of tagging himself.
You did the right & ethical thing by finishing the deer. If that slob left him, he doesn't even deserve to be in the woods...let alone tag any deer.
In NY state, a deer is property of the hunter who executed the first "lethal" shot to the animal. So if a marginally shot animal happens to cross a landowner boundary and gets taken down by another hunter, it is legally his property. The first shooter has no claim to the animal whatsoever. First blood is just another Stallone movie.

A similar situation occurred on my friend's farm last month. The neighbors "drive" deer and mostly shoot at them on the run. Two of them stopped by around 10:00am and mentioned that they had wounded a buck that ran across onto our property. One gent made as if he wanted to go in with the boys to "push" him back out onto his property. We probably would have let him do so since he was man enough to come over & ask for permission but there were still three of our guys out in the woods close by. They would not have known what was going on. Shortly thereafter, one of our guys shot and killed that same buck. The deer was hit just above the front hoof...not a mortal wound at all. Our guy was proud to tag out...his first buck. The neighbors didn't argue the issue since the deer was not not hit well. It was a basket racked 7pt. I do give the neighbor credit for informing us and we all have a renewed respect for each other.

Any gray area regarding NYS law would be if a mortally wounded animal made it across a landowner boundary and was then quickly shot again by another hunter on the adjoining property. Then it would be up to a C.O. to decide after hearing both accounts if it could not be settled by the landowners themselves.
Landowner relationships and hunting ethics play a huge role in the outcome of such happenings. Having a good rapport with your neighbors can keep things safe & civil.

It only takes one slob to muddy those waters though...
 
I really appreciate eveyones view on this, I guess it was a situation I was never put in before and should it happen again I will know what to do.

Again thanks for not jumping me about it, I know hunting is different all over the US.

Mike
 
Mike! you were there and made the call, you have to live with what you did! some Dow officers may have fined you!
some may have thanked you! The deer probably thanks you!
I wonder if it would have haunted you if you would have walked away! (probably would have)I believe you did the moral thing, may not have been the right thing by some laws.
I have shot wounded ducks and geese and they go on my table! (unless someone wants to claim them)
If I shoot a world record elk that is on its last breath and somebody claims they shot it 1st (I am going to give it to them)But if that elk was running (healthy looking and stopped) and I shot him and he dropped and then some joker points out that he grazed the leg or somthing that would be a diffrent story!
Whats right for one may not be right for another! heck what do I know! Good luck You did what you thought was right at the time thats all a guy can do!
I suppose some would say the DOW should have hauled him to the vet! A million people a million different answers.
 
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Mike! you were there and made the call, you have to live with what you did! some Dow officers may have fined you!
some may have thanked you! The deer probably thanks you!
I wonder if it would have haunted you if you would have walked away! (probably would have)I believe you did the moral thing, may not have been the right thing by some laws.




Why would Mike get in trouble? He was legally hunting on his own property, shot a deer, and tagged it. That isn't the issue. The issue is the slob who wounded the deer first and then refused to follow up and tag the animal even when given permission to do so. This isn't about Mike, he did the right thing. It's about the jerk his neighbor allows to whang away at deer over the property line. That is the problem, and, one with no good solution considering the neighbor knows the slob acts this way and still allows him to hunt there. As I said before, that is out of Mike's control and just a bad deal he'll have to live with. I would say this. I would do every bit of habitat improvement I could to hold as many deer on my place as I could. If that ever happened again I would not shoot the deer, then call the Game Warden to report the slob. He's had his chance to make right, now the consequences are on him.
 
To be truthful,I have one buck tag for the year,I take my buck hunting as serious as anything,I wouldnt put myself in a situation where I had to tag somone elses deer regardless of size and situation.If i talked to the guy and he wouldnt come look for it I would have called him in and let the F&G make the decision.
 
In NY, the first shooter would have had an obligation to follow up after wounding the deer. The DEC would have worked with him and the property owner to try and retrieve it. It is possible that it would have continued running a long distance but a wounded deer will usually head for the thick and bed up if not pressured to continue running.

Ive been in the position before myself and have done every thing possible to follow up on a wounded deer. Sometimes it pays off in other ways. Last year I single lunged an archery buck. I contacted the land owner to get permission to look for it. He was impressed with the way I conducted my search and offered that I may hunt his property in the future.

If you squeeze one off, do the right thing!! Also, if my bullet finished it off its mine....Period.

Dave
 
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I gets about ten-fifteen feet onto your property and you put one thru the heart. Flag the shooter down to show him/her where the deer is and they high tail it out of the area.






GC It just sounded like he did not tag him right away and some wardens I beleive would give a ticket for that! (Which would stink) I say that because I was riding my motorcycle on my property after a hard hot days work, I was going for a little cool off ride when a pack of 4 deer jumped out of a revine on the neighbors property and they were running paralell to me and then crossed in front of me a 100 yrds or so, long story short I got turned in and a $180.00
fine for harrasing wildlife! I was not chasing them or nothing (I like the deer) Its kind of like driving thru wyo and some antelope start running beside of you and then cross in front of you, (a person is supposed to stop and let them decide what they are going to do I learned)
any way the guy who shot him in the ham is 100% guilty of a fine in my opinion and I agree with you all the way.
mike did the right thing, but if a warden wants to be a jerk about interpating the regs (letter of the law instead of common since)I beleive he could have got a nice fine for shooting an animal and not tagging him right away.(if that is what happened) if mike shot him and tagged him then went for the slob then that is different.
 
You raised a point I hadn't considered. It is the law here that the deer be tagged immediately. That doesn't mean field dress, scratch your rear, or nothing but tag the animal right now! I follow your thinking now.
 
I heard of a guy here in MT who didnt know he was being watched by a warden,shot a cow elk,gutted it and sat down to eat his lunch,here comes warden bob with a ticket for not tagging game IMEDIATLY and confiscated the cow,just an honest slip that cost him a couple hundred bucks and a nice chunk of meat,you never know what kind of disposition you will encounter in a warden around here but the majority of the ones i have talked to in the field act like you are up to somthing and act like they cant wait to write you up for somthing.I wouldnt ever expect a common sense aproach from any warden around here on a case like this,common sense is not so common any more.
 


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