Is it hunting to go after a wounded deer

3Ddepression · 12-25-2005, 02:14 AM

This poll is not about the laws today. I want to know how you view the topic from a personal point of view and how you would want the laws to be. Maybe the rules should not apply to this activity!
A wounded deer is here defined as a deer that has been hit and left sight. Going after is any action we take thereafter to retrieve it.

So is it hunting to go after a shot deer or should other rules apply?

TurkeyStalker · 12-25-2005, 05:55 AM

My view on this is as a hunter it is your duty to find your animal if you put a bad shot on it. I tracked a doe for 2 miles last Sunday, after 3 1/2 hours I found her and I was so releived to have completed my hunt.It would be like shooting a deer and finding it and it not being big enough and leaving it in the woods.

wildlands · 12-25-2005, 06:56 AM

I only wish I was aloud to cross property lines to loacte a wounded game. Leave weapons on your property or what ever just let me continue. If you can not find a landowner to get permision you must stop. I have tracked several for different people, with the dog in the last 3 years that I felt were dead if only we could have kept going.

Arrowmaster · 12-25-2005, 08:23 AM

Its every hunters responsibility to try to find and retrive their game. I myself dont care what it takes to find it. I know if I made a bad shot or not and then I begin tracking it depending on my shot. If its a good shot I generally wait 15 to 30 mins before I will track it (unless it drops on the spot) Poor shots are usually left for an hour or more before I start tracking.

Paul L Mohr · 12-25-2005, 08:28 AM

I voted No we should not be restricted. But I would like to clarify that statement. If it it is dark I believe you should be able to use any means available to find a deer, wounded or not. Light, dogs electronics, whatever. However I don't feel you should carry a weapon if it is illegal in your area. It is just too hard for the DNR to distinguish between an honest hunter and a poacher. Walking around the woods with a spot light AND a weapon just doesn't look good. It is too bad it has come to this, but that is the world we live in now.

I read the other post on this and I don't see how you are supposed track a deer in the dark without a flashlight? That is retarded, humans are not designed for night vision.

The only thing I don't agree on with the current laws in my area are the tresspassing laws. I think if you are looking for game you should be able to cross a property line, again without a weapon only to retrieve game and you better have an open tag with you.

Paul

timbercruiser · 12-25-2005, 10:23 AM

LOTS of difference in following a blood trail with a flashlightand night hunting or poaching as NYBH was saying. Take a dang fool to not know the difference.

jcchartboy · 12-25-2005, 10:39 AM

I think Paul summed it up pretty well...

3Ddepression · 12-26-2005, 01:27 AM

Thank you for your replies.
There is a lot of sense in what Ive read here but found it interesting that there were so large a proportion that answered that although not really considered hunting we should not use whatever means necessary.

Read the point of view concerningpoaching. Makes sense in a way but is poaching such a problem that it should hold back legal hunters? Could this be a administrative matter as with the land boundries. Sort of a its-OK-if-the-game-warden-has-been-notified-what-is-going-on?

A ethic problem I encounter is that even if I know that it totally based on an animals suffering (or maybe because this raises the stakes somehow) it is a darn good feeling when it ends well and i remember theese hunts more than others. Partically when some other poor guy was the one who made the bad shot in the first place.

JagMagMan · 12-26-2005, 03:05 PM

I did not vote! None of the answers are correct to me! "tracking" a wounded deer IS NOT "hunting!" It's just the thing that has to be done, when the "hunting," didn't go quite right!

NY Bowhunter · 12-26-2005, 03:52 PM

Quote:

LOTS of difference in following a blood trail with a flashlightand night hunting or poaching as NYBH was saying.

I'd love for you to quote me where I said there wasn't a difference between following a blood trail and poaching. Look hard cause you won't find it.

There's a big difference between "following a blood trail" and "following a blood trail" and shooting at the end of it in the middle of the night when its' dark and after legal shooting hours. Follow the blood as far as you want with as many flashlights as you'd like..........I just don't think you shouldgo shootingwith a light shining on the deer when youfind it still alive. To me that is in no way, shape, or form hunting.

Not once did I suggest you shouldn't be able to track a deer at night. Yet another case of sellective reading.