I had a similar situation in 2001. A 180 class whitetail was standing at the opposite edge of a field from me right at the last minute of legal hours. One of my companions was in a tree stand only 100 yards to the left of the buck. After looking him over forabout 30 secondsfrom a ranged 407 yards, I finally decided that my buddy either didn't see him or didn't have a shot. I fired, striking the deer in the chest as he faced me. The deer jumped about 8 feet in the air and put on a sprint out into the field. After about 70 yards, he slowed and stopped -at which timemy buddy shot him in the neck. Before I could walk even half way there, my buddy was down from the tree and standing over the buck. He indicated that he saw the deer at least 5 minutes earlier, but couldn't shoot due to branches in the way. We shared in the taxidermy bill and have the mount at our housesalternating years.

I did ask a game warder later about "what if" in the event that the other hunter was a stranger. He said, no question, the hunter who fired the killing shot and got to it first was in possession. Go figure . . . .