From where he had shot it to the rocks it had went through were only about 50-60 yards apart. The buck was within 20 yards when he shot it, using a 7mm rem. mag with 140 grain core lokt. He said that the rocks that the deer went through were pretty steep and the deer fell and rolled about 20-25 feet down over the rock bank. He told me there was blood and hair all over the rocks where you could see that the buck had took a nasty fall down through them. So someone may have finished it off, but there couldnt have been too much left in it after, being hit from a high powered rifle and rolling off a steep ledge of rocks. He also said that there werent any other shots. After he shot it he wasnt more than 70 yards from the deer the whole time. But due to the thickness of the brush it was hard to pick up a blood trail. If someone would have shot it and finished it off that close to him he would have definetly heard the shot. I truely believe it was dead by the time the other guys got to it. He is a really great shot and one of the best hunters, trackers i know, so i know he put a good shot and did everything he could to get to it as soon as posssible.
I guess it is part of the game, just like hitting an animal and getting to it to find that a bear or coyote has already been there eating. It would just be heart breaking to shoot the buck of your lifetime only to find out someone came along and took it before you could get to it.
I understand what you are saying about fininshing a buck off and it being yours. It just seems that there couldnt have been much life left in it when the found it and they had to have known that it was just recently shot and that the person who shot it was definelty on their way to recover it. I mean who would just give up looking and go home after they shot a monster buck and found seen it go down and run off and found blood. Its just like finding a wallet on the street, the respectable person would try to find the owner instead of just grabbing it and running.

Dave