Thank you for all the great responses so far.

I posted this as it was a reflection of a true occurence from last year. I did proceed with the search and we did not recover the deer. But the action was noticeably less since tromping around in their core area. Caused me to reflect heavily upon that decision.

I'm glad to hear that quite a few of us are familiar with this scenario. I want to keep hearing input on this so please keep posting.

Also, looking forward to reading/printing the recovery sticky as an aid this year. Thank you Rob and GMMAT.