I have had two instances where this happened. The first was a nice 4x4 balcktail buck that i shot with my bow, I tracked and field dressed the deer and left him there so I could put my bow in the truck and get my pack frame.

When i got back to the deer there were 2 guys standing there telling me this was their buck. Well I wasnt going to take them both on so I quietly followed them to their truck and got the license #. Then I hot footed it back to my truck and called the state police on the cell phone. The officer met me in town and I followed him to the adress of the guys who took the buck. When we got there I confronted them about stealing the buck, They wanted proof that I killed the buck the officer included.

Here' s the trick I said that buck is mine because he has a red thumb tack stuck in his tongue, and sure enough when the officer opened the bucks mouth there it was as bright as day. I got my buck back and they got theft of a game animal tickets.

The second time was a buddy shot an elk that jumped a fence into private property, when we went to get permission to retrieve the elk the guy ran us off. By the time we got back with the authorities the elk was hanging in the barn. Since the land owner didnt have a valid tag the officer gave him a choice of returning the elk, or being cited for harvesting an animal without a license.

Needless to say he got the tractor out and loaded that elk into the back of the truck.

That was the easiest elk pack I have ever had.

So if you find your buck or elk make sure if you dont want to leave the tag with it that you make some kind of identifying mark.(thumb tack in the tongue, penny inder the eyelid, somthing that some one else wont find right away.)

This sucks that it happenes because thieves and poachers portray themselves as hunters and it makes the rest of us look bad.