The kills mentioned were in Maine over 27 years ago. Why were they in the woods?

"hunting deer",

no doubt to me... they always had partners nearby (no cell phones or radios back then, and it may have changed but were also illegal at the time) that had not tagged out. Uhhhh you do the math... but back then everyone totally processed the deer they took, as it should be. I can't say to feed their family, let's not go there... but these were hard working blue collar Americans doing what they did! Did we fight about it NOPE, "there wasn't much to fight about" in my couple of instances but if you took a short jaunt South to say Pennsylvania, Delaware, etc. where deer are overridden and hunter population HIGH,I think you'd find more instances of this scenario, that being shooting one, wounding it, and someone else killing it.

As for the hunting after tagging out, no excuses... Take a shotgun and hunt ditch chickens or rabbits... a rifle outside of .22LR caliber is probably not appropriate.

REM7600