A received a telephone call from a hunting buddy tonight and it's created a problem I've not encountered. Here's what happened...

I took another buddy hunting earlier this week. He doesn't get out much and could only hunt one morning. I took him to a spot I'd seen a good number of deer in the AM, and put him in a tree that I cleared pre-season over some good buck sign.

Later that morning he tells me that he arrowed at least an 18 inch buck, but felt the shot was too far back. He was correct, at impact we found stomach contents with little blood to follow. He made this shot around 0800 hours.

That afternoon we took up the trail. Things were'nt easy going with the tracks leading down into a thicket. The blood had all but ceased and we'd only gone about 200 yards. I circled back into the evergreens and walked right up on his buck. A big deer with 9 points that I could see, and was all of 20 inches inside. The deer's about to leave town, my friend isn't close enough to make a finishing shot... but I was.

The cover is so dense that my arrow deflected high striking the bucks shoulder. He bolted away through the green briar and did not crash. We didn't push in such heavy cover, knowing we would have to crawl, and decided to return the next morning. Long story short, we failed to find his big buck. I was almost certain he wasn't going to be far, but we had no luck. I've gone back since and not been able to find him... until the phone call.

My other hunting companion calls with questions. Was that buck hit on the ridge near the hard U turn? Yes. Was it far from the lower trail when you tried to finish him? No. Did he have one main beam that was noticably lower that the other? Matter of fact, yes. I ask him how he knows this, since only a limited number of people knew of what happened and he tells me I know who has your pals buck. Man, am I excited!

He proceeds to tell me that a co-worker told him of just such an impressive deer that was found, dead, about 200 yards below the green briar patch on that same ridge. He tells me that the reason we failed to recover the deer was that this other person found it later that day. He tells me that he saw the rack, which matched my description, and that the person who found the buck had no intention of reporting the buck. To make matters worse, the fellow who found the buck denies that the deer was dead via arrow. To make matters even worse, the fellow who has my pals buck is my other hunting buddies boss!

Good grief... so what do I do now, risk getting my good friend in trouble with his boss if I approach the fellow with my other buddies buck? He could make life tuff for my friend at work and I don't want that. On the other hand, this fellow by law has to report the find to the PAGC, but I'm told will not and will keep the rack for his wall. How special. My buddy who originally arrowed this buck has only taken one other buck in his life. I want him to have that buck, but don't want to put my other friends job in harms way. What would you do?