BUCKEYEhunter140

YES had this happen to me. i shot a big doe and was tracking her wen i found her by finding a hunter feild dressing her!!![:@] i looked at the guy and said thanks for the help adn he said he shot it and i said Y didn't i hear any shots. he couldn't fid an answer ( I WONDER Y) needless to say i ened up dragin her out of the woods.

Planter

Legally not ethically is it a finders keepers situation????? I'm really not sure if the deer belongs to the guy who shot it or the guy in possession of it.

I personally don't want anyones deer even the guys who drop by with one as a gift. They just want the rack.
If I shoot a deer it gets butchered and given away if I have all I can use. Just can't justify killing it unless it gets used.

Gundeck

I have seen this more than once. I remember when I was still pretty young (15 or 16) hunting with my Dad and uncles. Shot a doe on a ridge and she ran / tumbled down the ridge. By the time we go to the bottom, two guys were standing there claiming they shot her. (No shots, though.) We just let it go. My Dad always said no dear is worth some idiot turning a gun on you.

kyner

Unfortunatley the biggest buck of my life (to this date) was stolen. I was hunting an area that was open to hunters with permits (public university grounds) and I shot a very heavy racked buck. I thought I had hit him a little too far back and decided to wait an hour before getting out of my tree. I was hunting about 40 yards from the edge of a harvested bean field but the buck ran the opposite way of the bean field. During my walk in in the morning I didn't hear anyone or see any vehicles so I assumed there wasn't anyone else hunting near me. About 30 minutes into my wait I heard a truck door slam out in the bean field. After an hour I started tracking the blood and found that the buck did a "U" turn and ran into the wide-open bean field. The blood trail just ended and I found no trace of the deer even though I spent two days looking. About 7 years later I was at a Super Bowl party and this guy tells me he knows a guy that saw a huge buck just "tip" over in the bean field in the U grounds. He was on his way home from work. I described the deer to him and this guy said he saw the mount and it was my deer. He promised me he would talk to the guy that picked up the deer and try to get it back for me. I told him I would cover the taxidermy costs. I never heard from him or could find him again. If by chance he is reading this I still would like my deer even though it has been 16 years!!!