How would you handle this situation?
 

I shot a doe at dusk on Monday and she ran into the thick stuff where she had come from. I waited a few mins and came down to check my arrow. I find it stuck in the ground with blood on it. I find good first blood (and mark it) about 20 feet away and decide to wait till morning to retrieve her, so as not to push her. I return at first light and find her about 75 yrds away. But she has been badly torn up by fox/coyote. The entire hind quarter and much of her guts are eaten! What would you do given the situation?

That is a tough one, i believe god put scavengers on this earth for the hunters mistakes lol. What if the coyote/fox had some sort of disease? You probably could salvage the front shoulder and some of the backstrap and neck meat but there is always going to be that thought in the back of your head that some nasty critter ate it before you did.

I am probably one of the few hunters that doesnt like leaving deer overnight. Yesterday evening when i was in the stand i tried counting coyotes as they all started howling from different directions. I came up with 23 by the time they were done howling. Had a buddy last year that let a buck lay overnight and the coyotes had everything gone up to the neck by morning. he still tagged it and kept the horns and bought doe tags to fill the freezer.

If i have evidence that i hit a deer well i follow up on them after dark. If i bump them i dont have much of choice but to wait till morning. Even when it is light out i only give them about 10 minutes before i find my arrow and look for blood. The way i see it, if they arrow is caked in blood and there is a good blood trail and you are confident you made a good hit. Why cant you follow up in a short amount of time?

ouch...that sux...i dbl lung em every time just so i dont have ta let em sit over night. usually i start trackin after 20 minutes. they dont go further than 30-50 yards.
as far as eating it..i dunno, i eat my meat perty dang rare and i would worry bout rabies and what ever disease a yote might carry. maybe it is ok to eat, but i dunno, dont think i would. gl

Ok, there's no blood flowing when the yotes are eating it so I don't think I'd be worried about anything they hadn't touched. If there were no bite marks I would probably take out the backstaps and front shoulders. Any part I could tell they chewed on, I wouldn't touch.

I was watching an episode of Major League Bow hunter and the same thing happened. They shot a great buck but had to back out for the night. Well they have a yote problem in that part of Oklahoma and the next day when they found the deer it had already been stripped down to the bone! That is crazy!!!!!!!

I don't like to leave my deer over night. If its a good shot I will try and recover in the dark with spot lights if I have to because the same thing can happen where I am at with poachers and yotes. Unless I think it is a bad shot then I will let them go for the evening.

kill the coyotes!

would salvage what meat i could,
and cook it well, very well, burn it,
and i probably wouldnt store that meat for a long period of time,
or give it to a not so good friend as a gift :)

DEM will probably give you a replacement tag...

I wouldn't use it. Lost my first archery buck that way. Salvaged the skull and did a euro mount, but thats all. The rest was all eaten. I wouldn't touch anyting the yotes had been into.
-Jake

I wouldn't burn a tag!

Well, what I did do was fill out the tag and sent in a deer kill card. After all, I did kill the deer. I didn't chance the meat though. I still have 2 antlerless tags left.

I think you did the right thing. It sucks when things like that happen but you make the best of it and move on. good luck with your other tags.

I would have done what RIStrutStopper mentioned. It's just a simple phone call. Did it before on a nice 10pt. They wouldn't let me keep the rack though.

If nothing else you found some good coyote hunting area. Its just a deer, you can get more of them. Dont sweat it, I wouldnt have wasted a tag on it though. I had a wolf take a deer after I shot it. I could still see the deer, and a big black wolf ran after it. I guess its not my deer until its in the truck.

Thats right, lol ever hear the term possesion is 9/10 ths of the law. I believe you did ok by it, I wouldnt loose sleep over it

The same thing happens here if a deer is left out overnight -- 'cept it's foxes. I've lost more than I care to count due to this. I salvage whatever is useable - usually front quarters and backstraps are good and you have to judge for yourself what - if any - of the hindquarters can be used.

i would def just leave her for the coyotes to eat cuz its a waist of a tag to tag her just say u never found her

Early in. Would this be at the same public ground spot I know you hunt? Near the old ice cream spot on the corner. If so doesn't surprise me. They are here! Also in bigger quantities than you know. I live probably a 1/4 mile from your stand. I had that happen once and only once,About three years ago. Whole back end gone off her up into the rib cage. Definately work of a yote. A A fix will eat the size of a fist or two and move on. A yote will gorge, regergitate, gorge again. Been more and more local seightings lately. We now always try to retrieve our deer that night. It was pritty warm last week they could smell supper from a long way. Good luck the rest of the season.

I wont take a doe a dusk. Doe are a mid morning or mid day any day of the week scenario.

If you feel you made a good shot, wait a half hour and track. If you feel your shot was marginal, wait a couple hours at least before tracking. If you can stay in the woods, do so. Base what you do next on what you see/hear along the track.

I have coyotes too, and it really does make you more aggressive on the track.

We have lots of hogs around here and if you live a bloody deer down long, they will eat it. I have learned the hard way not to leave them long. I will wait up to and hour to three hours on a shot I am not quite sure of and go after the deer with lights. Here is what happened to a doe I shot not long ago. She was down for only 10min.. I was in my stand, shot her, saw her fall. All I could see was her rear. I started hearing crunching sounds like a dog eating a bone. I could also see what looked like a brown figure moving around the deer so I knew it was Ok to go get her. A hog had eaten the side of her face.




I left a nice buck over night once, and came back to a bunch of blood streaks and part of a rack on the ground. They ate everything. Bones, hide, and most of the antlers.