If you won't allow someone on to your property to retrieve a downed animal, you are a clown with significant issues that go well beyond the desire to defend property rights. I know a few folks like this, and they would be the first one to cross the line if the situation was reversed. Of course, that does not legally justify going on to their land to get your deer. However, if it was me, I would do what several others here have said; go get my deer and take my lumps if I was caught. As far asi'm concerned, when you wound an animal, you now have an ethicalobligation to retrieve it that trumps legal technicalities.

BD, I suppose that we could "war game" this thing to death in both situations. If you were hunting that close to a bordering property, you should have accepted the possibility of having the deer run off in that direction. Secondly, most landowners that are "crazy or a jack*ss" didn't start out that way, outside people made them become that way.

Naw, most folks like that were born jackasses, not made.

Would it not be easier to get permission before hunting season has started. Talk to them before season and ask them if it were ok to get an animal if it were to cross the boundry line. I have an agreement with the land owner next to me that if they shoot a deer and it goes on my land, please check for my vehicle by the cabin. If it isn't there that means I am not hunting and they should go get there deer. If my truck is there then they should wait (because I am hunting) and when I get in I will help them find it. But if I did not have that option I would probably go and get it. Even though I know that it is not ethically right, I would have a harder time sleeping at night if I didn't recover that animal

go get my deer. and tell him, have a nice day

Contact the game warden. Let him/her assist you and let him/her deal with the landowner.

Too many variations of the original question.

Botom line is the land is posted and if you violate the landowners rights, you are trespassing.
If you trespass you are breaking the law.
If you break the law you are not ethical.
If you don't want the possibiltyof thathappening, hunt elsewhere.
Ain't no grey area here.

And it ain't ethical for me to break the law because I wasnt to eat the deer and not let it rot.
Who am I to make that decision? So it's better if I eat it, than animals in the forest?
Deer die all the time and nature always takes care of those kind of things.

Now do I agree with everything I have written above? Let's put it this way...I consider myself ethical.

Ethics aside, Its legal in our stste to retrieve legally shot game from private property. You must however, be unarmed. I would retrieve the animal if it was down. I would attempt to get permission from the landowner but either way, if its down, I am going after it.

I think that copper is correct that it would bea wise move to resolve such things before the season begins. My neighbor (130 acres on three sides of my land) and I worked that out when I bought my place. However, he did me one better. He said that I can come and go on his property as I please. So, if he wants to come get his downed deer off my property, he is damn welcome to do so, even if it interupts my hunt. I guess that I'm lucky to have grown up in a place where the vast majority of hunters and landowners exhibit the proper blend of common sense and class when it comes to such matters.

Yes, you are very lucky to have a place like this and as one poster put it - this guy probably has a raw taste in his mouth because of some past experience with another hunter! I am comfortable with who I am - live hard!