Who's deer should this be?
 

Hunter A shoots a deer while hunting by himself.He hits the buck low from the shoulder hitting it more high in the leg.He tracks it to private where he then calls hunter B a friend to help him blood trail the buck.They get o.k. to blood trail the buck and are tracking it side by side when they both spot the buck bedded down.The buck is more on hunters B side and shoots it in its bed not to take the chance of losing the buck.Just curious as to what you would do in this situation.Is it hunter A first blood or hunter B kill shot?

Being as he was there to "help" Hunter A, why would he then want to claim it as his own?

A...................

a all the way

If I was A I would say B. If I was B I would say A.

.....+1:happy0001:

Happened to me one time ,it was my first deer my friend was hunting not even 100 yards away and I was about 9 years old and I was using a 410 with a buckshot and I saw it shot it and made a fatal hit on the little buck and then my friend or my so called friend saw it and shot it 2 times with a 20ga. buckshot and he claimed it and it pissed me off so bad I have never talked to him again.

Easy... It's A!

iSnipe

It belongs to A as he was helping B. However, clearly given the time involved between the shot and finding it bedded A did not make a vital hit. If A had shot it and it ran onto another property, and hunter C shot it while it was still on its feet, C would have every right to claim it.

I don't believe in "first blood". If you can't shoot good enough to put it down the first time you lose your "rights" to it.

One year I saw a buck run through the woods in front of me but could not get a shot. Five minutes later I heard a shot 1/4 mile away on the neighbor's, figured he'd shot it. Ten minutes later I see the buck coming back up the woods on the other side of me (it had run in a very long loop around me). I got up and stalked it, found it bedded down and shot it. I did not notice that it had indeed already been shot so I tagged it and left it lay to go get the UTV. Well I'd been back up at the farm for 30min getting the gear together to retrieve it and the neighbor shows up, mad as hell that I'd tagged HIS deer (he'd tracked in onto our property WITHOUT our permission and located it with my tag on it). Turns out he shot it in the butt from 30 yards. I told him if the best he could do at 30 yards was shoot it in the butt, he had no right to the deer.

Once I had a hangfire with my muzzleloader and made a bad shot on a buck, hit him in the leg. I tracked him for 3-4 miles before I finally put him down, passing a dozen empty deer stands. I was HOPING someone would put him down, to end it. I would have congratulated them and told them it was their deer, after a bad shot I did not deserve it.

A, all the way.

hunter b.whoever makes the killing shot.if they are just helping and a friend then i'd say hunter a and if i was hunter b i'd give it to them anyway.if it was just you by yourself and a random hunter sees the deer and shoots it before it's dead then it's their deer.

A not like hunter B was actually "hunting" the buck

Hunter A should say "Thank you" to Hunter B. Then the two should drag it out skin it together, process it, divide it in half and maybe have a beer. Then Hunter A, being a gentleman, should offer the antlers to Hunter B.

Then Hunter A should learn how to shoot, just as the OP should learn some grammar.


There is an entire aspect of hunting that has been absolutely forgotten...

The very same thing happened to me and a friend this past muzzleloader season. I made a drive for him and jumped up a small 4pt. buck. He made a poor shot on the deer, knocked it down but it got back up and ran away. After looking at the faint blood trail, I decided that we had better wait a while before looking for the deer. We went to another section of the farm and he made a drive for me but nothing showed. After about 2 hours I returned to where he shot the buck and I put him on a stand out past where he shot the buck hoping that if it jumped up again he'd get it before it went onto some posted property. After about 1 hr. of tracking and back tracking, I jumped the buck up but it wasn't going toward his stand. I radioed him and told him I had located his buck but it was still alive. He responded" shoot it if you can" which I promptly did. When he got to where I was he asked "who's buck is it?" I said it's yours. He was my guest on this hunt and he was perfectly willing to give me the deer but I wouldn't have felt right about it. I killed one of my own before we got back to the truck and he was more excited about my kill than his. Good sportsmanship makes for memorable hunts.

I know a few years back there was a big dispute over a deer that someone had shot and it ran in front of another hunter.The other hunter shot it and dropped it.The Game Commission was called and they said the law was whoever made the killing shot gets the deer.I know that's not very clear but I guess that's the law here.Determining "the killing shot" would be kinda hard if the first shot was a good enough one to kill it and the second person shot it in the leg or something but they put it on the ground.Through the Game Commission's eyes atleast.I agree with vabyrd and they should share it.And i agree with WVcritter about not feeling right about taking the deer especially from a friend.I guess it all depends on the situation.

A:happy0001:

its A's deer in this situation, but if u wanna go by the law, it's B's deer, if B is any sort of friend tho im sure he would never even THINK about the deer being his

A
 

Mr. B was there to help Mr. A, so A gets the kill.

Without a doubt, it's A's deer.

A few times over the years we have had to follow a blood trail after one of 'us' fired the shot. It never occured to any of us that the killing shot gets the deer. We are always there to help our buddies. That could mean help dressing a deer, help dragging a deer or help finding a wounded deer. We help each other, never getting into a pissing contest of who's deer it is.

That's what friends do!

A for sure

As has been stated, A called B to help track it. That makes it A's deer. That being said, if I were A I'd be offering up some meat.

3 times I have been involved in this.

1st... I shot a buck running acroos a field, 2 good hits. he was staggering when a buddy opened up on him and dropped him with a spine shot. He claimed it, I was pissed and later got the deer.

2nd... I made a bad shot on a deer, my group split up to find him. One guy 30 yrds from me found about dead in a bed and finished him for me. we split the deer, I tagged it.

3rd... on a mule deer hunt in Co. a guy I am hunting with shoots at a small buck. Said he didn't hit it. At last light I am walking toward him and the buck jumped up and was running away, I put him down and he takes the deer. I have eaten 4 muledeer taggs, and probably could have argued that this was mine but to keep the peace I let him tag it.

My rule when you hunt with me is, if you have the first leathal hit its your deer. example, if you gut shoot, leg shot, neck shot and it runs past me, sorry its mine. If we find it in a bed dying it's yours. heart, lung, liver it's yours no matter what. Now, every situation is different, but I try and explain my rules before every hunt so feelings are not hurt later.

Hunter A, B was just helping

A all the way. My mom had a similar situation, almost identical in hit and her brother hit it on the run through the boiler room as they were trying to find it. Of course, all hunters in the party defaulted this to my mom's deer, thus hunter A.

IMO this is party hunting (multiple hunters filling one tag), which is illegal in Indiana. The guy that kills the deer should be the one required to tag it regardless of wether he was there just to help out.

Now let's throw this into the equation. Hunter B is helping Hunter A in this situation and lives in a One Buck Only State like Indiana. The deer in question is a little 6 pt. I am guessing that hunter B will say it is Hunter A's deer. But if the deer is a 170 class Booner, I'll bet that Hunter B sees things differently and tags it himself.

Poachers are the only one that don't go by the law. Hunter B is a poacher if he does not tag it.

First Blood has always been the rule out here....so I vote "A"

Best of Luck,
Jeff

If hunter B wasn't a friend, the laws/regs around here say first lethal shot is the owner of the deer.

But if I grabbed a friend or he grabbed me and I finished it off for him, i would assume it was his, and vice versa, with friends the first wound would be my call, less a week went by and saw it and made a lethal shot a week or later...

If you request help, the other person should understand that they are helping someone claim their deer. But then it does become a team effort and B should get at least a share of the meat for helping.

That is different from sitting in your stand and shooting a deer and then 10 minutes later somebody comes running up saying it is their deer because they shot it first. If you hit a deer poorly enough to where it can run long distances and stay on its feet, then it should go to whoever actually kills it, no matter how much lead you initially got into it.

Here, lets fix it:

1. There are a lot of hunters here that need to learn how to shoot.

2. There are a lot of hunters here that can skull F a topic to death.



I'm glad I don't have to hunt with jackashes like this.....

a's deer all the way.

I thought I knew the answer, but you all have some very good points. Really though, if A did not get a shot good enough to claim the deer without a second shot then B would have rights to it, and if it was me in that situation I would rely on B's decision as to whom the deer belonged to.

:rock: :party0005: :happy0001:

In all my days, I'd never thought of it any other way.

iSnipe

His FRIEND was helping. That says it all.

If you have to rely on 'B's decision to make that decision, well all I can say is you have a much different definition of what a friend is.

If B is truly a bud he'll relinquish the deer to A, but in reality that doesn't happen often. The kill shot/possession gets it, which is how most game wardens will rule it.

When I was 17 I shot a pretty nice buck at 20 steps and it ran 150 yards to the guy next to me. He was an older guy and said the deer was running fine across the field so he shot it. 10 years later when that guy dies the son gave me the horns and said that the deer was falling down and could barely move so he wanted me to have it. I thought I made a good shot but sometimes the deer just find a way to keep on going!

Isn't that all that should matter in the eyes of a hunter that says anyone that breaks any hunting law no matter how trivial it is a no good wortless poacher (there are lots of members on this board that feel that way, yet not very many see that B has a legal obligation to tag the deer).

So petty.....try it in a duck blind.

A's deer and if B has a problem with that, then shoot B and problem solved.

+1. It woulndt be helping hunter A retieve 'his' deer if B took it.